Review by Rebecca Henderson -- (Ways to) Lucena

[Rebecca Henderson]

[Following is a volunteer review of "(Ways to) Lucena" by Mois Benarroch.]

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1 out of 4 stars

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More like ways to lose your reader . . .

(Ways to) Lucena by Mois Banarroch and translated by P. Diane Schneider, is a jumbled mess of narrative that shows no signs of coherence; I could not draw the story arc for you if my life depended on it.

While the concept of a man who lives to be 1,000-years-old intrigued me enough to want to read and review this story, I had rather wished I had picked another novel. Within the first few pages it was obvious to me that though this book was classified as a science-fiction/fantasy novel, Isaac Banzima would be our protagonist in a sort of close narrative to his life. Nothing stood out to me as science fiction or fantasy. What came next, however, can only be described as a dumping of words upon the page . . .

The narrative of Banzima—or Banzimra, with an ‘r,’ (a note on this soon)—was soon dropped, in favor of small poems, snippets of other stories started and abandoned, and a smattering of story lines that I cannot classify. As to the (mis)spelling of Banzima or Banzimra, I suggest that whoever was responsible for editing the piece be fired and/or removed from their position. On top of the misspelling, there were copious amounts of grammar mistakes, from capitalization errors to stray quotation marks when unnecessary and incorrect punctuation.

Heap upon this a supposed string of related historical events. I remember reading that the book is somewhat religious, and not having read too many books on the subject, I thought it might be interesting. However, the mention of religion did not go much beyond mentioning Biblical names and vague references. More abrupt and noticeable were mentions of historical events like the Holocaust/Shoah, the Nazis and Hitler, and Y2K. A fake plague by the name of Alergum Montana was mentioned; it is the appearance of small red dots, only affecting females, that defines this virus. Whether this is supposed to be part of the science-fiction or fantasy aspects of the novel, I’m not quite sure—nor am I convinced.

I rate this book 1 out of 4 stars. I’d like to give someone the credit here of at least amalgamating this narrative, but the sheer lack of professionalism in appearance and story line leaves me with no desire to read more of this author’s work. I picked up a large theme of homeland and the desire for a homeland, but even that was gathered from vague narratives that, as soon as they had begun, were dropped for the next half-narrative.

I did learn one thing from this experience. Or rather, two things, if I must be specific. One: I now know what phylacteries are, and two: I have lost much of the previous anxiety that keeps me from publishing. To be frank, if something like this “novel” can appear in this way, the chances of my professionally-edited, coherent, and intriguing story line are much better than I anticipated!

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(Ways to) Lucena
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon | on iTunes

Like Rebecca Henderson's review? Post a comment saying so!

[va2016]

[Following is a volunteer review of "(Ways to) Lucena" by Mois Benarroch.]

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1 out of 4 stars

---

Share This Review

---

More like ways to lose your reader . . .

(Ways to) Lucena by Mois Banarroch and translated by P. Diane Schneider, is a jumbled mess of narrative that shows no signs of coherence; I could not draw the story arc for you if my life depended on it.

While the concept of a man who lives to be 1,000-years-old intrigued me enough to want to read and review this story, I had rather wished I had picked another novel. Within the first few pages it was obvious to me that though this book was classified as a science-fiction/fantasy novel, Isaac Banzima would be our protagonist in a sort of close narrative to his life. Nothing stood out to me as science fiction or fantasy. What came next, however, can only be described as a dumping of words upon the page . . .

The narrative of Banzima—or Banzimra, with an ‘r,’ (a note on this soon)—was soon dropped, in favor of small poems, snippets of other stories started and abandoned, and a smattering of story lines that I cannot classify. As to the (mis)spelling of Banzima or Banzimra, I suggest that whoever was responsible for editing the piece be fired and/or removed from their position. On top of the misspelling, there were copious amounts of grammar mistakes, from capitalization errors to stray quotation marks when unnecessary and incorrect punctuation.

Heap upon this a supposed string of related historical events. I remember reading that the book is somewhat religious, and not having read too many books on the subject, I thought it might be interesting. However, the mention of religion did not go much beyond mentioning Biblical names and vague references. More abrupt and noticeable were mentions of historical events like the Holocaust/Shoah, the Nazis and Hitler, and Y2K. A fake plague by the name of Alergum Montana was mentioned; it is the appearance of small red dots, only affecting females, that defines this virus. Whether this is supposed to be part of the science-fiction or fantasy aspects of the novel, I’m not quite sure—nor am I convinced.

I rate this book 1 out of 4 stars. I’d like to give someone the credit here of at least amalgamating this narrative, but the sheer lack of professionalism in appearance and story line leaves me with no desire to read more of this author’s work. I picked up a large theme of homeland and the desire for a homeland, but even that was gathered from vague narratives that, as soon as they had begun, were dropped for the next half-narrative.

I did learn one thing from this experience. Or rather, two things, if I must be specific. One: I now know what phylacteries are, and two: I have lost much of the previous anxiety that keeps me from publishing. To be frank, if something like this “novel” can appear in this way, the chances of my professionally-edited, coherent, and intriguing story line are much better than I anticipated!

******
(Ways to) Lucena
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon | on iTunes

Like Rebecca Henderson's review? Post a comment saying so!

All I can say is I can empathize with you! From what I learn Mois is a great Italian writer.
I don't know why he is choosing such pathetic translators, who do not manually
translate, but give it to the machine to translate from Italian to English, which leads to
all the issues that you have mentioned - spelling errors, grammar errors, mechanical errors,
and so on. Added to these issues, you will find unadulterated machine translations of
poems! yes, you read that right - poems.

To substantiate what I am saying, please read my review of Mois' book 'The stealer of memories'.
You will find exactly the same review content as yours! You might want to comment on my
review.

Mois should fire his translators and hire quality ones. Or probably he should drop the whole
idea of translating his works to English. The translations as they stand right now does not
augur well with his reputation.