Tremor

One reviewer here wrote that they usually read literary fiction, but this was too literary for them. I get that. Cole is a masterful writer – creative, modern, insightful – and I fell into the first couple of chapters. I felt as though I was at the antique store where he and his wife shopped for an African mask. The topics of imperialism and conquest, art and history was neither pedantic nor lengthy. He writes with a delicate hand. However, by mid-book, I was losing the thread(s) and started skimming. The chapters function more like separate stories, with many different and often unnamed protagonists, so the book requires more attention than I may have at the moment. It seems like a text that would serve well a high level English class. I'm glad that I read what I did, and that I'm now familiar with Teju Cole, but I would recommend it only to my more patient reading friends.