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Product Description
Review
Paul's Case is not a novel that will make you feel good. It is not uplifting or humorous; and it is not morally inclined in any conventional sense. In other words, it does not provide answers. What it does do is force readers to confront their own feelings about Bernardo and Homolka and in the process their own humanity: There is evil in the world; how do we deal with it?
The book is presented in fifty-two short sections representing a year's worth of weekly letters to Bernardo from an anonymous writer. It began as a non-fiction magazine essay, but when Crosbie realized such a piece could not contain the emotional spectrum inherent in such a story, she turned to fiction. The result is not a straightforward narrative, but a collage of quotations from newspaper articles and literary works, song lyrics, poems, script-formatted dialogue-even a cartoon strip. As the letter writer says to Bernardo: "I will present you in fragments. And make a fragment of you." But rather than pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, what we find are pieces in a kaleidoscope. When you give them a shake, they reconfigure into a different pattern. There is no one "final" picture.
Crosbie's method, like her choice of subject, will not be to everyone's liking. But I hardly think the author deserves the venom-such as the Toronto Star columnist Rosie DiManno's threat to rake her nails across Crosbie's face should she ever run into her-that the book has generated. Eva Tihanyi(Books in Canada) -- Books in Canada
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Most helpful customer reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
1.0 out of 5 stars
What about Paul's Case?,
By A Customer
This review is from: Paul's Case (Paperback)
This author bothered me so much, I could only read the book a few pages at a shot. What kind of book is this? Did she actually send letters to paul Bernardo, or was everything made up? How dare she use this case as a way to display her poetry, which isn't even that good. She took a case that affected the lives of many many people and turned it into some coffee house ramblings. I see no point in this book. I see no point in reading it at all. How dare she have Pauls face on the cover in the hopes that true crime fans will buy it. I am insulted by this attempt to exploit.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
1.0 out of 5 stars
I Can't Believe This,
By A Customer
This review is from: Paul's Case (Paperback)
I now understand why there is only one review of this book, and from the authors friend. This book is not about anything but the author. This author has attempted to put Paul Bernardo in poetry form...GIVE ME A BREAK! There are some sick word games and even sicker pencil drawn pictures. This author seem to be just a little obsessed with this case. At times she rambles about nothing in particular, her dreams or fantasies maybe?? I wonder if I can get money back. I'm sorry Lynn,This is not personal please stick to poetry of a different sort.
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
interesting, but ultimately disappointing.,
By
This review is from: Paul's Case (Paperback)
Poet Lynne Crosbie takes an experimental approach to her subject. Subtitled the Kingston Letters, Paul's Case is structured as a one-way correspondence, a series of letters written to Bernardo in jail. But this is no simple epistolary novel. The preface goes above and beyond the standard disclaimer: "this is a critical emterprise, and exploration... A work of historical fiction... Imaginative investigation... References to persons living and dead are purely fictional, and designed as imaginative and analytical responses to extant portraits of these individuals." whew. There are letters, there are postcards, there are comic strips and composites, quotes and collages. Crosbie re-imagines the rap songs Bernardo wrote dreaming of a career in music. Includes a bizarre chapbook about a secret investigation. There are word games and puzzles, clues and questions. Crosbie inhabits the world of the victim writing to her attacker, the anonymous spectator in the courtroom, she enacts the imagined retaliation. She considers the situations that could have bred this monster. While lyrical and engrossing, the effect of Paul's Case is clinical rather than compelling. The explorations of language have a distancing effect, keeping us away from the subject, rather than drawing us in. The verbal gymnastics are like a the glass partition in a prison visiting room: we see and hear, but we do not feel: strange for a story so brutal and horrible. Perhaps this is her point ("I will present you in fragments. And make a figment of you"), to strip Bernardo of his power by turning him into a mere curiosity. It is disturbing to have such a villian made bland, and makes for an unsatisfying read.
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