Cover Image: Muck

Muck

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Member Reviews

Originally I downloaded this book from Netgalley to further my international reading. But then something about it made me put off reading it time and time again. And that’s how I should have left it, but no…I decided to check it out after all. Well, let’s just say the book lived up to its tile precisely. It’s a muckity muck of a novel. Ok, no, let’s say more about it, because it was such a spectacular waste of time, finished purely on OCD fumes. From the very first chapter I suspected this might not be for me, but the first chapter actually showed something, some glimpse of a promising quirk, alas one the book wasn’t able to sustain or actually one that wasn’t able to sustain the book. The plot is difficult to summarize, it’s essentially about a young man who becomes a prophet and foresees the momentous changes in Israel’s future and it’s all set in a sort of dystopian version of completely redrawn geopolitical version of the Middle East. The plot wasn’t as much of a challenge as the rambling style or the denseness of the narrative, though, the sort of virtually paragraph free self indulgent longwinded wooliness of it all. Interestingly, the writing itself wasn’t terrible, but that forest all but disappeared for the trees. It dragged, plodded, slogged. Impossible to enjoy and a chore to finish. And yet…here’s the thing with books you hate, there seems to be two kinds. One that’s pretty much objectively sh*t and you can’t imagine anyone enjoying it, the other is just something that really really isn’t for you, but it’s possible that there is the right audience for it out there. And this book is definitely of the latter camp. The author is very popular and widely acclaimed in Israel. This book might be too. There’s quite possibly a readership out there for this sort of post modern genre challenging cacophony. But reviews are very much a subjective business and this one was for me a subjectively loathsome read. And no, it isn’t hypocritical to complain about a paragraph free text in a paragraph free text, because I have the decency to wrap it up around 400 words and Muck went on for over 400 pages. I had to speed read just to get through it and it still wasted so much time. No redeeming features. One of the crappiest reads of the year. Never should have read it, then again…international reading Israel…check. Thanks Netgalley.

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This one takes some investment. It's a big book for one thing and for another it's based on the book of Jeremiah, which does not, if you recall it, go well. Burstein has, however, hit a chord with his rework of the take to today, sort of. There's a lot going on, some of which seems really out there, but there's also a very sympathetic character or two. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. This isn't one I would have naturally picked off the shelf nor do I know who specifically I would recommend it to, but it's a good read that's worth your time and patience.

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I have read only half of the novel but still I have the impression of being completely lost. I simply don‘t find the red thread of the plot and cannot follow the story at all. I was really looking forward to reading it, but somehow it doesn‘t work at all for me. Maybe I am lacking the knowledge of the ancieent sories and the Bible to understand Burstein.

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Muck is a very challenging read. It is a chaotic, cacophonous, apocalyptic story about a reluctant King who doesn't listen and a reluctant prophet who no one hears.

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