[.ca] Magnetic Field(s) (ISBN 1564782824)

Experiencing Space(s):
In a recent interview, Loewinsohn explains that he wrote the novel in basically six weeks(!), but when I think about how I read this amazing, enthralling, mysterious novel in practically one fevered gulp, I'm not surprised. I can't wait to read it again. Divided into three sections, MF begins with a burglar's experiences of being in the homes (spaces) of complete strangers and what he imagines their lives are like. The second section is from the perspective of the owner of the last house the burglar is breaking into. They briefly interact, in a very odd and funny scene. The second character turns out to be a sort of "sound artist" who takes his family to spend the summer on the Hudson in a sublet. There, while working on a sound sculpture called "Magnetic Field," he begins to think about the family that lived in the house he's subletting. In the final section, he finds out that his collaborator on MF has been having an affair, and he's shocked that he'd had no idea, and begins imagining how the affair had developed. All along, there are phrases that repeat though in entirely different contexts. Very unsettling yet hypnotic. This truly felt like more than just a book in my hands, but a wholly successful work of art that in addressing the idea of space, whether physical or personal, and how we experience it, completely altered my own experience of space. It was like taking a drug. Which maybe is why I can't wait to re-read it.

Beautiful and hypnotic:
skreetkleener is 100% correct and I couldn't describe this book any better. It's the best I've read in the past year and one of my favorites of all time. Experimental, but not pompously so. It's both enjoyable and intellectual.