ethanjpatton's reviews
324 reviews

Crazy to imagine how cutting edge this must have been in 1972. The particular fixed-in-time aspect of Crichton novels is something I love about them. They’re of their era, but all the way at the front of it. So much so that at times they feel like they were written today about an alternate past. 

This was a perfect follow up to The Impending Crisis. That book deals entirely with the political situation regarding sectional conflict in America arising from the slavery issue. This narrative then firmly reframes that issue into human terms. 

I found myself disagreeing with a lot of Tolstoy’s assertions about the nature of free will and necessity at the end. The actual story of the book though is fantastic. It took me 13 months to read this, but that felt appropriate given the span of these characters’ lives we experience in the story. Life often felt both full and empty in turns while reading, meaningful and frivolous. 

Possibly the most I’ve ever learned from a single book.