Title: Solipsist
Author: Henry Rollins
Format: e-book
Publisher: 2.13.61
Pub Date: 1998
Read: Jan-Feb 2011
Purchased: via amazon (kindle)
Why: Someone on literaryquotes quoted a passage from it, which was really intense and seemed interesting.
Fulfills Challenge? No
Notes: from wikipedia, Solipsism is the philosophical idea that only one’s own mind is sure to exist. Keeping that in mind, the style and premise of the novel makes a lot of sense.
Review/Thoughts: Although I finished February 1, in my mind this is mostly a January book, capping off a month of 2 goods books and 3 duds. This is once again a situation where this book just isn’t for me. Rollins’ style is certainly intense, and the passage that initially led me to purchase this book in the first place was certainly true to form. The problem, in many ways, is that the entire book is like that — sort of a relentless intensity that is as exhausting as it is absorbing. His sense of isolation is so great that it’s hard to relate to (I can take comfort in the fact that I will probably never feel as isolated as this character does). There are a lot allegories and metaphors and dreams — many of which are really interesting, but even they became exhausting after a while. Everything in the book just seems to be too much. I was exhausted by the end of it and stopped being interested after a while. The work is short, about 160 pages, but it’s actually too much. This might have worked better for me as a shorter novella, like Jean-Christophe Valtat’s 03, which is an 80 page stream of consciousness (written as one long paragraph).
Final Verdict: 
