Man Walks Into a Room

The concept, the description and reviews from people and critics set this up to be a swell read, though, it fell entirely flat for me. If yer looking for a book that explores the deep concept of self and nature of reality, this is not it. At it's core, this is a romantic drama with a mild sci-fi plot. The writing style isn't anything notable, there are a few great poetic lines sprinkled in but those don't account for the majority, which could be said for the whole of the book- glimmers of brilliance amidst a viciously boring day.

The concept of this brilliant first novel by Nicole Krauss is simple. A man is found wandering in the desert in Nevada. Documents in his billfold show him to be Samson Greene, a thirtyish English professor at Columbia, but a medical examination reveals a devastating brain tumor. His wife Anna comes to be with him for the operation that saves his life but also robs him of all memories past the age of 12. Although he does not recognize her, Samson goes back to New York with Anna, grateful for her loving care. But his memories do not return. More than that, Samson comes to treasure the 24-year blank as a kind of mental refuge. He moves out on his own and eventually volunteers for a program back in Nevada that experiments with transferring memories from one person to another. The results shock him into a state of almost total disorientation, but he painfully begins to discover how to live his life anew. I cannot but compare this to Richard Powers' recent novel THE ECHO MAKER, also about a man recovering his memory after brain trauma. Although Krauss is the less realistic writer (some of this taut novel seems a little too artfully constructed), she is also simpler, more empathetic, and infinitely more resonant. Indeed, I am amazed at the number of issues she can raise through her central examination of the nature of loss. The back cover describes Samson as "an emigrant in his own life." Although Krauss herself does not use this term, there is an obvious parallel between Samson's condition and that of any emigrant who has left his previous life behind to start again in a new country -- the defining fact of the American experience (and certainly of mine). Krauss is Jewish, and although the theme is barely touched on in this novel, there are nonetheless echoes of that extreme case of loss caused by the Holocaust, and thus a link to her second book, THE HISTORY OF LOVE, which is one of the most beautiful post-Holocaust novels in recent years, and which shares with this one the belief that some kind of regeneration is possible, even from the most arid desert. The book is also a parable of the writing process itself. Ray, the scientist who enrolls Samson as an experimental subject, is fascinated by his desire to preserve a mental tabula rasa. But "once you have given up everything," he asks, "don't you have to set down the first mark?" So it is for the creative artist. Samson has found himself essentially a white canvas, a blank sheet of paper. Making the first mark of a new life is a terrifying experience. In the most difficult part of the book, after he has left the experimental facility, we see him wildly constructing almost melodramatic fictions, imagining a fantastic back-story for a boy he meets in Las Vegas, identifying with an ex-hippie returned from India to join a fundamentalist cult. But these are temporary aberrations. The raw material of who he is (the raw material of all writing) has been accessible to him all along, in the memories of his

Is an excellent book,well written,Nicole Krauss give us a picture of the human soul. It is about love, choices,loneliness. It took me to another place,another time,and yet anybody can relate to the conflicts,moral choices and feelings describe in this wonderfull novel. Ada,LA CA

"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

This is a book that touched me very deeply. On the one hand, I couldn't wait to get to the end to see what happens to the characters, which is a testament to Krauss's writing--she makes us care about the people in the book. On the other hand, the story is so soulful and sad-but-beautiful that I wanted to savor it. This is an intriguing, thought-provoking book that deserves even more attention than it's already received. I look forward to more from Nicole Krauss.

How rare it is, to read a book unlike any other, written with wit, with passion, on the essence of who we are and what makes us as an individual? To be sucked into a book, have an entirely new way of looking at habits, at choices and ideas implanted. The story is the compelling tale of a man whose memory is erased after he had a braintumor removed. His clean break gets him to travel away from his life, that must have been wonderful, to the discovery of memories, too overwhelming for man to comprehend. This book touches inside - deep inside