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| Black Wine | 
 enlarge | Author: Candas Jane Dorsey
Publisher: Tor Books
Category: Book
List Price: $13.95
Buy Used: $3.08
You Save: $10.87 (78%)
New (1) Used (15) from $3.08
Avg. Customer Rating:  15 reviews
Sales Rank: 528652
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1st
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 288
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 8.1 x 5.4 x 0.7
ISBN: 0312865783
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780312865788
ASIN: 0312865783
Publication Date: November 15, 1997
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More.
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| Customer Reviews:
| Showing reviews 1-5 of 15 | | NEXT » |
Something doesn't quite connect... March 2, 2007
I felt myself reaching for a theme while reading "Black Wine." Somehow, the lives of 5 generations of women are weirdly tied up with one another -- so much so that sometimes the reader will wonder which woman she is reading about. There is an echo of each of the elders in the lives of their daughters.
The book opens with a madwoman sitting in a cage, writing in her journal with her own blood. A slave-girl with an opal abacus begins talking to the old woman. The journal(s) and the abacus come back to haunt the reader again and again as the reader tries to piece together the relationships of the women in the book. Daughters are abandoned, mothers are mourned, sisters become lovers.
The significance of time, numbers, and languages are fleeting, but never are they fully realized. The black wine hints at ties of blood -- but there is only the hint, never a realization of its meaning.
Incest is rampant in this book, especially concerning the despot grandmother (who apparently dabbles in S/M). Two half-sisters become best friends, lovers. One of the women marries a bi-sexual couple. The various sexual groupings only serve to highlight themselves against the other groupings: the grandmother sleeping with her nephew comes across as sick and depraved, while the love between the half-sisters suggests a bond so deep and pure that their sisterhood can be excused (shouldn't we all find love so deep?).
I'm still grasping at a uniting theme, and I feel as though I'm just barely missing. This book is good, almost literature. Almost.
Very Good Read April 28, 2005
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
All in all I think this book was a good read. I am used to books that are a little more wordy and more difficult to read, so this book was a breeze in that respect. Once you get into the story the pages just fly by. You just need to get past the first 75-100 pages for it all to start to make sense. I really enjoyed Dorsey's ability to be discriptive without the overkill I have gotten from other such authors.
The style of bouncing from past to present and in between characters reminds me of the writing style of Quentin Tarantino, of course in the end it all makes sense. I think if this story was told any other way it wouldn't have been so interesting and thought provoking.
I think this book brings out some great emotional feelings in the reader, you can almost feel what each character is going through. Enjoyable. The only reason I give this book 4 out of 5 stars, is I think she could have done a little more with the ending, I would have loved to see this stroy continue a little more. It seemed to me that just when it was getting really interesting it ended, kind of left you hanging, wanting more. But then again, that may have been Dorsey's intention. It definately makes you think.
 Modern writing style, surreal, vivid, emotional January 23, 2004
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
The truth about 'Black Wine' -- This book reads both like a story woven carelessly from dream-logic and like a story masterfully and carefully crafted. The writing style is like a piece of modern art: sometimes abstract and filled with strange brevity. The issues of the story are raw, emotional, and distinctly adult: feminism, dominance and submission, sex, power. 'Black Wine' is not a "fun" escapist storybook -- it is a highly stylized and challenging piece of literature that invites you to read closely and see deeply. If you seek challenging literary fiction, I highly recommend this book to you.
A pleasant surprise July 13, 2003
It often annoys me when a book's back cover has nothing but praise, without even a hint of what the book may be like. In this instance however, I ended up glad that I had gotten into the book without knowing just what it was I was getting into.I did find the first part of the book difficult to follow, but the allure of the book came from watching it weave together and begin to make sense (starting around p100 or so for me).Unlike a lot of fantasy I have read, where the author takes familiar (tired?) themes and stories and tells them in an alien world with alien characters, Candas Jane Dorsey tells a dream-like, surreal narrative in settings and with characters that seemed quite familiar. To me the book read almost like a feminine 'Naked Lunch'. Although I say the settings seemed very familiar, the book conjured imagery that was fantastic, dark and beautiful. Reading this book was a wonderful escape from this mundane earth, and perhaps if read a second time (which I may do one day) deeper running themes can be found. The only reason I've given this novel 4 rather than 5 stars is that at some points it felt a touch too academic to be a fantasy novel.
Best fantasy of decade June 24, 2001
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I note a recommendation for fans of LeGuin and the like above. Well, I'm not a big LeGuin fan (I read the Earthsea trilogy in high school), and I loathe Atwood, but I loved this book.Recommendation? Read it. It's amazing. The only fantasy from the '90s that I can think of that compares at all is Brust's Agyar, which is written by one of the best, and most definitely is not a first novel. Out of first novels, this book stands out. I hope she writes more. All I can say is, The Hobbit was a first novel, and this book is too.
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