Imperium: A Fiction of the South Seas Hardcover – July 14, 2015

Novelized version of an actual place and time in history, which is readable and sadly thought-provoking as today more and more people tend to be afraid of "chemicals" (which make up everything in the world, including their own bodies) and want to do "natural" things which they think are "safe".Plenty of "natural" things kill people all the time...arsenic, botulism, etc. as well as spending thousands on sugar pills.Our education system, or maybe the trend toward letting uneducated and disorganized parents try to educate their children at home, increasingly produces more and more cases of things like scurvy and gout in adults. I don't think this would be out of line for a high-school reading list or a health class.The sweet naivety of the main character, and those who actually listened to his ideas and aped them (and some died doing so), founded as it is in weird and twisted religious ideas (if it grows closer to the sun, the it is closer to GOD and HEAVEN, ergo, healthier for us), makes the character somewhat sympathetic. This is an antihero in many ways...not likable, yet excellent writing brings him alive. The translation is a little awkward in some places, but never incomprehensible. English is just a hard language, and I believe this was British English for the most part.Some of the supporting characters feel as if they could have their own books.This is the kind of thing that makes history so interesting....when you want to go look up more and more, or wish it could be a film.

I thoroughly enjoyed Imperium. While it is obviously indebted to Modernist greats like Conrad, Proust and, to my ears Mann, mostly, it also has similar qualities to recent Post-Modern nods to classic Modernism like Milorad Pavic or the insanely popular Perfume by Suskind, which I also really liked despite its fadish fame. Like Perfume, Imperium was oddly both dense and compact, with the lush syntax of classic work but without the massive page count. And in the Post-Modern vein, the book played with non-linear chronology, cinematic devices, grotesque/sexual imagery and, of course, the trick ending, which was immediately reminiscent of Gravity's Rainbow. All-in-all, a very satisfying read.

A fascinating story about utopianism and food obsession in the early 1900s. Imperium should be on display at every Whole Foods checkout and made required reading for anyone flirting with fad diets or membership at an urban food co-op. Modern-day cocophiles will read this with great interest lest they go tumbling down the treacherous path to elite cocovorism, theophagy, and autophagy (three words that hadn't entered my vocabulary until reading this book). My only critique is that the book was too short. There are about a half dozen minor characters whose lives I wish I could have followed for another hundred pages or so.

I enjoyed this story of one of our very different humans. Beautiful writing throughout. My only quibble was calling what was probably a sunbird 'hummingbird'. There are no hummingbirds outside the Americas.

A good solid read for those that like to read, not a first time novel to read or a casual reader in my opinion, requires some reflection and deep thought on the readers part, overall a great addition to my library.

'Imperium' exemplifies the beautiful harmony between the weird and the wonderful, the gorgeous and the grotesque. You'll be ripped from the present, thrown back to the past and catapulted to the future, all by the time you've completed all 200 wild pages of reading. Oh, and you might develop a slight aversion to coconuts.

Very nice. Great job. On time and excellent

An interesting device.

Superb book. This was a used hardback library book but in great condition. Thanks

I have never read a novel of this style: it plays no old tricks, makes up very few dialogues, and keeps its cool and penetrating remarks from the beginning to the end. And yet, embedded in the poetic sentences are penetrating comments on, and vivid metaphors of,the craziness of human kind.

Favorite book easy in the past few years. Heart of Darkness for hipsters!

A Excellent Read!! And the cover and jacket are beautiful!

boring