Solo

With an imaginative audacity and lyrical brilliance that puts him in the company of David Mitchell and Alexander Hemon, Rana Dasgupta paints a portrait of a century through the story of a hundred year old blind Bulgarian man in a first novel that announces the arrival of an exhilarating new voice in fiction.In the first movement of Solo we meet Ulrich, the son of a railroad engineer, who has two great passions the violin and chemistry Denied the first by his father, he leaves for the Berlin of Einstein and Fritz Haber to study the latter His studies are cut short when his father s fortune evaporates, and he must return to Sofia to look after his parents He never leaves Bulgaria again Except in his daydreams and it is those dreams we enter in the volatile second half of the book In a radical leap from past to present, from life lived to life imagined, Dasgupta follows Ulrich s fantasy children, born of communism but making their way into a post communist world of celebrity and violence.Intertwining science and heartbreak, the old world and the new, the real and imagined, Solo is a virtuoso work. Download Solo – kino-fada.fr Rating 5 of fiveMy review has moved to my blog because of the data deletion problem here on Goodreads.This could very easily be one of the few novels I ll ever re read Ulrich stays with me, years later.New ReviewBefore the man lost his sight, he read this story in a magazine a group of explorers came upon a community of parrots speaking the language of a society that had been wiped out in a recent catastrophe Astonished by their discovery, they put the parrots in cages and sent them home so that linguists could record what remained of the lost language But the parrots, already traumatized by the devastation they had recently witnessed, died on the way.The man feels a ...Solo is a novel by Rana Dasgupta that is actually two novels movement one and movement two, the life and the daydreams, the reality and the illusion, or maybe the illusion and the reality Somewhere for me, Solo combined the lyrical existentialism from the cobbled streets of Kafka s Prague with the detached, disjointed sweep of Tulse Lupe...Despite the title SOLO, this is a book that focuses on duality reality versus daydreams, science versus music, communism versus oligarchy, success versus failure It s an audacious book, a highly imaginative one, and certainly an enigmatic one.Given its duality, it s no surprise that I m of two minds about it in many places, I admired SOLOthan I loved it Characters are often sacrificed to themes, yet often, the themes do become transcendent SOLO is divided into two movements In the fi Despite the title SOLO, this is a book that focuses on duality reality versus daydreams, science versus music, communism versus oligarchy, success versus failure It s an audacious book, a highly imaginative one, and certainly an enigmatic one.Given its duality, it s no surprise that I m of two minds about it in many places, I admired SOLOthan I loved it Characters are often sacrificed to themes, yet often, the themes do become transcen...The rest room in the railway station is out of order, and has been for decades Ah, but there is a wall nearby and men wander over They stand there, adding their own vignettes to Bulgarian history, through Fascist, Communist and Gangsta times The collective wafts upwards, to a spare apartment, where Ulrich, though blind now and nearing 100, sees and remembers it all Solo is Art It is what a novel can be.Broken into two Movements , the first part of the book looks back on Ulrich s life Music The rest room in the railway station is out of order, and has been for decades Ah, but there is a wall nearby and men wander over T...Can dreams and reality ever be combined to create a rich work of literature Absolutely, for Rana Dasgupta does that and beautiful is the amalgamation Solo is a masterpiece, in my opinion The effect can be delusional as it becomes hard to distinguish between dreams and reality But the book isn t just a cryptic take on merging existence with hallucination the book is uncannily identifiable Equally retrospective and introspective, Ulrich narrates his hundred year life all that was and could Can dreams and reality ever be combined to create a rich work of literature Absolutely, for Rana Dasgupta does that and beautiful is the amalgamation Solo is a masterpiece, in my opinion The effect can be delusional as it becomes hard to distinguish between dreams and reality But the book isn t just a cryptic take on merging existence with hallucination the book is uncannily identifiable Equally retrospective and introspective, Ulrich narrates his hundred year life all that was and could have been Born in Bulgaria and destined to never leave the country Ulrich reflects back upon his unsuccessful and rudderless life But is there truly a definition for what separates a successful life from one without any hint of success Solo is the biography of an ordinary person under extrao...This summer has been a blessing I have read such amazing books that are actually going to stay with me for life.One such book is Solo Initially when I started it I thought it would be another politically forward book and through politics it ll talk about life but I was so wrong.Solo is divided into two parts This man, Ulrich is almost ninety when he decides that he still has a lot to give to the world, that his legacy needs to be out there.The first part of the book is talking about his own s This summer has been a blessing I have read such amazing books that are actually going to stay with me for life.One such book is Solo Initially when I started it I thought it would be another politically forward book and through politics it ll talk about life but I was so wrong.Solo is divided into two parts This man, Ulrich is almost ninety when he decides that he still has a lot to give to the world, that his legacy needs to be out there.The first part...A Miserable PretensionI picked up this novel because of Anis Shivani s glowing recommendation on an article in the American Book Review Anis Shivani, for those who don t know, is an against the grain literary critic and a lit mag represented poet and probably some other things, who endeared me some time back with an article bashing the contemporary American short story That even in that article on short stories his conclusions ran astray and he ended up making a demand for pointless novels a l A Miserable PretensionI picked up this novel because of Anis Shivani s glowing recommendation on an article in the American Book Review Anis Shivani, for those who don t know, is an against the grain lite...Solo Painting the surreal landscape of love, relationshsips, society, bonds, politics comes naturally to Rana His imagination creeps slowly and steadily binding the reader s thoughts and taking them on this experience that leaves them at the end of the ride either drained or mesmerised or floating Rana is an artist at work, his language flows, On hot days, the smells become overpowering, and rain comes as a relief, washing everything away The blind man sits by the window when the rain is hea Solo Painting the surreal landscape of love, relationshsips, society, bonds, politics comes naturally to Rana His imagination creeps slowly and steadily binding the reader s thoughts and taking them on this experience that leaves them at the end of the ride either drained or mesmerised or floating Rana is an artist at work, his language flows, On hot days, the smells become overpowering, and rain comes as a relief, washing everything awa...I saw Rana Dasgupta speak at the launch of Solo in NYC at 192 Books his word choice is as impeccable in speech as it is in writing Solo is a mystifying book I ll need to revisit.I ll admit it when I arrived at the second half of the book, I didn t understand that I was reading Ulrich s daydreams I saw the scenes unfolding in a fantastic and far fetched alternate dimension As the story of Boris, Irakli, and Khatuna blooms and wilts, and increasingly apparent symbols from Ulrich s life bubble I saw Rana Dasgupta speak at the launch of Solo in NYC at 192 Books his word choice is as impeccable in speech as it is in writing Solo is a mystifying book I ll need to revisit.I ll admit it when I arrived at the second half of the book, I didn t understand that I was reading Ulrich s daydreams I saw the scenes unfolding in a fantastic and far fetched alternate dimension As the story of Boris, Irakli, and Khatuna blooms and wilts, and increasingly apparent symbols from Ulrich s life bubble to the surface, I grasped it better.Still, the second half never transported me the way the first did I enjoyed, however, his daring treatment and t...

• English
• 05 December 2018
Rana Dasgupta
• Hardcover
• 357 pages
• 0007182147
• Rana Dasgupta
• Solo