[.ca] The Erasers (ISBN 0802150861)

YAWN!:
This book was agonizing to read, every turn of the page inflicted pain on my sensitive green eyes. Robbe-Grillet seems to be going out of his way to write extremely boring, dead prose (think Camus, Flaubert, or Delillo). The characters are flatter than unleavened bread, and the "mystery" i couldn't even bring myself to care about. Objectivity in life and in novels is often as dull as anything. To the devil with the "new novel"!

Buy This Book!:
I read this many years ago after borrowing it from a friend and had to buy it now to own it and re-read it. My friend read it for a class and came to love it. He told me about and I found the plot intriquing. It's more than that. It's fascinating! Robbe-Grillet writes in such an unusual style which you soon grab on to, and then it pulls you in. As another reviewer said, take nothing for granted. Everything is important. If you like trite stories with no plot aside from the "been there done that" type, then don't buy this. You'll probably hate it. But if you enjoy being captivated by a story, and want a story and plot line to take you somewhere, this is it. This is a story which requires you to think. The story and the plot fold in and on themselves and becomes tangled, but then unfolds and reveals the brilliant mind of the author. A literary masterpiece!

A perpetual exercise in doubting 'the facts'; great mystery:
The narration and elaborate descirptions in this book lure the reader in more and more. You cannot let one single aspect of the narration escape you, it's too important to the impact of the ending. There is also a plot within a plot in this book; the unfolding of events is extremely well done. I couldn't put it down because as the reader, you feel more omnicient than the characters and can't wait to see the final outcome.