Only Revolutions: A Novel
by Mark Z. Danielewski
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Book Summary Information
Author: Mark Z. DanielewskiEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2007-07-10
ISBN: 0375713905
Number of pages: 384
Publisher: Pantheon
Book Reviews of Only Revolutions: A Novel
Book Review: Only ReviewLesions
Summary: 5 Stars
Every review that negatively compares Only Revolutions to House of Leaves is missing the point. They are deliberately different books, and for good reason. Every reviewer that thinks you need a terminal degree to get it has forgotten how much fun it is to be an open-minded youth. Everyone who says poetry is bad (or that this is bad poetry) is revealing their own taste and proclivity, more than they are reflecting accurately on the novel.
Only Revolutions is an incredible, illuminating book. It can also be infuriating or bewildering. Good! You need to be bewildered sometimes. I read the first 40 pages or so without really "understanding" any of it. By page 180, I was completely hooked. By the last page, I was completely lost again. This is by design. I loved it, but it can be confusing at first. I'm not surprised that so many people are upset by this; most people hate being pushed or coaxed outside of their comfort zones. It's disappointing to see so many reviewers cast it aside just because they didn't immediately grasp or enjoy it.
Do you really think you know everything? That you have seen all the world has to show you, that there is nothing new under the sun, that anything shocking or confusing deserves reproach? Don't you want to learn something new about the world, about books, about yourself? Because you can, and this book can help, but if you refuse it's your choice.
Nearly four years later, I finally feel like I "understand" Only Revolutions, its relation to Danielewski's other books, and its relation to me. But I loved it before I "understood" it, and I love it now, and I'll love it four years from now when I realize I still don't really understand it yet.
The book isn't experimental. Some reviewers are right when they say that so-called innovations have been done before. Yes, the big letters are like those in Ulysses. That's deliberate. Yes, Michel Butor's "Gyroscope" and Milorad Pavic's "The Inner Side of the Wind" both flip and start from either side. Good! That should help you feel less lost, like signposts along an unknown highway; they shouldn't make you dismiss it just because "it's been done before."
But YOU are the ones calling it "experimental, postmodern, gimmicky, overblown." You are the ones calling it names. How rude! Danielewski has always said that none of his novels are experimental; they are carefully, deliberately designed to produce certain effects. Every time you apply a genre or era label to a book, you are immediately diminishing its capabilities, which is your fault -- not the books'. When you refuse to have fun, to be spun -- to be scared, or to be sacred: that's you, refusing. That's no fault of this book, or anyone else. You're the one who thinks you're either too smart, or too stupid, or too young or too old or too whatever else. Only Revolutions doesn't think you're any of those things. So why should you?
Like a quickly-spinning gyroscope, or like two teenagers bursting with unspeakable needs, sometimes this book can be hard to hold on to. That doesn't mean you shouldn't try, or to at least stand beside them as they pass.
Let go of yourself. Let go of your bad moods, your critiques, your crotchetiness. Let go of your conviction that all things must be understood to be enjoyed. Remember what it was like to be seven, or twelve, or sixteen, or twenty-three, or thirty-three, or fifty-two, or eighty;
(any age you felt alive, free, vital, essential, powerful)
to Run through the woods like they were the whole world;
to Talk to animals and to believe they could talk back;
to Write furiously in your tattered notebook about heartbreaks and parted ways,
About the exuberance and endlessness of your days;
When you knew you knew everything and that you still had so much to learn;
to Speak and write and read freely, without worrying about whether it was okay to like something,
Whether what you were doing was "postmodern" or "poetry" or "cliché" or "clever,"
Whether this thing was as good as that thing,
Whether you'd be made fun of for being genuinely enthusiastic about your life, without hedging or justifying or otherwise tampering.
Forget about the House, about the Author, about your Expectations, about your crippling Need To Be Right.
Let go.
And then hold on tight.
Sam and Hailey wait for no one, but they'll allways wait for you.
Summary of Only Revolutions: A Novel
Sam:They were with us before Romeo & Juliet. And long after too. Because they?re forever around. Or so both claim, carolling gleefully:
We?re allways sixteen.
Sam & Hailey, powered by an ever-rotating fleet of cars, from Model T to Lincoln Continental, career from the Civil War to the Cold War, barrelling down through the Appalachians, up the Mississippi River, across the Badlands, finally cutting a nation in half as they try to outrace History itself.
By turns beguiling and gripping, finally worldwrecking, Only Revolutions is unlike anything ever published before, a remarkable feat of heart and intellect, moving us with the journey of two kids, perpetually of summer, perpetually sixteen, who give up everything except each other.
Hailey:
They were with us before Tristan & Isolde. And long after too. Because they?re forever around. Or so both claim, gleefully carolling:
We?re allways sixteen.
Hailey & Sam, powered by an ever-rotating fleet of cars, from Shelby Mustang to Sumover Linx, careen from the Civil Rights Movement to the Iraq War, tearing down to New Orleans, up the Mississippi River, across Montana, finally cutting a nation in half as they try to outrace History itself.
By turns enticing and exhilarating, finally breathtaking, Only Revolutions is unlike anything ever conceived before, a remarkable feat of heart and intellect, moving us with the journey of two kids, perpetually of summer, perpetually sixteen, who give up everything except each other.
Mark Danielewski's first novel House of Leaves is a cult-favorite--experimental horror fiction in a gorgeous (and newly remastered) full-color package. His new book Only Revolutions takes the experiment 10 steps further in a story about teenage lovers Hailey and Sam: the book is printed on two sides--one side tells the story from Hailey's point of view, flip it over and you get Sam's side (literally). We caught a glimpse inside the mind-bending new novel--take a look for yourself below.
Inside Only Revolutions
 Hailey's Story |  Covers |  Sam's Story |
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