# Swimming inside the sun by David Zweig



## pancake (Nov 26, 2009)

Right, I am currently on page 66 so I thought I'd recommend this book now rather than later when I have read all of it and will find it even harder to resist quoting entire passages. I'd inadvertently ruin it for all of you.

Anyway, it is laugh out loud funny and the main character's thoughts and behaviours sound awfully familiar. I recently(ish) noticed an addition to the DP entry on wiki and it only just arrived today.

So, if you feel up to reading a novel about a struggling musician who (at lest up to page 66) is having himself a breakdown depersonalization style, you know it is great up to at least page 66. I'll let you know if I change my mind after reading the rest but I doubt I will.


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## pancake (Nov 26, 2009)

Here is how it begins: "I am not here. I know it seems like I'm here. But I am not."*

*Here is my micro-review from good reads:*
Swimming inside the sun by David Zweig turned out to be one of those books I just couldn't put down. The story chronicles a year in the life of musician Daniel Green, struggling to break out of a creative and personal funk.

I really enjoyed listening in on the main man's self-conscious, over-anxious thoughts. His daily life takes place on auto-pilot while he ruminates, philosophizing about his own nature and the mundane world around him, neither of which he is quite part of anymore. Those of you who are no strangers to the concept of depersonalization will be blown away by Zweig's apt descriptions of this peculiar stress response.

Dan's creative process and lack thereof had me in stitches all through this book. It recalled winters spent staring at my cameras, wanting so badly to take photos but leaving the images to fester in my mind instead until the spring sun saves me from my circadian ennui.

For a hero under the pressure of as yet unfulfilled potential who overuses the word phony: Go listen in on The Last Green's internal dialogue.

The author's page has some excerpts:
http://www.davidzweig.com/David_Zweig/Writing.html

* If you're obsessive about grammar you might not be too pleased with the stream-of-consciousness style writing throughout the book. I really enjoyed the blatant disregard for archaic grammatical rules.


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