Some Other Place. The Right Place. by Donald Harington
My rating: 5/5 cats
long live donald harington (12/22/35 – 11/07/09) yeah, i just found out. that’s two of my favorites in as many years. why can’t i fall in love with robots?? donald harington was by far the most under-appreciated author i have ever championed. and his relative obscurity is both puzzling and offensive to me. what are people reading, if not this? and why? what’s the point? harington was the most effortless storyteller i have ever read. he created an entire town and filled it up with characters that were interesting and astonishing and full of life and depth and reality and magic. his writing never had any vanity to it—it seemed he was writing for the sheer joy of creating these people and directing their lives and presenting them the way kids do when they play with dolls. i have never been bored reading a harington book. i have never glossed over a descriptive passage, i have never wished he would wrap it up. his writing is enchanting—it is pulsating with vitality and novelty and specialness—and everything builds and reflects and echoes and even when he would take risks to amplify the magic or the postmodern flourishes, i never felt jarred or impatient. and everything i am saying is coming across as clichéd and that is the last thing a man like this deserves. but you understand, i am not mourning one man; i am mourning an entire town. i am mourning characters i have fallen in love with over the course of fifteen books—all of stay more has fallen into a hole in the ground, and because he once made me an honorary citizen, i’m in there as well. and i’m sitting here bawling and listening to warren zevon and janis ian and this leonard cohen song i haven’t been able to listen to in ten years because it made me cry too hard, because i’m already sad, right?? and i’m just a nightmare mess over this. maybe i will actually review the book-part tomorrow. for now—this is just a sorrowful eulogy.
on second thought—no—you can read the books yourselves—you don’t need me to potentially ruin it. go—enjoy.
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