“...a radical novel. The 548 pages of The Book are warranted because of a message that is much bigger and more comprehensive in its critique than any of Ozeki’s previous works.. . . a beautiful, funny, sad, haunting, and extremely moving narrative . . . Ozeki’s commitment to having all her novels be co-productions created by multiple figures reaches its most dazzling manifestation in a book and a protagonist, mutually engendered. . . . There has never been a more timely novel... Ozeki sees the real dangers of fascism, bureaucratic and political paralysis, and environmental disaster not on the horizon, but before our very eyes. Only by acting together, rather than in self-centered isolation, can we save ourselves, and the planet. And that means that we must stop taking our selves so fatally seriously, because there is more serious work to do — together, and with modesty, empathy, and love. Like the dialogues between Benny and the Book, which at once frame the entire narrative and the myriad conversations among all the other characters, we can together create a symphony where before we heard only static and noise — all this involves listening, rather than simply hearing. . . I believe Ruth Ozeki is as concerned with what we can bring to a book as what it can give us. One message of this marvelously catalytic narrative event is that it’s all about relations, not individual ontology.”
November 17, 2021
Los Angeles Review of Books
Los Angeles Review of Books: An Urgent New Book for the Time Being