Hall of Mirrors: Amazon.ca: Robert Stone: Books

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Customer Reviews

8 Reviews

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

Average Customer Review

4.5 out of 5 stars (8 customer reviews)

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4.0 out of 5 stars Thanks., Jan 18 2001

By	Joseph L. Keohane "vdamocles" (Somerville, MA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I'd like to ardently thank "A Reader from New York" for giving away the last line of this book, which I bought shorty before reading your review. That was very, very considerate of you.

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4.0 out of 5 stars First work from a phenomenal novelist, Mar 7 2000

By A Customer

"They killed my girl... I'm gonna bust up the bar." The closing line of this beautiful book will ring in your head for days afterwards. The entire novel reads as if it were written in a fever dream, haunting and hallucinagenic. First published in 1966, this is a seminal American novel. You can see its influence in movies like "Easy Rider" and "Five Easy Pieces," in countless novels. You could even say this book had a hand in shaping the language of the counterculture in general. The only reason I give it four stars instead of five is because I think it lacks the tight, taught writing focus of Stone's later great novels ("Dog Soldiers" and "Flag for Sunrise"). I still think it may be the greatest first novel ever published by a contemporary American novelist.

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5.0 out of 5 stars I feel as if I was really there..., Jun 10 1999

By A Customer

Along with Walker Percy's "The Moviegoer" this is one of the best written books I've ever read about New Orleans. However, while Percy concentrates on a slowly rotting family from old-society New Orleans, Stone concentrates on a more modern, touristy, sordid side of the city - one that will probably seem more familiar to those who have visited or lived in the city.

Some of the other reviews below mention that they found this book "overwritten" but I didn't really find that to be the case. I thought that Stone struck an excellent balance between detail and plot. The characters were fascinating, sometimes terrifying, and often hilarious.

Interestingly, I was not nearly as drawn to the main characters as I was to the fascinating side characters, especially the British pseudo-preacher who is definitely one of the most memorable characters I've read in years.

An excellent book, artfully written, and brilliantly executed.

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Most recent customer reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Bring On the Cannibals
This book consumes the reader with its ideas and its poetics. It is Apocolyptic literary fireworks, man. Morgan Rainey, the warped Jehovah. Read more

Published on Feb 7 1999 by cortright_mcmeel@cargill.com

5.0 out of 5 stars Absolutely Stone's best
I'm a fan of New Orleans literature in general, and this is my favorite NO novel. Stone captures the Quarter like no one else can, and wrings the stink of misery from the... Read more

Published on Jan 22 1999

5.0 out of 5 stars Stone's New Orleans novel lets the bad times roll!
I've read (and liked) all of Robert Stone's books and even though this one is more sprawling and overwritten than the others (after all, it was his first novel and it feels like... Read more