Reviews for Period

The average rating for Period based on 2 reviews is 5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2013-11-13 00:00:00 Yode Majere Five stars for the book, five stars for the 5-part cycle it closes. Writing in another thread, I just realized that The George Miles Cycle, may very well be a definitive work on the cultural experience of the end of the 20th century. Taken as a whole, little else in recent memory is able to so fearlessly and complexly process its times -- media saturation, desire, alienation. Mirrored across so many formats, experience is reduced and repackaged as image and representation, divorced from context and realistic fulfillment, leaving us plunging in isolation after ideals left warped or unattainable. Even that the cycle is entirely framed in a minimalist pop melange of 90s youth subculture and celebrity worship actually strengthens the argument: what now has a deceptive gloss of frivolity may form a crisp insight and self-diagnosis for future anthropologists. Even the striking rawness (emotional, moral, descriptive) of Cooper's vision may be more readily and widely processed as time passes (though I hope nothing subsequent can entirely rob this of its inherent danger). But whatever the future, Cooper is here and highly relevant now, and the George Miles Cycle may be his keystone work. Though his subsequent novels continue to evolve into arguably further complexities, this is his comprehensive vision. And it deserves to be read now. Closing the cycle symmetrically across from Closer, this is the other book to deal directly with George Miles. But is it the same George Miles, or a mirror-world varient, as Period itself mirrors across its middle into symmetrical chapters, reversed arc, shadow duplicates of its characters as they fail to find resolution in either form. Cooper has suggested in interviews that Miles is the real inspiration behind his work, "the only one [he] would have wanted to protect", but in the subtle confusion of fact and fiction throughout the cycle (a confused and compromised authorial "Dennis" appears twice, in different forms, in parts 2 and 4, for instance) can even that be believed? In particular it seems too perfect that "George Miles" should so closely resemble "Georges Melies", that progenitor of the filmed version of represented image so relevant here and to the entire work. The actual plot here, as with any Cooper, is harrowing and grippingly engaging. A ghostly fog-bound town, murderous Satanists, a novel of hypnotic obsession, mysterious brutalities, amnesia, mirror-worlds. Cooper's books can seem to consist of little but plot in fact, until it becomes clear that every lurid genre element contributes to an elegant conceptual map that underpins the whole. It's short, but dense. It's the last part, but bites its own tail in endless ourobouric renewal. As such it's a fine starting point. In any event, it's amazing.

Review # 2 was written on 2017-06-21 00:00:00 Richard Carey Dennis Cooper is a fucking genius. Shooting yourself in the head midway through anal sex never sounded so divine. A total puzzle of a novel, and I'll never fully solve it - but who fucking cares? Pure bliss.