Describe Books During Dolly City
| Original Title: | דולי סיטי |
| ISBN: | 0952942607 (ISBN13: 9780952942603) |
| Edition Language: | English |
Orly Castel-Bloom
Paperback | Pages: 185 pages Rating: 3.49 | 299 Users | 46 Reviews
Point Regarding Books Dolly City
| Title | : | Dolly City |
| Author | : | Orly Castel-Bloom |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Deluxe Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 185 pages |
| Published | : | June 1st 2009 by Loki Books, (first published 1992) |
| Categories | : | Fiction. Cultural. Israel. Novels. Literature. Jewish. Contemporary. Science Fiction. Dystopia. Geography. Cities |
Representaion In Pursuance Of Books Dolly City
Fucked up. At times brilliant, at times hilarious. I was not horrified because I immediately read it as an allegory of internal states. It is curious that unlike other unreliable narrators (closest comparison that comes to my mind is Beckett's narrators), Dolly knows she's crazy and reflects on her craziness, even within a state none of us would call normal. And everyone else is the same way. This frees up the conceit, somewhat, but also places the story outside of the mere surreal, and into one in which the horrors are more concrete. The levels of unreliability build on top of each other so that it is a range rather than a binary. There is no real analogue to the events that are happening except that they ring emotionally true. It's a book of brokenness from the start, and there is no real attempt to fix anything, but the impulse to fix is still there, is ever-present, like an echo of a pre-apocalyptic urge that seems oddly anachronistic and endearing.I'm ill equipped to really understand this book because I don't understand the Israel it satirizes, but I still felt the urgency of its voice. These reviews may be more illuminating:
http://forward.com/culture/133213/a-w...
http://www.tabletmag.com/podcasts/205...
Rating Regarding Books Dolly City
Ratings: 3.49 From 299 Users | 46 ReviewsWrite Up Regarding Books Dolly City
Unconventional and disturbing. Something to re-read in order to digest/ comprehend better.Dolly City is an awful place where murderous citizens gobble buckets of anti-depressants and live in such sections of town as Wells of Despair, Lakes of Fear, and Swamps of Despair. And, there are two political parties: Bureaucracy and Procedure. At the heart of this city (well, actually there is no heart) is Dolly herself, a medical doctor who took her degree at the University of Katmandu (or maybe not). She sees sickness everywhere, particularly cancer, which even tires and roads seem to have
A great example of how the personal is political - in a fictionalized Israeli city presumably locked in constant war, every single interpersonal relationship is dominated by paranoia, aggression, and violence. The first fifty pages are incredibly shocking (cool that books can still do that), but its tough to sustain that level of attack. Luckily the relatively short length helps in that regard. Overall a really great novel about a mothers love for her son.
This could easily be one of the weirdest and the most disturbing books I have ever read.
I read about 60 pages into this book and found it just too strange to keep going. The reviews were positive, but it was too weird for me to get engaged.
In Dolly City, the most demented city in the world, all the cars are Volkswagen Beetles, and all the trains lead to Dachau (Not that Dachau, just some old plank with the name Dachau written on it, a kind of memorial). Its a city of chaos and ugliness, a hostile, filthy, friendless place. Sometimes, even in Dolly City, I feel like a stranger, Doctor Dolly, the protagonist of Orly Castel-Blooms 1992 novel reflects. I want to go homeeven though this is my home. Read more:
I'm not sure exactly what to say about this one. A kind of flat brutalism and paranoia. Would probably make sense with more context.
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