A book review!
Nov. 4th, 2008 08:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
r_scribblesI finished me book! I really enjoyed it, actually, despite some flaws. In fact, I think I'm going to do a book review, which I don't believe I've ever done before. This might actually encourage me to do more reading for pleasure than I currently do.
So as I mentioned when I was starting on this book, its main problem in the first half at least is that I find the protagonist, the stupidly named Ariel Manto, completely unlikable for a lot of the story. Well... for the first third or so of it, anyway. Actually, the first thing I thought on reading chapter one was HORRIBLE SUEFIC!!! - Stupid name? Check. Unusual hair? Check... bright, scarlet red (natural) and very curly. Angsty back story? Check... grew up in a Council estate, her mum was a nutter who never noticed her blisteringly high intellect, she used to be a cutter but has since become addicted to violent, humiliating sex with old, married men - usually professors at the University. It's even written in first person and present tense, for the love of Pete... although there does turn out to be a reason for that later.
None of these were reasons why I found Ariel unlikable. I disliked her mainly because she was a complete feckless idiot who couldn't look after herself and yet still considered herself superior to others because she was an academic. She spends the first third of the book, between finding and reading the very rare and apparently cursed Victorian novel "The End Of Mr Y" bemoaning the squalour which she has bestowed upon herself, living in a damp cement bedsit, surviving off awful chocolate, fags, coffee and liquor, like some sort of self-imposed Winston Smith, pausing only to heap scorn upon anybody who she suspected of living in a nice house, concentrating on their loved ones and eating a cooked meal once a day. Oh, and occasionally allowing a complete prick called Patrick to roughly shag her from behind. Nice.
The action picks up a bit as the secrets behind the Victorian novel unfurl, and it turns into a bit of a cat-and-mouse thriller. Once Ariel's in danger her smugness and whinyness disappears and she actually becomes a character you can relate to. It was a bit of a shock for me when actual Baddies turned up halfway through, because before then, Ariel's only real enemy was her own dumb self. This book is weird, however, in that at various points all the action will stop, and Ariel will have a chapter-long (at least) discussion with somebody about particle physics, existentialism, theology and whatnot. Even when she's alone she'll often stop and have a think for a few pages about her favourite philosophers. Now, considering that the main plot revolves around the discovery and exploration of a hidden dimension made up of thought and metaphor, where those who have discovered the way there can enter the minds of others, it does deal with physics, philosophy, semantics and so forth. However, I thought that enough was explained about that world as we went on for the reader to understand it, and the long waffley debates between the characters were unnecessary and lost the reader. They tended to sail over my head, anyway. Plus, as Hubs pointed out, they impede the timing of the chase. There's also the fact that this book really isn't as smart as it thinks it is. As Ariel can wax lyrical about the relationship between language and conciousness, but can't create a healthy relationship with a respectful man who isn't covered in dandruff, this book can waffle about academic subjects that are way beyond my comprehension but still can't properly resolve gaping plot holes. The last few chapters create massive paradoxes and questions, all of which are just shrugged off.
Saying that, though, I still thought it was a very enjoyable read. It grabbed my interest first of all because the first half is pretty much all set either in Canterbury or at my old university, and it was fun reading about all the places I know, but once she gets the novel it really picks up. Large chunks of the cursed novel appear in the book, so for a while at the start there are two narratives running parallel - the Victorian "End of Mr Y" and Ariel's non-adventures in Canterbury. Then after that you have the world of the mind running parallel with the physical world... these different 'worlds' really help to whiz things along, and explains why the main narrative is present tense and first person, when the narrative starts jumping around between different times and different personas.
I'd recommend it as a fun, if slightly grubby, thriller. Reading it is like being good mates with a slightly obsessive academic (which I am). 95% of it is a wheeze, just when they start waffling on about their pet subjects just breeze over it, smiling and nodding. There'll be something fun along again in a minute.
So as I mentioned when I was starting on this book, its main problem in the first half at least is that I find the protagonist, the stupidly named Ariel Manto, completely unlikable for a lot of the story. Well... for the first third or so of it, anyway. Actually, the first thing I thought on reading chapter one was HORRIBLE SUEFIC!!! - Stupid name? Check. Unusual hair? Check... bright, scarlet red (natural) and very curly. Angsty back story? Check... grew up in a Council estate, her mum was a nutter who never noticed her blisteringly high intellect, she used to be a cutter but has since become addicted to violent, humiliating sex with old, married men - usually professors at the University. It's even written in first person and present tense, for the love of Pete... although there does turn out to be a reason for that later.
None of these were reasons why I found Ariel unlikable. I disliked her mainly because she was a complete feckless idiot who couldn't look after herself and yet still considered herself superior to others because she was an academic. She spends the first third of the book, between finding and reading the very rare and apparently cursed Victorian novel "The End Of Mr Y" bemoaning the squalour which she has bestowed upon herself, living in a damp cement bedsit, surviving off awful chocolate, fags, coffee and liquor, like some sort of self-imposed Winston Smith, pausing only to heap scorn upon anybody who she suspected of living in a nice house, concentrating on their loved ones and eating a cooked meal once a day. Oh, and occasionally allowing a complete prick called Patrick to roughly shag her from behind. Nice.
The action picks up a bit as the secrets behind the Victorian novel unfurl, and it turns into a bit of a cat-and-mouse thriller. Once Ariel's in danger her smugness and whinyness disappears and she actually becomes a character you can relate to. It was a bit of a shock for me when actual Baddies turned up halfway through, because before then, Ariel's only real enemy was her own dumb self. This book is weird, however, in that at various points all the action will stop, and Ariel will have a chapter-long (at least) discussion with somebody about particle physics, existentialism, theology and whatnot. Even when she's alone she'll often stop and have a think for a few pages about her favourite philosophers. Now, considering that the main plot revolves around the discovery and exploration of a hidden dimension made up of thought and metaphor, where those who have discovered the way there can enter the minds of others, it does deal with physics, philosophy, semantics and so forth. However, I thought that enough was explained about that world as we went on for the reader to understand it, and the long waffley debates between the characters were unnecessary and lost the reader. They tended to sail over my head, anyway. Plus, as Hubs pointed out, they impede the timing of the chase. There's also the fact that this book really isn't as smart as it thinks it is. As Ariel can wax lyrical about the relationship between language and conciousness, but can't create a healthy relationship with a respectful man who isn't covered in dandruff, this book can waffle about academic subjects that are way beyond my comprehension but still can't properly resolve gaping plot holes. The last few chapters create massive paradoxes and questions, all of which are just shrugged off.
Saying that, though, I still thought it was a very enjoyable read. It grabbed my interest first of all because the first half is pretty much all set either in Canterbury or at my old university, and it was fun reading about all the places I know, but once she gets the novel it really picks up. Large chunks of the cursed novel appear in the book, so for a while at the start there are two narratives running parallel - the Victorian "End of Mr Y" and Ariel's non-adventures in Canterbury. Then after that you have the world of the mind running parallel with the physical world... these different 'worlds' really help to whiz things along, and explains why the main narrative is present tense and first person, when the narrative starts jumping around between different times and different personas.
I'd recommend it as a fun, if slightly grubby, thriller. Reading it is like being good mates with a slightly obsessive academic (which I am). 95% of it is a wheeze, just when they start waffling on about their pet subjects just breeze over it, smiling and nodding. There'll be something fun along again in a minute.
