Hux Book Blog 2025 (Spoilers)

[Hux]

In Love (1953) Alfred Hayes

 

A nameless middle-aged man meets a woman in a bar and proceeds to tell her about a doomed love affair he once experienced. The first and last chapter takes place in this bar while the rest of the book is his story. The woman he fell in love with was a young divorcee with a child and while things were going well for a while, she later meets a rich bloke called Howard who offers her money and so things take a turn. After that, it becomes a more adversarial relationship, the power dynamics and transactional nature of love an obvious theme in the book. People are often looking for different things and will manipulate the other in order to get them. This aspect aside, the book is an otherwise very basic story and I would argue the majority of your enjoyment will come from the writing style which Hayes has to offer. Some of it is quite beautiful, a kind of wispish romanticism that was common to the era (or a nostalgic version of this). I also got some flashbacks to the Great Gatsby, a sense of being out of time, lost in jazz music and the rise of burgeoning modernity. Some of the sentences whirl along, slither like snakes that never end, and Hayes clearly has a penchant for the decorous and poetic.
 

'All I knew, really, was that she had taken away with her when she had gone something which in the past had held me together, some necessary sense of myself, something without which I seemed in danger of collapsing; and whatever it was, an indispensable vanity, an irreplaceable idea of my own invulnerability, it was gone and only she could restore it to me, or so I thought.

It's a nice little novella, a little on the lightweight side (too much to be truly great), but it's very well-written. I wish I could say I loved it more than I actually did but the truth is, I was always slightly uninterested in the actual story. If I ever read this again, however, I would almost certainly ignore the story and focus my attention on the writing which is occasionally fluid and lyrical, and something that reaches genuine heights of sumptuous, liquid prose. My first reading is usually focused on the plot and characters, neither of which especially grabbed me here, so I only mildly enjoyed it. But the second reading, whenever I get around to it, ought to be a far more rewarding experience. A nice little gem that's definitely worth your time. 

 

7/10

 

 

Edited March 8 by Hux

[Hux]

The Gorse Trilogy (1952/53/55) Patrick Hamilton

 

I've always been a big fan of Patrick Hamilton's work and have enjoyed all of his books. Sadly, this one (actually three novels squeezed into one) was a bit of a letdown. Similar to 20,00 Streets Under The Sky, the three novels have been turned into one because they focus on the same characters. In this instance, just one character, the rather marvellous Ralph Ernest Gorse. He is a cad and a bounder, almost certainly a high functioning psychopath, and the three novels follow his nefarious exploits. The biggest problem with the novels is that they're essentially the same story told three times. Gorse meets a woman, manipulates and seduces her, then swindles her life savings.

The West Pier (1952)

This is by far the best of the three. This one actually feels more like a novel and provides early chapters about his childhood, his school days, and his early forays into criminality. The book eventually jumps ahead to when Gorse is a young man of 18 and living in Brighton. Here, with two of his friends (Ryan and Bell), they meet Esther and Gertrude. Esther is beautiful and likes Ryan and vice versa. But Gorse is more confident, asking her out while Ryan falters, and she is prone (one of the themes of the book) to be impressed by Gorse being upper middle-class and educated. She is even more impressed by his sexually secure nature, his indifference, his apparent sophistication. And yet she finds Ryan more physically attractive. She begins to date both these young men before Gorse manipulates her into viewing Ryan as a threat. It's a rather lightweight story but does a good job of setting up the character of Gorse. Otherwise, it's a little meandering and quaint, never really going anywhere that interesting (we already know that Gorse is a con-man and is going to fleece her). Hamilton clearly has a certain venom for beautiful girls who place great importance in men who exhibit higher class, status, education. The book is very dated in that sense, everyone obsessed with their rank in the social order. Esther allows herself to be seduced by a man who is less attractive to her than Ryan purely because he combines high status with self-assurance. Had this book been written today, it would probably focus on women and their noted attraction to the bad-boy. Gorse has just enough danger about him to make him more intriguing than Ryan. And she comes across as ultimately naive and even a little complicit in her own downfall.

The book is very readable and by far the best of these three. There is an exuberance in the characters, a youthful excitement that permeates, even from the cold and aloof Gorse who openly acknowledges that he's new to the game of confidence trickery. We're essentially seeing him learn his trade. I was enjoying reading this but was a little disappointed by the damp squib ending. It all felt a little inconsequential. 

Mr. Stimpson and Mr. Gorse (1953)

Literally more of the same here. Gorse is now a little older and residing in Reading. He takes on the character of a first world war veteran and focuses his attention on an older woman named Mrs Plumleigh-Bruce. She also has the attention of a man named Stimpson (hence the title) but he is, it seemed to me, somewhat insignificant to events. And so yeah, we get more of the same. This time it's a betting swindle (rather than a car in the first book) and it goes along almost identically, with all the same beats, and all the same outcomes. I really didn't get much from this.

Unknown Assailant (1955)

Then finally a much shorter novel (a third of the other two) which has yet another identical set-up. Gorse is now over thirty and seduces a barmaid called Ivy. Very much the same story as before though this time Gorse passes himself off as nobility and goes by the name The Honourable Gerald Claridge. I was really struggling with this one and found it quite dull. There is a slight opportunity to touch on Gorse's sexuality (he likes to tie women up) which also had a brief mention in the first book where he does this to a little girl. But it never really goes anywhere and Hamilton only allows himself to hint and nudge. So we basically just get more of the same here.

I love Hamilton's writing but these final novels didn't quite live up to what had gone before. The West Pier is the best of the three and worth reading but the others can be skipped (unless you want the full character study). Some of his writing (especially in The West Pier) is lovely, very smooth and accomplished, but there are times when it feels like he could have removed so much. For example, in The West Pier there's a whole section where Ryan gets stood up by Esther so Gertrude arrives to tell him and they spend an evening playing arcade games. This adds almost nothing and despite being fun to read, by the end of the book, you do wonder why he wasted time on this, and many other intricate niceties. I suppose it helps to build the world but It's all for the sake of a rather basic story. Anyway, I enjoyed the first book (a little) but found the second two less interesting. Hamilton's writing is always good but the content is ultimately very slight in my opinion. Never mind. 

 

7/10

 

 

Edited March 8 by Hux

[Hux]

The Crying of Lot 49 (1966) Thomas Pynchon 

Imagine taking lots of LSD and waking up in an episode of the Monkees. Then imagine how banal this is. 

A woman named Oedipa (everyone has a wacky name) is informed that she is the executor of the estate of a past lover (Pierce Invararity... see, wacky) and so she travels to L.A and meets a lawyer called Metzger (a former child star) and they watch a movie that happens to be on TV which starred the young Metzger. Then they have sex. I don't know why. She's married but hey, it's the sixties. Oh, and there's a band called The Paranoids who constantly turn up (hey, hey, we're the Paranoids, and people say we Paranoid around). Have I mentioned that it's the sixties? You'd never guess from reading this book that it's the sixties. Wanna smoke some dope and take some LSD and watch a documentary about Timothy Leary?

Sadly, after a while, I completely lost interest in all of this cartoonish nonsense. I was suddenly reminded of A Confederacy of Dunces and had that awful feeling that I was supposed to find this book immensely funny (certainly funnier than it actually is). To be fair, I enjoyed the first two chapters and thought the writing was inventive and fluid. But the story is just so dull and gradually becomes more (deliberately) obscure and incoherent. We start to delve into secret societies and perpetual motion devices and insane, screeching therapists. None of this was entertaining to me. It was just zany, psychedelic paranoia... of a very 1960s brand. You'd be better off just listening to Lucy in the sky with Diamonds. Or sniffing glue and staring at a picture of Mickey Dolenz.

All the way through, you get the impression that Pynchon himself is deliriously paranoid and drowning in the (heavily dated, my groovy cat) conspiracy theories of the day. Some of this is interesting, the investigation of whether your life is in you hands or influenced, even controlled, by outside forces, this particular anxiety ridden notion very much present in the idea of the secret mail service that works in opposition to the actual mail service. But honestly, no philosophical debate can be adequately explored in such a disposable form of art. Not for me, anyway. And the biggest issue I had, as always, is that it just isn't very fun to read (the story more so than the prose). There's something interesting at the heart of the piece but it feels exaggerated, malformed, and extremely dated. I can imagine hippies and counter culture liberals loving this (oh God, is that why Pynchon is such a hipster's wet dream?). But I found most of it overwrought and contrived, almost like an inadvertent parody of postmodern literature. It's just not that good, kids. I don't care how groovy this cat is. It's well-written gibberish, like that acid infused episode of the Monkees. Reading this has convinced me to put Gravity's Rainbow on the back burner indefinitely. I don't care how groovy you dig on this guy, I ain't no square and this just ain't outta sight.

 

4/10

 

 

Edited March 10 by Hux

[Hux]

The Panopticon (2012) Jenni Fagan

 

The story of a young 15-year-old girl called Anais. The book opens with her being taken by the police to a care home called The Panopticon after engaging in a potentially violent act that has resulted in a policewoman being put into a coma. She meets the other residents and staff and what follows is a rather straight-forward YA novel about an angry teen girl who is coming to terms with her circumstances whilst waiting to see if the policewoman recovers and if there's any evidence to convict her. A brief google of Fagan would suggest that this is very strongly autobiographical. 

I mean, it was fine. I can't say I enjoyed it that much and there were large periods where it felt like something very specifically aimed at teenagers. It just didn't have any meaningful substance to it, any progression, and was very dialogue heavy and prone to drag and repeat itself. The major problem for me was that Anais is just angry all the way through, an angst-ridden girl who is always on the defensive, always with her guard up, always swearing and unwilling to trust anyone. It makes sense given the context of her life but it isn't necessarily fun to read. There's no growth to her character, no sense that she's developing as a human, it's just relentless moodiness and sulking. This is fine for a while but eventually you get bored of it. The book might have been better off had it been narrated by Anais from a later date, as an adult, when she had a more mature outlook. Or if the book covered a larger period of her life. But instead, it's just teensy angst and cocky belligerence to the end. 

Then we come to a little bugbear of mine. Why are Scottish writers under the impression that they're the only people on earth who possess an accent? No, seriously. Why? There are countless places in England alone where people have a very strong (certainly much stronger than Scottish), almost indecipherable accent, but they rarely fetishise these in literature the way the Scottish do. It's not that bad here, the occasional 'disnae, umnay, arnay, radge,' etc but I just tire of this bizarre, almost nationalistic notion that dialect is somehow unique to them. Give it a hmmming rest! This is clearly designed for the benefit of the English and American reading audience (after all, why would Scottish people even need to read their own accent? Do people actually hear their own accents? No, which is precisely why you know it's performative, deliberately heightened or exaggerated for purely self-indulgent reasons). Anyway, it's a small gripe I've always had but it irritates me.

Otherwise, the book is fine. It's mostly an easy to read little story. Give it to your angry teen daughter or something. But I wasn't exactly enamoured and I doubt I'll think about the book much beyond this review.  

 

6/10

[Hux]

The Piano Teacher (1983) Elfriede Jelinek

 

Sooner or later, most men (who date for long enough) will encounter women who want very rough sex. They'll want you to smack them, choke them, and often humiliate them. As a man, you'll find this all very odd and wonder what motivated such a desire but will, ultimately, not care that much. After all, you're getting sex and that's your priority. Sure, it will cross your mind that she has some kind of mental health issue, a childhood trauma, maybe even a severely damaged personality. But (certainly in the modern age) you'll eventually come to the conclusion that it's none of your business. We've been told not to kink shame after all (especially not to kink shame women), told that women are, in fact, enormously empowered and know precisely what they want. I first met one of these women in my thirties and being a good postmodern boy of left-leaning opinion, I never bothered to pursue why she wanted to be treated this way (though a few conversations with her definitely lead me to conclude that it was probably connected to her father). Anyway... the point is I didn't care. Whatever complex psychological turmoil and inner journey you are on, we are not intimate enough for me to take that into account. There's your problem.

Erika Kohut (The Piano Teacher), is not of this variety, however; she is VERY overtly this way inclined because of the relationship she has with her overbearing mother. Jelinek makes no bones about this, and the book opens with, and continues to the halfway point, focusing on this co-dependent relationship. Since childhood, Erika's mother has controlled her entire existence and after her father was shipped off to the lunatic asylum, this dominance only exacerbates. Erika was destined to be a great pianist and the pressure of this expectation has taken its toll not only on her talent but also on her personality. She is now reduced to being a teacher, already in her late thirties, the promise of greatness realistically gone but still cherished by her mother so that it can never quite die. As such Erika has become a malformed woman, a disastrous and abnormal soul incapable of developing as a person ought to. She has no meaningful life, no friends, and has acquired a taste for voyeurism in the shape of peep shows and porn. She also deliberately takes large instruments on public transport with her so that she can bump into people without them getting too upset. She stands on their feet so they can blame other people. She's a mess. 

Then comes the sexual relationship with one of her younger students, Walter Klemmer, and here she finds an opportunity for release. But again, it's a malformed release and not really an expression of love of sexual desire. After their initial sexual encounter (in a toilet like all good first sexual encounters should be) she writes letters to him giving him instructions to beat her, abuse her, and generally humiliate her. At first glance, this is a straight-forward expression of her pent-up sexual need but as I said at the beginning, this doesn't really cover it. What Erika really wants is control but she makes the mistake of trying to attain that control by telling him to be physically violent towards her (therefore implying that he is actually the one in control). This isn't really about sex for Erika, but rather a deformed search for love and connection that she doesn't fully know how to grasp. She isn't one of those women I mentioned at the start who take a genuine sexual pleasure from masochism but instead she feels no sexual pleasure at all. She barely feels anything. In this regard, I don't think the book is that interesting because it spoon feeds her obvious psychological trauma to you. There is very little grey area here, Erika is simply seeking answers, meaning, human experiences, control, but doesn't know how. Even as she watches people having sex, her bodily response is not arousal but a need to urinate. Truth be told, she doesn't really understand sex. The relationship with Klemmer, therefore, is her only means of control but it backfires (quite understandably) because she inadvertently opened a door to an entirely different experience. 

The book and its characters are interesting. But ultimately, I did not enjoy the book. For me, it was the writing. Jelinek employs a strange third person narration which is far too cold and aloof. A book like this, with such a tormented protagonist, would be far more interesting (and insightful) with a first person narration. I would love to have known what Erika was actually thinking. But we get this flat, rather dull third person instead. Plus the narration itself is just so detached, almost like a robot or a visiting alien is describing the odd behaviours of humans with very metallic and autistic language. I found it almost unbearable to read in truth. It was dense and thick and always remote. This is tricky to pull off without the relief of some highly exquisite prose which Jelinek (and perhaps the translator) don't really have access to. It was so heavy and dull to me, to such an extent that great portions of it were very boring, spoiling what is an otherwise fascinating character study. Worth a read but not a book I can honestly say I enjoyed.

 

5/10

 

 

 

 

Edited March 16 by Hux

[Hux]

The Glamour (1984) Christopher Priest

 

This book has slightly melted my brain and left me wondering who I am. No seriously, I'm looking into a mirror wondering... who is that?

I came across this book whilst looking at a YouTube Video talking about The Magus by John Fowles (apparently Priest was so impressed by that book he gave up writing for a while). Eventually, he went back to writing and dedicated himself to trying to create something in the same philosophical vein. And he really did achieve it (I will definitely be seeking out more of his work after this). 

The book begins with a man named Richard Grey, a freelance cameraman, who is in hospital in Devon recovering from a car bomb (implied to be the IRA) which has killed several and injured many (Richard perhaps the most lucky of these survivors). He is undergoing physiotherapy and has regular meetings with two doctors regarding both his physical health but, more importantly, the amnesia which he is experiencing. Richard has lost any recollection of the few weeks, maybe a couple of months, of his life just prior to the bomb. Then, at the request of the tabloid newspaper that is paying for Richard's story, a woman named Sue visits him. He has no idea who she is but it is implied that they were lovers during this lost period. After spending some time with her, and, more specifically, after undergoing hypnotherapy with doctor Hurdis and his assistant (a disturbing yet important piece of the book), Richard feels as though he is regaining some snapshots of his lost life. The book then switches to his first person narration as he pieces together their first meeting in France. He and Sue met on the train and began to spend time together though she had a boyfriend that she' was going to see in the south of France named Niall who was abusive and controlling. She can't break it off with him but nonetheless agrees to meet up with Richard again later.

Back in the present day (and back to third person narration), Richard and Sue begin seeing each other again. On a visit to his flat they are talking and he tells her that some of his memories have been coming back. He tells her, for instance, about remembering how they met in France on the train, the ordeal with Niall, making love in the hotel. At this point, Sue looks at him in confusion and says:... 'I have never been to France.'

Not long after this, we finally get an explanation of what 'The Glamour' is. This is where the book really ramps things up and, to be honest, I'm not sure it's possible to explain anything more without spoiling the book. Suffice it to say, things get very weird and we finally get Sue's version of events (back to first person narration) of how she and Niall first met Richard in a pub in London. The less you know, the more you will enjoy this book and I would definitely recommend going in cold to truly get the most from it. So that's all I can really say without giving away too much. But I would just like to add that this book, unquestionably, contains the most hmmmed up and mind-bending sex scene I've ever come across in literature. Just utterly bizarre, hmmmed up, and yet mesmerising! 

This whole thing is a magnificent piece of work. I couldn't believe how well-paced it was. You get third person narration which is gripping. Then it switches to first person and we get a new perspective, new information. Then back to third. Then Sue's first person perspective. All wonderfully unreliable. And all the while Priest writes in a manner that is so beautifully smooth and wonderful to read, the book combining an intriguing story with immensely enticing prose. It's never challenging but effective in moving things along and pulling the reader in all manner of directions, all of which demand answers without ever making them feel too immediate. Priest knows how to tease the audience just enough. And at the end, there are so many instances where the strange little things he included suddenly start to make sense. I absolutely LOVE philosophical books about how we define reality, ourselves, memory, existence, and this book truly lives up to that. It bewilders and bamboozles, plays with the reader, and opens so many doors that will leave you wondering what the hell just happened. It is so cleverly done. Even how we define fiction itself is being toyed with here.

And the ending, like all great fiction, allows you to ponder the implications. There are no answers, only more questions. All interpretations are valid (I have my own). If you want the book to be a straight-forward sci-fi story then it can be but that removes a lot of its power if you ask me. If you don't and prefer to see it as an existential novel (and I do), it works even better. I spent the whole book wondering, anticipating, how ambiguous Priest would allow the ending to be, and pleasingly he leaves the door wide open for all these outcomes to be available. I am very much of the opinion that this is an existential novel which entirely takes place in the real world. There is no sci-fi here, no magic. But that's just me. The truth, however, is that I can never know for sure. That's it's beauty.

It's a masterpiece! 

 

10/10

 

 

 

 

[Hux]

The Edges (2025) Angelo Tijssens

 

This was strangely romantic, sad, and sorrowful all at the same time. It's also short and sweet. You're in and then you're out.

A man returns to his seaside town to deal with the aftermath of his mother's recent death. He uses this opportunity to reconnect with an old boyfriend and they agree to meet at the boyfriend's house and spend some time together. There's a storm outside and the men very quickly reminisce and re-ignite old feelings, sit by the fire, and change from their wet clothes to dry clothes. From this point on, the chapters switch between their evening together and the narrator's childhood memories of his abusive and neglectful mother. The book is very easy to read and very slight. In fact, it's almost ethereal, wistful, the writing almost feeling like it's floating in and out of your consciousness on a faint breeze. I found it rather lovely and compelling. 

But there's not much more to the book. The whole thing goes by very softly, almost whimsically and dreamlike, yet always retaining a bitter taste in the memories of his confused childhood and his mother's behaviour. He also explores his nascent sexual encounters in youth (many of which have an element of abuse and coercion to them) as well as the relationship he had with the man he's visiting (more tender and respectful). These flights of fancy are full of nostalgia and deep feeling, and there's always a sense of past trauma defining aspects of his modern life. He wants desperately to connect to this past lover but can't seem to, their comfort with one another also possessing a divide. All the while the book conjures up a solitude in its atmospheric scene, the narrative always beautifully windswept and coastal, full of endless rain, the gentle tapping of it against the windows, and his lover's dog sleeping by the fire as they discuss the past. It was enormously effective and manifested a slow Sunday feeling as I read it, the small town, the sea, the-middle-of-nowhere quality, the northern European landscape. It was very real, tangible, evocative, even sensual. The ending provided yet another reminder that modernity and Western civilisation is becoming increasingly isolated and lonely. We sure done screwed things up on that score. 

Ultimately, this is a short novel about loneliness and heartache. About regret and sorrow. It takes five minutes to read but is very charming and human. I would definitely recommend it as a pleasant form of escape. The writing has stream-of-consciousness aspects but it's so light and dreamy that you don't notice. Despite being very slight and delicate, I enjoyed it a lot.

 

8/10

[Hux]

Akenfield (1969) Ronald Blythe

 

I picked this up thinking it was a novel (the front cover suggests a quaint story of sleepy English village life). Instead, I found a work of non-fiction albeit with elements of fiction in some aspects of the presentation. In many ways, it's like a documentary but in book form. Ronald Blythe essentially interviewed Suffolk farming folk in the mid to late sixties and wrote down what they said. For all I know, he may have simply recorded them and transcribed that they said word for word; but as I say, there is a definite feeling of creative license being employed here (Akenfied itself is a fictitious place and there is drama based on the book which further embellished the piece). I'm not sure what the objective was here for Blythe, to simply record the voices and experiences of a people who were quite noticeably dying out as modernity continued to march on. Maybe nothing more than that. Anyway, we get some facts and statistics along the way, dates, events, historical changes, then we get the thoughts of individual villagers and the various farm workers, people who have jobs that no longer exist (thatcher, bell ringer, malting worker, farrier, wheelwright, saddler, gravedigger etc). Plus a great many people who were directly or indirectly affected by the two world wars (and a few eccentrics thrown in for good measure too). 

This is a book which records not only a time and a place that is gone but also a place even further back in time which only the very elderly residents can now recall. Blythe seems to recognise that we are losing something, a way of life, a variety of traditions, and before it dies off entirely it ought to be captured, remembered, discussed, before all tangible traces of it (the people) have long vanished. As such the book always feels very sad, romantic, with a theme of hardship and melancholy running through it. England, (Western civilisation itself) has left behind a way of life that has existed for centuries and is being forgotten too easily. Each of the characters give their insights and opinions, some fascinating, some parochial, but it's all in service of a desperately pitiable past, both romanticised or despised, which is leaving us. I found it hard not to sympathise with the general sense of sorrow which comes from the speakers. One of the prominent themes, of course, is religion.

Gregory Gladwell 44 blacksmith

I have a tendency to be like Charles Bradlaugh, who was a Suffolk man. I am not an atheist but I have strong views about politics and the Church. Bradlaugh wasn't against Church, he was against the set-up. I'm against the set-up. But I think it was an extremely good thing that religion should be accepted as the saviour pf civilisation. So I think it right that it should be carried on, If you forsake religion, it's back to the savages. This is what is happening now.

Meanwhile there is a great deal of debate about marriage and children, the need to rush into such matters less urgent than it was in the old days, the responsibilities of so many children a daunting prospect for the young of the day (there is some brief mention of the transformative development of the contraceptive pill but this issue is mostly viewed from an angle of cultural change). 

Terry Lloyd 21 pig farmer

The village girls like to get married very young but the boys don't. Many of the boys don't want to marry until they are about thirty, although plenty of them have to long before then. I have a friend whose girl made all the running before they were wed, now he has to beg for it.

Similarly, the book doesn't shy away from the less pleasant aspects of the past either. One of the most fascinating chapters comes towards the end of the book and concerns the law and its relationship with the villagers and farm workers. Here we discover various disturbing stories including one of a group of boys who have been molested by a man with some degree of learning difficulties and they need to get one of the boys to admit to what happened in order to convict him. Despite his reticence (due to the shameful nature of it), they eventually convince him to speak. But it's all rather parochial and tolerated -- as though this is just what life consists of and we should address it accordingly. In this casual vein, we get a rather chilling account from the woman tasked with dealing with the legalities of the people's relationships and how best to deal with them when it comes to children. 

Mrs Annersley 55 magistrate

There was more incest in the past and it was always fathers and daughters, never brothers and sisters. It happened when mother had too many children, or when mother was ill, or when mother was dead. And very often it didn't matter a bit. The daughter usually proved to be very fond of the father and there would be no sign of upset in the family. No, I think it was quite an understood thing that a daughter would take on the father when the mother was ill or dead.

Yikes! You will often hear conservatives tell you that we had better morals in the past because of religion but I'm not sure that argument is very convincing when more closely scrutinised. Today things look bad but that's probably because we're actively looking for unacceptable behaviours in a way that wasn't previously done. That being said, I sympathise with the general themes of the book, the lament of a simpler time when life had more certainty, greater boundaries, and a general sense of purpose. It would be silly to ignore the bad aspects of the past entirely but nonetheless I believe we have indeed lost something of value, a greater communal environment certainly, a world that is confined and limited (often for our own benefit). People find it counter-intuitive to acknowledge this, to want less choice, less freedom, less opportunity, but the truth is such things can often provide a greater degree of stability and significantly higher opportunities for contentment. 

The whole book is a fascinating look at a time that (even when the book was published) was fading away. We now have another additional 60 years to add on to that ever increasing distance. These people are far away from us now, almost caricatures and myths, and I think it's worth occasionally thinking of them with some degree of respect and nostalgia. It's worth remembering the world we had, what we have gained and lost. Reading some of the interviews is enlightening to say the least. Some are more interesting than others and the book certainly doesn't possess any kind of plot or chronological progress. I would not describe it as a page turner but it's certainly a unique perspective into the past and definitely worth a look.

An eye opening document of a world that is long gone yet still disturbingly within reach.  

 

7/10

[Hux]

An Instance of the Fingerpost (1997) Iain Pears

I can't remember where I heard about this one but it seemed like a fun historical, murder mystery romp that would distract me with an enjoyable escapist yarn. Sadly, I very quickly lost interest in the thing (around the first third). I can't say it's badly written or anything, but it's very formulaic, the kind of book that you might find at an airport masquerading as literary fiction (everything else does so why not this?). Despite being reasonably easy to read, it just didn't hold my attention at all. Again, not badly written for this kind of genre and, for those who enjoy such things, probably a satisfactory and competent example of it. But it wasn't my cup of tea.

The book takes place in 1663 and is narrated by several people, all of whom are giving details of the same event from different perspectives (the death of Robert Groves and the arrest of Sarah Blundy as chief suspect). It begins with Marco de Cola, an Italian whose father has business interests in England where he travels. He finds himself in Oxford and, as an amateur physician, is greatly interested in the role of blood within the human body. He theorises that transfusion of a young person's blood to an old person will invigorate the older person. He meets Richard Lower and Robert Boyle (there are real people from history incorporated into the story) and with Lower he explains his theories and together they convince a young woman named Sarah Blundy (whose mother is ill) to give her blood to her mother as treatment. Not long after this a man named Groves dies and foul play is suspected (poison) and the chief suspect appears to be Sarah. I mostly enjoyed this first section of the book but was slightly baffled by the abrupt ending (it concludes with Cola leaving for Italy) only to realise that his section (at least his narration of events) were entirely over. 

Then comes the next instalment, this time we get the perspective of the disgraced Jack Prescott, son of a civil war traitor, his version of events evidently different from de Cola's in various ways, and this is where I was essentially done with the book (which is a shame because there was still a long way to go... the book is way too long!). After this we get another version of events (this time from John Wallis) which was the least satisfying part because he basically portrays de Cola as a scoundrel and a liar, re-imagining him into an entirely different person. I understand that these manuscripts all offer differing perspectives on purpose (it's part of the mosaic that ends with a twist) but given that de Cola was the only character I actually liked, it was not very enjoyable to see him suddenly turned into a villain, this portrayal jarring with what the opening section had provided. Again, I suppose it's the point, but my interest in the murder mystery aspect was already thin to begin with. After this, we get the events as told by Anthony Wood (probably the most revealing... if you still care at this point), but I was skim reading and ready to call it a day. You get a twist at the end (because of course you do) but the problem is it's entirely dependent upon you caring about the previous interpretations of events rather than the facts provided and the people encountered. The trouble I had is that I didn't care about those aspects. And if the narrator's are all highly unreliable (or at the least very conveniently leaving out vital aspects of the story) then the whole thing feels a little dishonest and requires that you invest in a story that is always changing. By this point, like I said, I simply didn't care who did the murder. It could have been Oliver Cromwell and I wouldn't have cared. Fundamentally, I think you have to enjoy this kind of genre to get the most out of it.  

Again, I can't say the book is bad. Of this particular genre, it's probably a pretty good standard, but it's not something I generally like to read (especially when it fails to grab me). I only read it because I occasionally want something light and formulaic, some escapist nonsense that might be fun to read. The murder mystery meant nothing to me so I was left judging it by the characters and writing and I found neither especially compelling. The book is a standard genre piece with concise and rather prosaic prose, a style of writing that does not challenge or elevate, and characters that are purely there in service of pushing the plot along. This one just didn't pull me in (or more precisely didn't keep me pulled in) and I wasn't remotely invested (beyond my enjoyment of de Cola at the start and his ideas regarding blood transfusion).

It's fine. Just not for me.

 

6/10

 

Edited March 31 by Hux

[France]

I read  this about 20 year ago and remember it as being long and a bit of a slog.  Ian Pears is much admired for his historical fiction and I'm not sure why, there are loads of authors who are better than him in the ability to draw you into a different time and a different mind set, above all are better story tellers.

[Hux]

Seiobo There Below (2008) Laszlo Krasnahorkai 

 

I have always struggled with Krasznahorkai. Even when I like him, even when I acknowledge his ability to produce exquisite prose, bleak landscapes, and fascinating characters, I have never really enjoyed reading him. This is generally something that I can put to one side when he gives me the dark, almost post-apocalyptic atmosphere of Satantango or The Melancholy of Resistance, but when he goes on these modern or ancient tangents, I find it rather unbearable. War and War was a real nightmare of uninteresting meandering stream-of-consciousness and this... well, this was probably the least I've ever enjoyed his work. Which is strange because this is essentially a collection of short stories, loosely related vignettes, under the umbrella of a wider theme. And I hated it.

Maybe I only noticed it this time around (or maybe he utilised this particular technique more overtly here) but the sentences that never end became very tiresome. For Christ's sake, use a full stop from time to time, Laszlo. And can we dispense with the walls of text for a while? It serves what purpose, illuminates what aspect, elevates which ideas? Then we have the almost fetishisitc use of the em-dash for interrupted thought which is just relentless. It reminded me of that criticism of the German language made by Mark Twain where he points out that in German the word 'de-parted' can be interrupted by swathes of flowery language before the reader even knows what conclusion is coming ("The trunks now being ready he DE... after kissing his mother and sisters, and once pressing to his bosom his adored Gretchen, who, dressed in simple white muslin, with a single tuberose in the ample folds of her rich brown hair had tottered feebly down the stairs....[insert yet more language here]... whom she loved more dearly than life itself... PARTED.") What if it isn't the word departed? What if it's de-stroyed or de-fenestrated? You have to read all the waffle before you get to the verb, to the fundamental part which provides any context. At which point, you've read so much without any clarification that you have to go back and start again. I do not enjoy reading without context and there's a lot of that here.

As for the content itself, as I said, it's a variety of stories (each more boring than the last) which really do test your patience. It starts with a bird, then a painting, then a wooden statue of Buddha, then a man wearing tap dancing shoes who's being followed. By this point, I was sincerely struggling to care. I found the writing strangely dull, forced, and inauthentic. There was another story about a guy in Greece. And one about a security guard at the Louvre but I found it almost painful to keep reading any of it. At no point can you say that the writing is bad, it's just overly stylised and designed to be challenging for its own sake. This seems to be deliberate and, dare I say it, performative. I have a theory: The more accessible literature becomes in the modern world (a thousand books published per day), the more we instinctively want to celebrate horrible and unpleasant writing as the most meaningful because it's difficult and challenging. We kid ourselves that this means it's good, at the very least means that it stands out against all that countless drivel and mediocrity which is suspiciously easy to read and overwhelms the bookshops now. Even worse, it results in the genuinely mediocre writing of people like Jon Fosse. We so desperately want literature to be significant, to be more than just...  a story about a thing... that we encourage writers to go down this road, to appeal to the coffee shop hipsters who conflate obscurity with high status, and create a swamp of repetition and dense language which is deliberately unpleasant to read because we think this must demonstrate complexity. Maybe that's true for Fosse but for someone with genuine talent like Krasznahorkai, I think it only serves to make him squander his obvious talent.

I wish writers like Krasznahorkai would stop trying so hard. I don't need literature to define my personality or provide me with a new philosophical outlook on existence. I don't need you to be a prophet or a sage. 

I just want you to write something beautiful.

I hated this.

 

3/10

 

 

 

Edited April 4 by Hux

[Hux]

A Canticle For Leibowitz (1959) Walter. M Miller

 

I didn't know much about this book going in beyond the fact that it was a post-apocalyptic story. It had quite an impact on me though.

Part One is set 500 years after a nuclear war and revolves around a 17-year-old monk named Brother Francis who inadvertently comes across a fallout shelter from the old world which may or may not contain relics from the order's founder, Leibowitz (a man who survived the war and later established the abbey). There is much discussion and excitement about these documents and as the years go by many people visit the abbey to investigate what has been found. Later, Brother Francis takes these documents to New Rome where the pope has agreed to make Leibowitz a saint. Part Two jumps ahead another 500 years. City states have developed, agriculture, warring clans, while the abbey continues to protect the relics. A religious scholar, Thon Taddeo, is sent from Texarkana to the abbey to examine the relics. Here he discovers that one of the young monks has already invented an electric light. Thon Taddeo believes he can advance upon this work. Part Three jumps ahead another 500 years and now civilisation is exploring space and using nuclear technology to colonise planets. The two major factions (the Asian Coalition and the Atlantic Confederacy) are experiencing a cold war having both previously engaged in nuclear attacks. War threatens to explode again and so the monk, Zerchi, advises some of his brothers to take the relics and leave earth before the inevitable nuclear war begins. And sure enough, nuclear war follows. 

It's hard to review this book. I thought it was genuinely quite profound and powerful in its exploration of a human condition which is repetitious by nature, endlessly looping, our inevitable descent into regurgitating old experiences being beyond our control. Not to mention the fact that the book does this over such a vast period of time, reiterating our transient speck-like insignificance. Truth be told, I think it's a waste of time to warn about the dangers of repeating history because, as a species, we need to accept that this is precisely what we are always destined to do. What are the alternatives? Do we really think we're progressing towards something? I personally don't think so. And while Miller isn't clear one way or the other, he nonetheless allowed his cynicism to become almost tangible. The book has such an enormous scope. It's hard not to find it moving, impressive, exquisite. These three time periods demonstrate how unremarkable we are and yet equally how eternal. It's a clever idea, beautiful even, and, for the most part, it is executed very effectively. I was reminded of an episode of Star Trek Voyager (Blink of an Eye) where they encounter a planet where time moves faster than the rest of space. We initially see the planet's inhabitants as primitive people, then return to the ship. Then ten minutes later, we return to the planet to see that they're now more advanced and have developed new technologies. We return to the ship again. Ten minutes later we return to the planet to see that they're now on the verge of space exploration. It's fun to watch this whole world develop before your eyes. This book has the same feature but expanded and with greater depth.

That all being said, however, the book isn't perfect and shares similar problems to all books that have disparate sections. Namely the fact that I really enjoyed part one and the simplicity of the post-apocalyptic environment and the character of brother Francis but had to leave all that behind and move on to new characters and environments for part two -- that can be jarring. In this instance, I didn't really care for part two and felt that the book slowed down quite significantly. Likewise, by the time you get to part three, Miller doesn't really have the time to flesh out his world or his characters (enough to make you care about them), and so it feels a little disjointed and hollow. If you read the three pieces as stand alone stories, the second and third would be found a little wanting. But when you put all three together, it does take on a more profound quality. And I acknowledge that. I also disliked the wandering Jew character and felt his (supernatural) presence slightly took away from the piece. 

Yet despite the fact that there are parts of the book that drag, where the writing is often a little dry, the overall idea of the piece -- its immense timescale and profound themes -- is enormously powerful. It's hard not to be moved by it, to sit back in awe at the magnificent cynicism of Miller's conclusions about mankind and find it all rather... well, beautiful. 

The book definitely resonated with me. And I will be thinking about its implications for a while. But ultimately, I came to the conclusion that the idea of the book is probably a little more impressive than the book itself.

 

7/10

[Hux]

Perfection (2025) Vincenzo Latronico

There was a British sitcom in 2005 called Nathan Barley, created by the brilliant Chris Morris, which focused on the emergence of the internet hipster, a clownish nightmare of performative cool in the face of ennui and pointlessness all while using modern parlance and consuming the newest, most pointless products whilst espousing safe opinions but packaging them as edgy. In his own words he was 'a self-facilitating media node.' This is what we have here, but in book form, only it uses a third person narration to colour the dead-behind-the-eyes lives of its expats protagonists, Tom and Anna, and forces their relationship to embody a more up-to-date version of this awful type of vacuous human. With added likes, subscribers, and boredom. 

Latronico laments (via this flimsy neo-liberal, Berlin based couple) the banal aspects of being bored, comfortable, and safe; of being middle-class people living in the West and engaging with all the right-on facilities, opinions, and technology. He hits all the obvious targets with accuracy and (necessary) venom, but it's nothing new and that's the problem with the book, all his targets are easy -- tediously so. They range from the monotonous lifestyle of eating avocado on toast, coffee shops, internet culture, social media, and the endless consumption of digestible left-wing opinions and branding which, under the slightest scrutiny, are bland and performative, possessing no real bite or consequence. These people give monthly donations to all the most righteous causes, read the approved of media and embrace the correct and most noble narratives (BLM, LGBT, etc). They like art but the kind which is demonstrably bad (and therefore annoys the uneducated yokels). They worry that they aren't doing anything interesting with their sex lives. They worry that they aren't vegan enough, environmentally conscientious enough, aren't in touch with the plight of the poor, the immigrants, the refugees, the oppressed. And so on.

If your idea of fun is tired social media (and all its ironic smugness) in book form then go nuts. And don't get me wrong, it is kinda fun to play along and acknowledge the tedium of this kind of western existence, the mundane and stale daily grind which inevitably manifests as a debilitating ennui. But the fundamental problem I had with the book (ignoring the the fact that his writing isn't fun to read) is that it lacks any meaningful authenticity. This polemic (because that's what it is) is wrapped up in the contrived narrative of a couple that aren't real, don't feel real, and serve no purpose other than to be cardboard placeholders, caricatures and punching bags, for his painfully clichéd diatribe. In that regard, this is a book that is very similar to something like 'Harassment Architecture' by Mike Ma but done with a greater literary flourish therefore making it more palatable to the chattering classes (his mimicry of Perec will also get them excited). But lets not kid ourselves, it's the same thing -- whining about the nightmare of modernity. In fact, I would say this is less original and more derivative. And the fact that Latronico's audience are the very bedwetters he is satirising makes it worse. Had this been written by someone from a council estate, or an immigrant (the kind which Tom and Anna romanticise), then it might have had more impact, and certainly would have been more insightful. But instead it's the bored middle-class analysing and satirising the bored middle-class. 

Putting the content to one side, the book's prose is not fun to read (at least not for me). As mentioned, it openly mimics Perec (not a good thing in my opinion but each to their own) and Latronico acknowledges the book as a kind of sequel to 'Things: A Story of The Sixties' and utilises a narrative style which uses past, present, and future tense in the narration creating a sense of (unpleasant) detachment and voyeurism. This only further distances the reader from his already unconvincing false creations, Tom and Anna, describing them as abstracts rather than people. He uses the word 'would' over and over again to describe his protagonist's experiences and views. 
 

"They would line up the glasses on the open shelves... they would go for walks on endless summer evenings... they would spend long weekends together... they would light candles... every once in a while, they would buy a toy... they would send an invoice and check Instagram... on Saturday they would sit down at the double desk... they would spend entire meals browsing Netflix recommendations... they would spend their mornings..." etc

This is obviously a deliberate choice and the final chapter (named Future) switches to 'will' to reiterate this past, present, and future presentation, but it's not fun to read and, again, only results in a feeling of being outside the character's lives, to such an extent that they don't feel like real people at all, only deformed props for Latronico to hang his aloof condescension on. More precisely he turns the couple into a facsimile of human beings who must endure the banality and boredom of a world he clearly finds distasteful. Sure, these people are vapid and empty (that's the point) but that doesn't mean his language needs to be. I struggled to find a paragraph that didn't bore me. Yes, Latronico knows he's one of them (so what) and hits his targets but given that they're fish, inside a barrel, that are already dead, it's not much of an accomplishment. And like I said, this has been done by others and done better. Nathan Barley is two decades old now after all. We get it. Late stage capitalism, blah blah blah, by-the-numbers liberalism, blah blah blah, postmodern ironic, blah blah blah, IKEA, Vegan oat milk, FaceBook, Latte, Twitter storm, Trans non-binary, gluten free biscuits, blah blah blah, ennui doesn't come from life being too hard, it comes from life being too easy, blah blah blah. We get it. We're all bored now and life is shhhhhhh and the only thing that makes us feel better about any of it is having enough self-awareness to know and point at it (and buying shiny things from Amazon).

No one is more thrilled than me that middle-class people hate themselves but none of that changes the fact that the book isn't very original or very good.

 

4/10

 

[Hux]

The Hospital (1989) Ahmed Bouanani

 

I should start by saying this is the kind of book which, had I read it at another time, in another mood, I might have despised it. I think this is precisely the kind of book where you have to let it catch you at the right time, in the right frame of mind, otherwise it will infuriate you. On this occasion, however, I was evidently in that very place because I rather liked this and found some of the writing, and the almost delirious fever dream nature of the piece, to be very effective, often beautiful. I only bring up the idea of being in the right mood because I don't want to recommend it lightly as I'm sure there will be people who will loathe this thing. It would be too simplistic to say it's a Marmite book; more accurate to say it's one of those books that will need to find you (you know, the way cats choose their owners, like that). Anyway...

The basic premise (and it is very basic) is that a man is taken to hospital by the sea in Morocco. From this point on, the book becomes a plotless narrative whereby the narrator, without name, flits in and out of consciousness, daydreams, fever, nightmares, and an uncertain reality even when awake. The whole book is a swirling madness of delirious hallucination and reminiscing. The hospital itself never seems to have any patients who recover, or any doctors (there is mention of a male nurse) and the other patients our narrator does meet (all given rudimentary nicknames like Guzzler, Rover, and Fartface) appear equally lost or forgotten. There's no sense of time, only a building, Moroccan heat, and ambiguous illness. The narrator is often hard to follow but this is compensated for by the sheer quality of writing which often hits wonderful heights. Sometimes you will read a sentence more than once just so that you can enjoy it all over again. 
 

I was reborn, quite despite myself, in a worn down universe, amid a vanquished, humiliated humanity, resigned to an absurd destiny of flowering graves that led to an uncertain future in intolerable paradises. I was heading toward a mythology of survival, leaving behind in my rotting limbs a prehistory of one thousand and four hundred years of hate, vainglory, and putrid nostalgia, under the clear sky of a false Andalusia where our murders has been in the making since our birth. 

Right now, he's standing in front of his childhood home with the despair of someone who's completely lost, trying to recognise a door with a bronze knocker, a low building with windows so minuscule he can't imagine what purpose they could serve, a place that once observed him growing up on thin grasshopper legs, the neighbours' oddly horizontal stairs, dark and stinking of urine and weak stew, which in a faraway time provided a refuge for a romantic idyll.

The book isn't perfect and as I said at the beginning there are those (I'm certain) who will simply hate this thing. But some of the writing really did seduce me, to the extent that I found the piece to be ultimately mesmerising. Funnily enough, there are obvious comparisons with The Blind Owl by Hedayat which makes sense but only in so much that there is a dreamlike quality to events (otherwise not much in common given that I hated The Blind Owl). Likewise, there are Kafka references but I've always viewed Kafka as a man who dealt with the nightmare of bureaucracy rather than an eddying descent into a surreal and delirious lunacy. This, to me, was a more delicate and pleasurable madness, intriguing, odd, and immensely hypnotic. You can smell the incense, feel the desert heat, the dry atmosphere, and almost taste the hish-hash. The book is strangely pleasing, like being stoned, but always with a sense of comfort and ease. Despite Bouanani tackling death and disease, and, despite the curious, other worldly setting of the book, it never felt to me like it was ever bleak or dark, only lost in romantic thought and confused memory. 

I think I liked it better during the periods when we were somewhere inside his delirium, his dreams, his ethereal delusions, rather than when we were present with him in the (admittedly unclear) reality of the hospital. Not perfect by any stretch (and not to everyone's tastes) but this one kinda spoke to me. 

 

7/10

[Hux]

The Shadow of the Wind (2001) Carlos Ruiz Zafon

 

The story of a young boy, Daniel, who, in 1945, is taken to a bookshop by his father to pick a book. The one he picks is called The Shadow of the Wind and is by a fellow Barcelona resident called Julian Carax. After reading the book, Daniel becomes fascinated by the author and wonders what happened to him. He learns that he left Barcelona and went to Paris (where he did most of his writing). Then he appears to have returned briefly before disapearing forever. Meanwhile there is a man covered in burns who is apparently trying to find all copies of the books written by Carax so that he can destroy them. Daniel, along with his vagabond friend Fermin (and occasionally his father and others) try to piece together what happened to Carax, where did he go, why did he return, and why is this mysterious man trying to get his hands on Daniel's (seemingly last) copy of The Shadow of the Wind?

Okay, so I was really enjoying the first third (nearly to the halfway point) and found the book to be a very fun read. It has very straightforward prose, smooth and simplistic, never remotely challenging, and tells a story which slowly pulls you in. I was thoroughly engaged and entertained. The characters are very large and easily defined (good-hearted Fermin the socialist, Stoic Thomas, mean inspector Fumero, etc). It's all very formulaic and tidy, very much of the mystery genre. And yeah, I was mostly enjoying it. But then it started to outstay its welcome. Like so many books of this type (mystery plots where the protagonist, like an amateur sleuth, questions several people), it drags the story out with a great deal of repetitive telling... SO MUCH TELLING.... Daniel will meet a character, for example, who knew Carax and they will TELL their version of events, how they knew Carax, what happened, whilst dropping the name of another person who also knew him (a friend who knew his father's best friend, for example). So then Daniel will go and visit that character who will TELL their version of events and drop yet another name (this time the maid who worked for his old girlfriend). So then Daniel and (later) Fermin will go and visit this character and they will TELL another version of events also introducing the name of yet another person they will have to go and find in their investigation. And on and on it goes, one after the other, until you can barely remember who they are or what they said. And honestly, I was getting rather bored of it after a certain point. I mean, there comes a point where you're just shouting: GET ON WITH IT!!

And when I say people TELL their version events, I really do mean that. Their are whole sections often written in italics where the new character (that you've never heard of until now) literally gives you their story and how they knew Carax, etc. Towards the end, there's even an entire section dedicated to Nuria Monfort where she TELLS you her story despite already being one the characters that has done this (apparently she lied the first time around so she gets a convenient second attempt -- presumably because had she told the truth the first time the book would have been much shorter). Her final version of events is the one where we ultimately get the twist which most of us had already worked out. Anywhoooo...

It's nicely written, very much a genre book, an easy-to-read piece of contemporary fiction. If you like this sort of novel (a mystery that needs to be explored where past character's lives run parallel to the current character's lives, etc) then this is probably a very good version of that sort of thing (hence being a best seller, I guess). It should not come as much of a surprise that Daniel's life echoes (quite blatantly) the life of Julian Carax. But for me, the book became a little too cosy and prosaic after a while, too obvious and formulaic. It's another contemporary plot driven novel which I was hoping would be a fun distraction but which, gradually, started to lose my interest. Not bad but not great. I recently read a similar book (An Instance of the Fingerpost) and had a similar experience. I guess this genre just isn't my thing. I kinda worked out what was happening pretty early on (didn't require Sherlock levels of genius) and found the past and current character's shared experiences a little too convenient and overly sentimental. Apparently there are several more books in the series (why?) and these characters are unnecessarily dragged out even further. 

A sweet, romantic, and often charming story that slightly dragged. Of this genre, very good. Just not for me. 

 

6/10

 

 

Edited April 21 by Hux

[Madeleine]

I remember loving this book when I read it when it first came out, though I do have a recollection of it dragging a bit in the middle.  I also remember a very atmospheric section where they go to a spooky old house?  Overall I did enjoy it, though I haven't read any of the others in the series.

[Hux]

The Dice Man (1971) Luke Rhinehart

 

One of the most glorious opening chapters I've ever read followed by one of the most mediocre novels.

The plot concerns a (bored) psychiatrist who, one day, rapes his downstairs neighbour Arlene. Except, he doesn't really rape her because she's (conveniently) into it. But the experience of spontaneity encourages him to contemplate how he makes his choices in life. This results in him using a die to pick from six options and whatever the die tells him to do, he must comply. These options range from the banal (go to the zoo, eat at a certain place, etc) to the more extreme (punch someone, screw a woman, screw a dude). As he becomes more invested in this lifestyle, more seemingly liberated, he introduces the system to others (starting with Arlene, even his kids), and presents it as a kind of psychiatric treatment which eradicates the ego from decision making. Slowly but surely more join him until there is a cult following which spreads (think Fight Club) across America. Ultimately, this dice-living acts as a personal revolution against the constraints of modernism. 

I can only imagine this book has a cult following because it dabbles in a few transgressive (albeit obvious) ideas most of which will appeal to people who have the mental age of a teenage boy (who has been recently kicked in the head by a horse). Because honestly, the book is just relentless self-indulgent banality. The writing would make Dan Brown cringe and the naughty bits (by modern standards) are immensely forgettable and dull. I dunno, maybe it's the idea of having your decisions taken out of your control or acquiring a greater degree of freedom in an otherwise bland life that appeals to people. But I really did find this neither interesting nor creative, just endlessly predictable and obvious. Perhaps by 1971 standards it has a quaint notion of being dangerous and subversive but even that feels like a stretch (I've read books from the 1920s that took greater risks than this, all while producing significantly better prose and themes). This just comes across as juvenile drivel, not to mention lazy and cliched. The book is over written and over long. Obvious and dated. But again, maybe in the early seventies, this was mind-blowing or something. It wasn't diffucult to read (prosaic but readable language) but I found it mostly tiresome. 

As I said, the opening chapter really did get me excited. His description of a creeping ennui which was debilitating, oppressive, even inevitable, and the boredom of a modernity which was already present in the swinging sixties (even as the sexual liberation narrative was still going), was quite profound and engaging. I was completely onboard... 
 

Life is islands of ecstasy in an ocean of ennui, and after the age of thirty land is seldom seen.

Excellent. Right up my street. Here we go... I thought. I was anticipating a novel of ideas, opinion, unique thought, nihilism, and maybe a touch of the romantic, the exquisite. But instead (after chapter one), I got a dialogue heavy story about a dull New York psychiatrist and his boring wife and kids followed by some juvenile crap about dice making his decisions so he could bang his neighbour. Then others join in, then a cult following, then... yawn. It was just very bland. It reminded me of Portnoy's complaint in the sense that it was another self-obsessed New Yorker spouting whiny psycho-analytical nonsense about his rather comfortable life. But here comes the transgressive part. Are you ready? Look, people who are homosexuals -- wow, can you imagine!! Crazy stuff. 

Honestly, this was painfully average and immensely forgettable. Apparently all the sequels were massive flops too so perhaps even his fans, those who massively overrated it, realised that even they (eventually) have to grow up.

Now, should I watch telly and eat crisps or do the dishes? If only there was a way to take this decision out of my hands.

 

5/10

Edited April 25 by Hux

[Hux]

The Seven Madmen (1929) Roberto Arlt

The story of a man named Remo Erdosain who has been stealing money from his company. The book opens with his employers confronting him and Erdosain quickly lying about having the money and bringing it back the next day. He then asks several people if they can lend him the money before encountering his friend "The Astrologer" at his house with a man known as the "The Melancholy Thug." This man agrees to loan him the money. Later, Erdosain's wife Elsa announces that she's leaving him for another man. Then his cousin Barsut arrives, slaps him about, and mocks him for losing his wife, a woman Barsut has always been interested in (purely as a piece of humiliation meat he tells us). Then Erdosain goes back to the Astrologer and brings up the idea of killing Barsut (and taking his vast sum of money) which the Astrologer agrees to because he needs the money to start up a series of brothels in order to begin a secret society which he intends to make global (Arlt is a bit vague about its intentions but I think there's some commie drivel in there). Speaking of which, brothels are mentioned in this book a lot, like going to cafes are mentioned in other books. Lah-de-dah, just gonna pop down to the local brothel before tea. That sort of thing. 

I mean... it was okay, I guess. I can't say this thing blew me away. Perfectly readable, occasionally superb, but never something that reaches serious literary heights. The book has a slight surreal quality with a distinct whiff of magical realism to it which further alienated me. I don't know what it is about South American authors and this genre but it seems to come naturally to them. Personally, I'm not a fan and find that it often renders the material quite silly and trivial. In fact -- unpopular opinion -- to me, there's something a little backward and superstitious about magical realism, the world it's set in being slightly absurd, chaotic, and, dare I say it, a little uncivilised and primitive (more focused on the spiritual than the tangible). These books are full of people who all seem to live by muddy rivers in houses made of wood and grass while tropical creatures are eaten for breakfast and great aunt Ramirez is ill in bed because she once used to be a griffin. I dunno... I just don't like it, the zany weirdness of this culture, the other worldliness and lack of familiarity or structure. It just feels a little insipid and ropey, entirely foreign. Anyway, even though this isn't technically magical realism (I think 1929 is before it became a thing), there are definite similarities (you might even call this a precursor). If you read the book knowing nothing about it, I'd put money on it that you'd very quickly hear yourself saying the words: 'Hmmm, I bet this was written by an Argentinian.' 

Anyway... I liked some aspects of the writing and the story (even the self-loathing cuckold, Erdosain) but ultimately I felt it was too abstract for me to really care or invest. This is one of my issues with magical realism, its dreamlike quality often making it a impossible to properly grasp onto anything. It all feels very deliberate and I don't like that. Plus, I couldn't pinpoint any particular sentences (or the translations of them) that were especially beautiful or provocative. None of this felt real, it all felt like something manufactured and false. At which point, you're judging it by the writing and ultimately I thought that was rather average. Good but nothing special. And while it certainly isn't as heavy handed as other (later) South American writers, the fact remains it didn't entirely grab me despite having a fairly interesting (until it wasn't) narrative. I'm tempted to say this felt slightly goofy. Apparently, there is a sequel but I think it's fair to say I won't make the effort to read that. 

Worth a read, and occasionally excellent, but not much more. 

 

6/10

[Hux]

And Then There Were None (1939) Agatha Christie

 

Many years ago, I saw a film version of this (black and white and from the 40s) which I thoroughly enjoyed. I was always curious to read the original novel and compare it with the film. Of course, this meant that I already knew who the killer was (and how he did it) but I suspect that's the case for most people reading this. If you happen to be one of the few people who has no knowledge of this book and its plot then I would strongly recommend going in cold so that you can get the most enjoyment out of it. I still liked it even though I knew the twist. For me, it was more about the general atmosphere of a small island off the coast of Devon where, in the stormy rain, ten strangers have been brought together to be picked off one by one. And, for the most part, it was exactly what I expected (and followed the plot I'd seen in the film version quite faithfully... except for the ending but we'll get to that).

 

The book is pretty basic when it comes to prose. Christie doesn't waffle or waste time. In some respects this is great but in others, it creates a slightly dull and straightforward language. But it's definitely fun to read, albeit bog standard narration with concise chapters. Some of the opening chapters are, as a result, very dry since they're essentially introductions to each character and the book only really hits its stride when they get everyone to the island. One thing the book did which was also in the film (and which I found equally perplexing both times) was having Rogers continue his butler duties even after his wife is killed (at this point they don't know it's murder but still, she's dead). They all seem to expect Rogers to continue with his breakfast responsibilities despite this. I found it difficult not to laugh. "Yes, old boy your wife is dead but that's no reason not to ensure marmalade and toast are made available. " Bonkers! But to be expected when it comes to the ludicrous etiquette of the British class system. 

 

The book goes along as you'd expect (certainly as I did having seen the film) and the only difference was the ending. This came as a slight surprise. In many ways I think they both work rather well and essentially amount to the same outcome anyway. There are some aspects of the book where credulity is definitely stretched to breaking point (often in service of the murders maintaining links with the ten little soldiers rhyme) but Christie ultimately gets away with it by sheer momentum and intrigue. Ultimately it's a plot driven novel and the characters are not fully realised or fleshed out but mere convenient props (with the possible exception of Vera who gets a little more background). 

 

So, all in all, Ten Little Ni... sorry, I mean And Then There Were None was rather fun, if a tad basic. 

 

8/10

Edited May 4 by Hux

[Madeleine]

I read this years ago and enjoyed it, there was a BBC version a few years ago which was also quite good, and i even saw a production at my local theatre a few years ago which was enjoyable, I know what you mean about the butler carrying on undaunted though, stiff upper lip, what ho! I would imagine her prose does feel dated now.

 

 

[Hux]

Lanark (1981) Alisdair Gray

A difficult one to review because there are parts that I loved and parts that I did not. The book opens with Part Three, a magical realism narrative about a young man named Lanark who lives in Unthank and encounters people who seem vague, ethereal and remote, often grotesque and surreal, occasionally perplexing. It was probably a good idea that Gray started the book here otherwise I might have found it tiresome at a later stage (which I did with part Four but we'll get to that). It's hard to make sense of things to begin with given that we are in a seemingly unreal world where things both resemble reality but also don't (and that's ignoring the moments of genuine oddness such as talking mouths on hands, etc). Then comes a short Prologue before Lanark tells us the story of Duncan Thaw. Here, in Part One and Part Two, we get a more straightforward bildungsroman about Duncan Thaw (heavily based on Gray's life) which forgoes the earlier strangeness for a more conventional, realist narrative. His early childhood during the war, his parents, his first loves, and most notably his gradual interest in becoming an artist. This part of the book was by far the most engaging and enjoyable. It also added some context to Lanark's life as they appear to be the same person, one existing in reality, the other in some kind of unnatural echo, a curious limbo, that runs parallel to the real world (though often deviating quite a lot too). 

Lanark is a dream/nightmare version of Thaw (who himself is a version of Gray) and while there may be some crossover and connection, it was only with Thaw's story that I became more invested and entertained. The final book (Four) returns to the story of Lanark, specifically his attempts to return to Unthank (a nether world version of Glasgow). This final part was the most heavy going by far and I was struggling with it albeit now with greater insight into the character (Thaw) and his seemingly tethered co-existence with Lanark. It reminded me a little of the recent film 'Us' where there is a global version of everyone living an underground copied version of the above real life, only without being as clear or understood -- a monstrous echo. Thaw has eczema, for example, while Lanark has dragonhide (a skin growth that seems to arbitrarily increase or decrease). Thaw lives in Glasgow while Lanark lives in a Unthank (a shadow version of Glasgow). Thaw has friends which are mimicked and slightly bastardised in Lanark's world. It created a definite sense of shared existence, a dream version, a nightmare version. It's hard to say what exactly but there are several hints that Lanark is Thaw during (or after) the process of experiencing death. 

The book is clearly magnificent. Not perfect or without flaws but clearly brilliant. It reminded me a lot of Gog by Andrew Sinclair both in terms of style and substance, the road journey they both take and the madness they encounter in this strange world (I was surprised Gog wasn't mentioned in Gray's list of plagiarisms at the end). As for the flaws, the book is much longer than it needs to be, drags the magical realism of Lanark out much too long (to the extent that I was finding it frustrating) but it would be a mistake not to see the importance of their connecton. I believe I'm right in thinking that Gray had originally wanted to publish them separately as unconnected books. But I'm not sure that would have solved anything. Generally, I dislike magical realism but here, it also has the unfortunate effect of interrupting Thaw's story too. Yes, it adds something to it (is Lanark a version of Thaw after death, traipsing through a limbo of mimicked landscape and feeling, lost among ghosts and mangled memories?). Probably. But it wasn't always fun to read (I fundamentally struggle to care about dreamlike impish worlds even when they are providing a contextual relationship). And yet I can't entirely argue against the technique Gray utilises to broaden these experiences. It does kind of work and is endlessly fascinating and curious even when losing momentum. It was hard not to be impressed.  

The bottom line, however, is that magical realism (or whatever this is) rarely engages me. It has its moments but more often than not, it simply feels like it muddies the water. As much as I enjoyed the other worldly quality of these two shared lives struggling, existing, independently of one another (as well as being in sync), and as much as I smiled when Gray had one of is characters (the king) explain to Lanark that he was the author of Lanark's fictional life (just like in Breakfast of Champions), the fact remains, I was pining for the reality of Thaw. He was the soul of the piece, the voice being lost as it was placed in Lanark's mouth. Duncan Thaw's version of reality (the real version) was more interesting to me than the surreal and unclear version of Lanark's. But again, I concede that they might actually have blended rather well to create a more complex aggregate experience. Both character's did feel very uniquely distinct after all.

Anyway, a fabulous book that will take you on a bizarre journey whether you like it or not. I enjoyed this more than Janine 1982 (probably because the demarcation of real and unreal were more overtly realised), and I was certainly never bored. Even when it was difficult, it was majestic, wonderfully written, and fascinating. Gray is a unique voice who, for that reason alone, should be read and loudly celebrated.

 

8/10

[Hux]

A Short Stay In Hell (2012) Steven L. Peck

 

This was a short yet highly entertaining foray into the nightmare hell of eternal pointlessness and futility. I read the whole thing in one sitting as it really is very slim, simple to read, with an enjoyable, albeit slightly depressing story. It concerns a Mormon named Soren Johnsen who dies, meets a demon (with a group of others who have also died), and discovers that the true religion is actually... Zoroastrianiam (whoopsie). He is then sent to his own personal hell. This manifests as the library of Babel described by Borges in his short story; endless levels of bookshelves on two sides with a massive (never ending) canyon between them that seemingly goes into infinity. From left to right, and up and down, the library never ends, spiralling on in all directions. Everyone is informed by signs of the rules and the objective. Before you can leave this hell you must find the book that contains the story of your life. The trouble is, of course, that the books are infinite (though not technically) and contain every possible permutation of written English imaginable, all conceivable ideas and narratives, all words, meaningful or otherwise. This means that most books are just pages of gibberish and to find even one book with any kind of legible sentence is virtually impossible. Meanwhile, there are vending machines that produce whatever food and drink you want at all times,  and if you die you simply wake up again where you were the next morning.

It's impressive that such a short book could squeeze so many interesting concepts in. The protagonist explores the library as far as he can, meets new friends, and falls in love. He encounters a violent group, optimists and pessimists, and he exists for centuries searching for his book like everyone else. This hell is occupied only by white Americans who speak English, no other nationalities, ethnicities or languages. I'm not sure what Peck is implying here but I suspect it's the very American-brained notion that a lack of diversity represents some kind of stagnation, a greater degree of boredom or apathy (this is dumb but okay, whatever). After he meets the love of his life, Rachel, they are eventually separated by her jumping over the railing into the literal abyss; later, he jumps over the railing to see if he can reach the bottom but discovers that he is falling for a full week without end in sight. Finally, he manages to manoeuvres himself enough so that he can land on one of the levels behind the railings. But later, he jumps again, this time for aeons, the act of perpetually falling almost a new form of existence for him (this, among a few other things, reminded me of Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey). 

It's an interesting book, exploring the pointless, the futile, the confused nature of existence in general. That it utilises the afterlife to accomplish this gives it less impact than other books exploring similar themes, but it's still reasonably effective. It's short and straightforward, nothing spectacular, and ultimately it is a book regurgitating ideas done better elsewhere (often with greater creativity and complexity), and yet it remains immensely fun to read. At least to me. So yeah, I liked it. It's a short novella that makes you ponder time and life and the meaningless fall into nothingness that we are all experiencing. 

 

8/10

[Hux]

The Rachel Papers (1973) Martin Amis

 

The story of a boy turning twenty and his sexual exploits, most of which revolve (unsurprisingly) around a girl called Rachel. Charles is nineteen and heading to Oxford but not before some highly amusing middle-class high jinx. I was enjoying it to begin with, the chaotic writing style of Amis, the relentless self-referential, twinkle in the eye, narration of someone witty and confident. But after a while, I started to find the whole thing slightly smug and unbearable. This kind of novel, the comedic type, has always been something I've failed to enjoy often to the point of frustration. Even when it's well written, there's just something very smug and self-satisfied about it all, and Amis writes with such a staggering arrogance, a swagger, that the character, Charles, comes across as unrealistic and annoying, a Ferris Bueller type of character who seems to have everything conveniently fall into his lap (but with an English twist). In fact, I had flashbacks to the Secret Diary of Adrian Mole (though this was published a few years before that), and found it hard to care about this spoiled brat. I just didn't like it.

Amis can certainly write but it's all in service of a smugness that I ultimately found a little unbearable. Charles keeps meeting people that he describes as posh or privileged despite the fact that he is a middle-class lad going to Oxford, who happily bangs several attractive girls along the way. At what point am I supposed to find him charming or humorous? At what point do I view him as the oppressed underdog? Well, never. He comes across as another middle-class bore who has somehow turned himself into a victim, with no real problems, no real development, and an obvious life of luxury ahead of him.

The book's biggest problem, however, is that it clearly wants me to find it funny. So-called comedic books have a tendency to infuriate me -- they ALWAYS fail  to make me laugh and usually leave me feeling nothing but contempt. Amis is certainly a clever writer but that's probably what made me dislike Charles and him so much; namely that they're both SO very clever. Except they're not, they're simply privately educated men who have had life given to them. I hate to bring it up, but I also had flashes of Lucky Jim when reading this which only further reiterated the fact that Amis is a privileged nepo-baby who inherited his entry into the world of literature. Must be nice to just saunter into a comfortable life of writing novels, huh?

Look, it's not a bad book. I just personally found it rather tedious and overly pleased with itself. I'll give Amis another chance at some point but if this 'look how funny and clever I am' shtick is his forte, then I can't imagine we'll ever get on.

 

4/10

[Hux]

The Savage Detectives (1998) Roberto Bolano

 

I was nervous about reading Bolano because I assumed that he, like nearly every other South American writer I've read, was another peddler of magical realism (a genre I'm less than keen on). I was therefore pleasantly surprised to discover that his writing is actually very standard, best described as realist prose, almost commercial and mainstream in its qualities. After a while, I even started to come to the conclusion that it was actually a little prosaic.

The first part of the book is presented as the 1975 diary of a 17-year-old named Juan Garcia Madero. He is a young poet in Mexico City and gradually moves into the circles of other poets known as the visceral realists (one of the movements leaders Belano being an alter ego for Bolano). He gets to know the daughters of a man named Font (Maria and Angelica) and meets others who orbit the influence of the visceral realists. I enjoyed this part of the book for the most part, was surprised by the straightforward prose, and became invested in Madero's life and loves (especially his relationship with Maria). These visceral realists are especially enamoured by the poetry of a woman named Cesarea Tinajero who apparently vanished years ago and whose disappearance they would like to solve. This part of the book was very engaging and slowly built the world these people inhabited effectively (though it did involve a lot absurdly comical sex scenes where people make love for seven hours... as you do). But anyway... I was on board and was engaged by Madero and his experiences.

Then comes part two (the vast majority of the book) and this is where the book lost me entirely. It's essentially just a lot of polyphonic interviews with people who knew the visceral realists over the years and extends across several decades (from 1976 to 1996). So basically lots of disparate voices all (initially) giving their thoughts on the founders of the movement (Lima and Belano) but gradually (to the extent that it annoyed me) giving nothing more than personal anecdotes about their own banal lives. After a while, this started to feel like filler, like Bolano needed to squeeze as much out of this to increase his word count or something. I dunno. But so much of it is utterly redundant. I don't mind writers being self-indulgent at times but this whole section essentially justifies the entire book (otherwise it's nothing more than a short story at best). It just goes on and on. When the interviewees are characters introduced in part one I was a little more interested otherwise it felt like such contrived and unrelated nonsense. There was one part of the book where an English girl and her friend are travelling through France and Spain and meet some German hippies and agree to work on a farm making wine and... honestly, what was this giving me? It added nothing, went nowhere, and -- had it been removed -- took away nothing. The whole second section is an endless celebration of writing for writing's sake but as I said at the beginning, the writing just isn't good enough to justify that (certainly not this English translation). It's actually very basic and average prose, on par with the best Airport books, plodding and clear but never exquisite.

So what you're left with is meandering and self-indulgent vignettes about the dull lives of people who, tangentially, knew some of the primary protagonists. It's like if I wrote a novel about a love affair between John and Mary then, in part two (which is 80% of the book), I suddenly switched to the testaments of people who knew John and Mary but instead of telling us about them, they bore us with details from their own mediocre lives, about how they once worked in an abattoir in Belgium, had a holiday romance with a man name Clive, or once started their own business selling socks. What does this have to do with John or Mary or their great love affair? Nothing. And that's what this is -- a lot of nothing to fill the pages. Additionally, Madero is never mentioned by anyone in this section. Why? Is Bolano saying something by doing this or did he just forget that his protagonist ever existed? It seemed like an odd decision. One of the talking heads does mention him but only to say that he has no recollection of him. It feels like this is deliberate, perhaps meant to represent something (the reader perhaps, the person doing the interviews, etc, who knows) but it still felt a little pointless.

Then, for part three, we return to the diary of Madero (January 1976) where we find out what happened to the poet Cesarea Tinajero. He and some of the other visceral realists go on a road trip to find her. It's nothing very surprising and only further reiterates how strange it was that Madero wasn't present in part two. The book ends rather predictably with a slight whimper, highlighting that this story (a very small, contained story) was indeed nothing more than a short story, a novella at best, but was (unnecessarily) dragged out into a massive novel. Gotta say, I was surprised how prosaic it was. Not terrible, not great, just a rather standard piece of writing that endeavours to mimic the style and format of the greats. At one point, I even craved a little stream-of-consciousness or magical realism to make the piece more challenging. But instead, all I got was a rather middling novel with a basic plot, prosaic writing, and some relentless talking heads.

 

6/10

Decent, I suppose, but ultimately underwhelming. 

[Hux]

The Magus (1965) John Fowles

 

Argghhhh!!! The longest review I've ever written because this book was the most confounding I have ever read. 

I recently read The Glamour by Christopher Priest and knew that he had been influenced by this so thought I should read it for myself. And wow, this book is, much like The Glamour, another absolute mind-hmmm (albeit more cynical and obscure in its approach). It's just one relentless revelation after another, a mystery that perplexes, bewilders, and provokes. I couldn't put it down. There were, however, points in the book where I felt genuine rage at what was happening. And as soon as I felt this rage, I knew I was being cynically manipulated.

The story (what I can tell of it without giving its many twists and turns away) concerns a young man in 1953 called Nicholas Urfe who, having lost his parents, is a loner who feels different to others, an outlier, someone not cut out for the normality of bourgeoisie life. He wants to escape his middle-class existence and applies for various jobs working abroad as a teacher before meeting a young Australian woman called Alison. The two begin a relationship but once he is offered a job (on a remote Greek island at a boys school), they choose to end the relationship. After working on the island for a few days, he comes close to committing suicide but can't quite bring himself to do it; he later explores and comes across a strange, isolated house where he meets a man named Conchis. This man invites Nicholas to return the next weekend and when he does, Conchis tells him that he is a psychic, from another world, and can commune with the dead. He tells Nicholas about his past, fighting in the first world war, going AWOL, and falling in love with a beautiful girl called Lily who sadly died just a few years later. He then asks Nicholas if he would like to meet Lily at which point, a beautiful woman walks into the room and introduces herself. Nicholas, of course, doesn't believe any of this but goes along with it nonetheless. Later, other dead people appear, running naked through the woods, performing curios tasks. The next day he meets Lily again, this time alone, and confronts her about being an actress which she denies. Later, she finally indicates that she is indeed an actress of sorts but she can't reveal too much. Nicholas tells Conchis that he knows she's an actress and Conchis admits that she is, of course, not a ghost but she is also not an actress. Now he tells Nicholas that she's actually a schizophrenic patient of his that he is treating with a new type of therapy and they must play along with her role. And well... this pattern of revelation, followed by exposure, followed by revelation, followed by exposure... continues all the way to the end of the book. It is both maddening AND gripping in equal measure.

Towards the end of the book, Fowles really lays it on thick. Nicholas is essentially tortured (mentally) and I think I was even more incensed by what was happening to him than he was. I was absolutely livid (this was when the feeling of being manipulated began). And even when you think it's over, Fowles pulls the rug one more time. It was around this point that I began to get the horrible feeling that I was not only being manipulated but I was also being lectured to. Was all this nothing more than an endorsement of free love, sexual liberation, the soon-to-be burst bubble of 60s psychedelic naivete? Maybe, but the problem is this outlook is entirely contradictory given that Nicholas himself is already onboard. The masque are preaching to the choir when it comes to his attitude regarding sex. And it's a painfully infantile (and laughable) conclusion to promote (further bloated by the cartoonishly fascist Mitford whose old-fashioned opinions are a simplistic counterpoint, waved at the reader as obvious and wrong and unsophisticated). Plus, when you consider that his punishment is wildly exaggerated for the apparent crime, you end up coming to the conclusion that Fowles was making this crap up as he went along. Sure Nicholas is smug and slightly over estimates his intelligence but I cannot view him as anything other than a victim. To do otherwise would be sociopathic. The book would have you believe that a young man not viewing his casual sex partner as a goddess to be worshipped and respected at all times was some kind of outrageous act. And yet this burgeoning promiscuity of the age is precisely why he behaves that way (and that promiscuity is overtly celebrated as a good thing here, a magnificent liberation). You can't hate him for his commitment-phobia then demand that he be attacked for his desire to acquire commitment. It's a contradiction. Much like all the other damaging crap that the 60s inflicted upon us. Being a commitment-phobe doesn't justify the horrific mind rape he endures. What lesson is he taught here exactly? Be promiscuous but also don't be? It's all over the place. 

And the bait and switch never stops. Each time we discover a new lie, there is a new reality to embrace. And then once that reality has been shown to be false, we are fed yet another reality/lie. While this was highly entertaining, I did, nonetheless, begin to experience fatigue at this constant rug pulling. There were times when I simply thought GET ON WITH IT! And yet I couldn't stop reading. I needed answers. I also began to sense (correctly) that whatever answers Fowles did eventually give me, they would NOT be satisfying. I began to formulate my own interpretations, my own possible explanations (most of which were significantly better than what I got) and sure enough, the ending is a monumental damp squib. We get nothing. In most instances, I like an ambiguous ending but this book simply couldn't do that without being infuriating. Fowles laid it on way too thick to have such a cop-out denouement. He could only get away with that if the book was a more streamlined, subtle narrative (like The Glamour) but my God, this thing just goes on and on... and on and on, one mystery followed by another, then another, and just when you think you're done... here's another. Even as the ending hurtled towards me, I knew it couldn't offer any solutions or explanations. I knew that I'd been hoodwinked. A book like this isn't quite clever enough to pull off such ambiguity.

And yet, and yet... the book is fantastic. I can't dispute that. It's certainly too long (unnecessarily so), and the speeches of Conchis drag on (feel free to skim read), but it's too mesmerising to dismiss. As much as I knew I was being tricked by a novel about nothing masquerading as something with a subtle meaning, I could not put the thing down. It is moronic 60s hippy crap built on an attempt to explore the limits of knowledge whilst espousing a juvenile worldview, the embodiment of being distracted by the temptation, the teasing, of being given salacious information, a secret glimpse behind the curtain, of being part of the secret society that knows what's really going on (and with lashings of sex thrown in). The promise of answers is the reward and (when they inevitably don't come) it is also the punishment. We are all Nicolas. I have to give the book full marks in that regard. It had me from the word go. I feel like a fool. I feel like I was distracted by a bright red balloon with the word 'sucker' written on it. And yet, and yet... despite being a lot of liberal wishy-washy nothing, it was simply unputdownable (yes, that's a word). In many ways, the book itself is a magus, not a great piece of work but a glorious counterfeit of a great piece of work. I dunno. I loved it. And I hated it. 

I was relieved to read in his 1976 revision that Fowles himself acknowledged the stupidity of it all and the audience it would most appeal to. It is a book for young people who think that their youth will still be there tomorrow. 
 

I now know the generation whose mind it most attracts, and that it must always substantially remain a novel of adolescence written by a retarded adolescent.

This might be the best thing I've ever read. It might also be the worst. I honestly don't know. 

 

9/10