Select language, opens an overlay

Comment

brianreynolds
Jan 18, 2012brianreynolds rated this title 5 out of 5 stars
When I finished Nikolski the first time I was struck by a number of things. It read like three trains on connecting tracks, all bound for a collision at top speed, a collision that never develops. It was at once thrilling and disappointing. It was clear as a sunny day what was going on, yet absolutely puzzling with all the synchronicity between the three plots and no glue to tie it together. The images were enchantingly ironic (how could you not love a son writing letters for decades to his wandering mother at random addresses in the hopes one would connect) but frustratingly disconnected. What was Dickner saying besides sometimes ships pass in the night, sometimes mysteries remain unsolved? But just before I composed a review stating the obvious (or admitting to the obscure) I read the enlightening, well-written review of August Bourré which led me to sit down and read it all over again. I think he's right. Instead of three trains, I believe there is just one: the "My name is unimportant" narrator who is has no friends or family, who collects travel books but never travels, a man with "flights of fancy," a dreamer who finds his own life pointless, a hermit in a used bookstore, his "universe made up entirely of books." The clues are subtle but they are there. In the end, he frees himself from the detritus which he as collected; he takes a chance; he moves on. But the catalyst in his transformation is the invention of his own mind. The lovely fiction of an imaginary half brother (the son who wrote letters) and an imaginary cousin whose fascination with piracy gets her into hot water is the charm of Nikolski. Their stories are bold, amazing, titillating in their serendipity, rich in detail, and sprawling in its scope. They are the ships that nearly collide. They are lives that a reader can fall in love with. But in the end, they are smoke in the mind of a man who at last has lost his false (Nikolski) compass and found a reason to risk living himself. What an amazing read.