About this title: Part memoir, part lies, this imaginative tale is a story about loving a woman made of paper, about the wounds made by first love and sharp objects.
Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Description: Very Good. Great condition for a used book! Minimal wear. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Description: Very Good. 0156032112 23725 PB; spine smooth, text clean, cover has slight shelf wear-allow up to 21 business days for standard USPS media m a i l. wt1lbpf. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Harvest Books
Date Published: 2006
ISBN-13:9780156032117ISBN:0156032112
Description: New. Brand New! Buy with confidence-your satisfaction is guaranteed at B-Logistics! Due to the large scale of our operation, we do not have access to the specific contents/condition of our items. Please note that Expedited shipping is not available at this time. read more
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: Harvest Books
Date Published: 2006-11-13
ISBN-13:9780156032117ISBN:0156032112
Description: NEW. Softcover. From an inventory that is 100% brand-new, 100% direct from the publishers' distribution channel. We carry NO pre-owned, NO remaindered. We pack in CARDBOARD to ensure the pristine quality is maintained. (Bubble-wrap alone is NOT sufficient to protect from USPS equipment. ) Guaranteed brand-NEW, protected with CARDBOARD, your satisfaction is guaranteed. BKLUVID: 9780156032117. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Mcsweeney's
Date Published: 2005
ISBN-13:9781932416213ISBN:1932416218
Description: Very Good. Size: 18.88; 2005. Mcsweeney's. Hardcover. Minor edge and corner wear to cover. No store stamps, owner names, or other writings. No dust jacket. -printed cover. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: McSweeney's
Date Published: 2005-06-01
ISBN-13:9781932416213ISBN:1932416218
Description: Very Good. Save some $$$. Perfectly Good Reading Copy. No writing, no underlining, no highlighting. Not hardcover-original bound collectible manuscript. Front cover and first five pages have edge tears from handling. Facsimile copies of pages. Great Copy. Ships Lightning Fast. read more
Edition: First edition.
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Date Published: 2006
ISBN-13:9780747584179ISBN:0747584176
Description: New. No dust jacket as issued. Mint condition. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2006. First UK edition-first printing(10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1). Pictorial hardback(a couple of small nicks, creases and a scratch on the cover) in mint condition. No Dj, as issued. Illustrated with b/w drawings.245pp. First edition. read more
"People of Paper was interesting and magical, in the vein of Bless Me Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya but longer. The length was why I gave it a 4 not a 5, it said most of what it had to say 2/3 of the way through."
"Salvador Plascencia paints a picture of the most painful but beautiful world i have ever experienced. His abilitly to play with the very structure of the book as well as the words on the page (or black blobs of ink on the page) take you to another place. I hold this book near and dear. Though he is a new young author, he draws inpiration from solid authors such as Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Kurt Vonnegut, and he does it well. Don't listen to other when they tell you that this story is about a man that makes organs out of paper, it is definitely much more that that."
"This book has three parts. The first, a tale of the borderlands told with the same fabulousness that has been attributed novels of the Latin American Boom in the 1960s. In the second part, the hints of metafictionality from the first part tear through to the foreground, where the characters, the author, and the reader become engaged in a War declared against Saturn (explicitly a signifier for the author) and third-person omniscient narration. The third part resolves everything quite chaotically, and am not sure if I was satisfied with Plascencia's paper games. "The People of Paper" attempts to make it past our current literary moment, mired in "post-modernism," but I doubt that it made it through.
It is nonetheless a fun read, but only if you have a library card.
P.S. I've read a very interesting analysis on "The People of Paper" by Ramón Saldívar, a scholar on the literary imaginary of the borderlands, and author of "Chicano Narrative" and "The Borderlands of Culture." His basic argument was that when a minor character in "The People of Paper" (Smiley) encounters Salvador Plascencia (the author as character in the novel), the book takes on an irreversible shift toward parabasis and which represents a rupture that suggest a "post-postmodern, post-magical realist," in general a new direction in chicano narrative.
As above, I became bored with the book in the latter parts, where it takes on a very chaotic form. Saldívar addresses this response to the book, and believe that whatever literary historians excavate from "The People of Paper" will likely come from what Saldívar points out. But I will leave that to the scholars. I am interested in other things."
"Kind of a funny book here from the people at McSweeney's. I should disclose I am not normally a McSweeney's fan. I'm not sure if I just 'don't get it', I'm a few rungs down on the 'hip ladder' or what. This book is kind of like if Joe Meno's 'The Boy Detective Fails' met up with Charlie Kaufman's Adaptation and they had a love child. And then they would incessantly read '100 Years of Solitude' as bedtime stories. Said lovechild would probably write this book.
I'll get back to this book when Mr. Cormac McCarthy loosens his icy grip on my brain.
Recommended Soundtrack: The Beatles Wilco Mexican Love song crooning"
We guarantee every item's condition, as described on Alibris. If you are not satisfied that an item is as described, return your purchase for a refund.