This novel is a must read for both Gordimer fans and those new to her work. It addresses current concerns and takes the discussion of the disenfranchised to a totally different level. Gordimer brings her usual insight and compassion to both her subject and her protagonists.

I'm so aggravated right now. Like, why? Why didn't the author speak English? Why the short, clipped half sentences? Why no quote marks so we know when people are speaking? Why speak in riddles? There are so many questions. The biggest one is, why is everyone acting like this is genius?

Do you know what this reminds me of? It reminds me of those pretentious reading groups where people used to sit around talking about what this poet or that poet meant. Really, no one knew what they meant because it made no sense, but the dumbbells standing around felt intelligent pretending to understand it. I'm sorry, you can say I'm simply ignorant if you want, but I read TONS of books and this is crap. I will never trust the NY times again. They have done this to me before, leading me right into the pages of another boring book. Why do the stupidest people out there get to decide what's hot and what's not?

To illustrate, I'm going to write the above review in the same language as the book, just to give you an idea of what you'll be dealing with if you buy it:

Disappointment, shudders. Small fingers pinching your eyes out of your head. Blinding. Scorching. Misery. Tears. She slammed the book down in anger. Where was the justice? How much had she paid already? Well then, it was not so much.

Sigh.

at first it's weird, the omniscient-but-distant narrator, reporting everything like third-hand information, and i wondered why she chose to tell the story like that - why not jump into the lives of these two attractive and compelling characters, get into their heads and bed more -but then it starts to make a lot of sense, and ultimately it makes the story feel fresh and real and intimate without blundering into polemic or siding with either character or using their story to say something clumsy.

Product( the Pickup by Nadine Gordimer) in excellent condition and delivered on time. j. Reinecke

After reading the first few pages of "The Pickup", I was determined to reach it's conclusion. The story unfolds of two personalities that are as different as night and day. Here are two people who see the intimate workings of the world through two distinct sets of senses and whose common threads, rather than intertwine with each other's realities, run directly parallel to one another. Theirs is the story of two people who are using one another to fill a void that neither can fill because they are not grounded in the present with an eye toward the future but instead are reliving the past through each other, trying to circumvent the truths that eventually bring them to an awakening of what they are looking for in life. It's an insightful treatment of diversity in relationships that are more about codependency than they are about love.