The Rope Eater

Where's the plot?

Geez, I wanted to like this. Mr. Jones can string words together beautifully. The first few chapters are poetry. And then the book gets mired down in ice and stops. It lifts off one more time in a bazaar chapter reminiscent of Katherine Dunn's book, Geek Love. There was no character development to speak of, so I couldn't even feel interested in what would happen to them. I do feel I would try to read the next offering by this author because his writing style does show promise.

Brilliant

I picked up The Rope Eater after reading a review of it in the Washington Post and I have to say I thought it was a great book, completely gripping and vivid in its language, imagery and structure. It's a book of stories within stories that offers up a remarkable and frightening study of ambition, opportunity and what we sacrifice to those ends. Some of the stories are beautiful, some thrilling, some grotesque and hypnotic, but all propel the reader forward toward an idea that few books touch on or get these days (in a time where everything is public, everything is confessed) -- it's the idea that revelation and redemption are a private matter, unknowable to anyone outside of the person experiencing them. The same principle stands for this book, it's an amazing, breathtaking journey you have to experience for yourself.

Instant Classic

A very powerful story that is thrilling and has great depth and intensity. When you finally discover what the title (Rope Eater) means, you will have to pick your jaw up from the floor. I have not read a book like this in a long time.

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