Review: Listen

Listen
by Rene Gutteridge

Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois (2010)

'Where (or of what) one cannot speak, one must pass over in silence' (Wittgenstein)

'Xiphos titroskei soma, ton de noun logos' (Ancient Greek Proverbs)
The sword wounds the body, the word wounds the spirit.

The community of Marlo, a quiet village, go upside down when private conversations are posted on the web. So everyone knows the real thought of friends and neighbours, and grow troubles.
The web give the rules of a new morality: everyone have to restrain saying something that could hurt someone else.
'To hear people's private conversations ... it kind of lets you know who they really are. It's almost the only way to know who people really are. That's when their guard is down' p. 171-2

The shocking novel's start and the detective passages (where the police are close to find the person responsible of the posts in the web), in my opinion save this book from to put down.
'Listen' shortened of almost half pages would become a fast and readable book; many passages, useless, describe boring ordinary life.

Meredith: 'Can anyone hear me?' - 'Nobody answered' (p. XII). Sometimes no words wound the body.

Tyndale House Publishers has provided me with a complimentary copy of this book.