There is Damage: On Finishing the Instructions

It’s a weird feeling finishing a book as long as The Instructions and pretty much wanting to pick it up and start re-reading it.

Most of all, I’m impressed with the pacing of the book. For something that should feel like it moves at a glacial pace (the first 300 or so pages pretty much cover a single day of school for the protagonist), the text races toward the inevitable. Gurion may or may not be the Messiah, but the process of watching him push toward action is thrilling.

I generally struggle recommending longish post-modern-y texts because they are often so singular in their appeal to English Lit geeks. That this one plays with Jewish (Israelite?) scripture, is told with the cocky slang of middle school students, and presents violence in ways that is actually horrific in its calculated distance is even more of a reason one would shy away from suggesting this as the next book for light reading. All that being said, I think this book deserves a larger readership and that most readers would become a part of Gurion’s army of scholars if willing to crack the pages of the lengthy tome. As I mentioned earlier, the actual size of the book – while charming in design – is going to be a barrier from getting people to pick it up.

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