Customer Reviews:
 Another good read June 25, 2007
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I had been looking out for another Nicole Krauss book after i had read A History of Love. I fell into this book immeadiately but then half way through I thought the plot went a little odd, I wondered if this could actually happen in real life. However it did not put me off finishing this book and i can say i really enjoyed it, particularly the epilogue which i had to reread. ALl in all another great book. I hope there's another to read soon.
 How To be Alone, To Remain Free, But Not Feel Longing September 5, 2005
15 out of 25 found this review helpful
"That's just it!" shouted Ray. "How to be alone, to remain free, but not feel longing, not to feel imprisoned in oneself. That is what interests me." Samson Greene, an ex-professor from Columbia University is talking to his physician/scientist friend, Ray. about loneliness and love. Ray seems to understand Samson, and that is the ticket to Samson's next ride. Samson is a 35 year old man, with a great life, job he loves, wife that he loves, but somehow he is found crawling in a Nevada desert. He has gone missing, and is brought to the hospital where he is diagnosed with a juvenile pilocytic astrocytoma. A brain tumor! Surgery is performed and Samson awakens remembering only the first 12 years of his life. How could this be? How will he live? These are questions asked by Samson and his wife Anna on her way to reunite with him. Samson recuperates and they go home to New York to the life they left behind. Well, not quite. Samson doesn't remember Anna, and she has difficulty living with this man who does not relate to her. In time they separate. Samson loses his professorship, and as luck would have it, he receives a call from Dr Ray Malcolm that may change his life forever. Samson has met people along the way, people he can relate to. But essentially he was able to pick up and move away from the only thing and person he knew about after the age of 12. His wife, Anna- they just could not re-connect. At the Center in a Nevada desert, Samson allows his brain to undergo research, headed by his friend, Ray. He befriends, Donald a fellow participant in the research. and they spend a few days lost in the desert. They bond, and that experience brings Samson some joy, but not much. Dr Ray finds them and understanding a bond had been formed he asks if Samson will move on to more research. Will Samson allow Dr Ray to graft a memory of someone else into Samson's brain? Ahhh, yes, the old memory graft thing. Thus begins the most revealing part of this story. Samson must deal with his relationships, what do they mean to him and just what is he looking for? His mother, father, and his great-uncle, the only person in his family still alive, wht did they mean to him? This is a book that drags you in to this sometimes bizarre world on the nature of memory. Memory, Love, Relationships, Searches, Understanding and the real things in life are explored in full regalia. Highly Recommended, prisrob
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