欧宝娱乐

This is the most depressing, nasty book I've read in a long time. I read it all in one go last night, since I have a hard time not finishing books once I start them, but I couldn't stand the thought of having to come back to it. There may be some literary merit to the book that I can't appreciate it because I'm so repulsed by the characters, but I rather doubt it. The book certainly captures the complete lack of affect and total self-absorption of the characters, as well as the compulsive, endless consumption without any enjoyment or desire, which characterized a certain set in the 80's. The description of shared events changes from narrator to narrator because they are all flattering themselves and are thoughtless of others. The narrators almost never describe the setting, the reader gets almost no picture of Camden college, because it doesn't matter to these idiots. Beauty, nature, architecture would fail to move them at all. (Victor's trip through Europe is a prime example of this) Also, everybody they know already knows Camden back to front. The college is taken utterly for granted, certainly has nothing to do with learning, it is just the faded backdrop for their repetitive evenings of drinking and screwing each other. Nobody really has real friends; they aimlessly, reasonlessly do things that should hurt their friends, but the friends don't really care about anything either, so no one is hurt. They are all numb. As a few of them say, "Nobody ever knows anybody." Nobody has goals or direction, no one even gets anywhere by accident, nobody has any hope. They don't even really care if they live or die, as evidenced by the casual attempts at suicide now and again.
The fact that there is even the barest trace of a resemblance between my life and the lives of these characters is deeply disturbing. I can't imagine wanting to read this book, if my life was like this, and I can't imagine wanting to read this book if my life was (thankfully) nothing like this. It's all just too ugly.