So beautifully written, I ate up every word.

Very good. Very dark and quite creepy at some points, but extremely interesting and a great literary read. Saw Hage in an interview at school and am glad that he didn't speak before I read the book because he interprets his characters completely different than the way I did. Hage uses strong metaphors to tell his story. Intriguing read!

Грозничаво реалистичен опис на подземјето животот и имигрантите на маргините на едно туѓо општество. Хаж умее да ја приближи таа отуѓеност, притоа давајќи акцент на неславното минато на протагонистот, покажувајќи дека истиот е само едно ништожно човече, роб на своите пориви. За оние кои се љубители на романите на Ками, топла препорака.

bookclub meets sporadically when P proposes a common book and we come together in the park (this time P's new kitchen) to discuss the book but also this moment in our lives over collective supply of snack food. this time: carrot ginger soup, stuffed olives, loaf of crusted bread, 3 sweets, tea. there was also a neighbour cat. one of us didn't finish the book and i can see why. the narrator releases a steady supply of beautifully strung sentences in desperate circumstances. long long winter in montreal, continuous search for stolen food, kitchenful of cockroaches, breaking/ enterring other characters' homes in cockroach form, sleeping in a bed of wet laundry warmed to morning by body heat, and a sticking point, sexual objectification of women including a minor. it's a bookful of unresolved trauma, sometimes unnamed trauma. there's probably more to say than we could say

I enjoyed the nods to Camus's L'Etranger & Kafka's Metamorphosis, the outsider's perspective on Montreal, the critiques of Canadian colonialism. I'm really tired of seeing women written this way though, and I found few interesting or redeeming qualities about the main character.

Ce livre faisait partie des livres que je devais lire dans le cadre de mon dernier cours de français aux études collégiales. À vrai dire, j'ai eu beaucoup de difficulté à suivre la cadence de l'histoire. Je ne sais pas si c'est parce que je suis plus habitué à lire des livres en anglais, mais lire ce livre à été très difficile pour ma part. Je n'ai pas accroché au personnage, il a fallu que je fasse plus de recherche à propos du livre pour comprendre que l'auteur voulait dessiner un portrait d'un immigrant à Montréal (encore je ne suis pas sur si c'était le but premier de l'auteur). Il faut ajouter que j'avais de la misère à suivre avec tous ses personnages et je crois que la ligne du temps que j'ai dresser pour le "cafard" est mal faite. J'ai eu de la misère à comprendre la comparaison aux cafards aussi. Bref, ce livre n'est pas un livre que j'ai aimé lire, car j'étais plus confuse qu'autre chose.

An examination of the exile and what its like to live on the fringes of society, underground and unwanted. Darkly comic and empathetic. Fantastic ending and final scene.

Didn't know whether to give it a 2 or a 3. Not my type of book.

Look, the book is easy enough to read and the ending is actually all right. I just can't help but feel like the first two hundred pages were a waste. For a long time I was just reading about a fellow being horny. Whenever a woman entered the story he was ogling and longing, and telling the reader all about it. I didn't even want to finish it at first because I didn't see the point. There is substance to the ending, but getting there is just a mess. For an example: at one point, the narrator basically says, "She was wearing very baggy pajamas, BUT I COULD STILL SORT OF SEE THE OUTLINE OF HER BUTT AND THAT SURE WAS GREAT THAT WAS NICE TO SEE OH YEAH LOVE TO SORT OF SEE AN OUTLINE OF A BUTT AM I RIGHT FELLAS???" And that was one of the tamer instances. The narrator sees every woman in the book as an object, this includes underage girls and his own sister. It's disturbing. The narrator is portrayed as a sex-crazed maniac who lives in squalor. Descriptions of his dirty socks abound. He is essentially the type who should repulse all women, and yet it takes him no effort to get any woman he wants apparently, which, to me, reflects poorly on the author. That sort of character is not realistic, so it comes across as a sick fantasy of the writer. It was unrealistic, inconsistent, and gross. Not worth reading.