pffffffffff. Something about a man who jumps through time and he for some reason keeps
showing up around this girl and, ach, long story short its a big pile of shit.
This is a book i would never normally read. I would never look for it. I would never pick it up in a
library. If someone bought it for me as a present i would read 5 pages, be repulsed, and hand
the book to some oxfam shop, who quite possibly would refuse to take it. I read it in order to
join a book group and as such cant help but feel a seething resentment for the group that
forced me to sit through this trash. And i’m not just trying to be insulting; by any definition, it
really is trash.
I didnt really enjoy the book in any measure and as such this is not a real review so much as a
list of reasons why this book sucks. I suppose i never was really going to enjoy this book. This
is probably the first and hopefully only book I’ve ever read that could be called "chick-lit"
without misrepresentation. The novel was written in a voice repugnant to most male readers
and hinged on a relationship between two unlikeable characters and so from the off i began to
read it with the cornered fury of a man forced to sit through his girlfriend’s record collection.
There are 2 reasons why this novel really sucks balls. The reason that made me despise it, is
the sheer indulgence of it and the extent to which the author’s presence can be felt in every
sentence. An offshoot of this is the fact that the novel has no plot to speak of. The
final reason, which merely weakened an already rickety novel, was the complete sterility of the
writing style. I’ll start with this;
The first thing to strike anyone who picks up this novel is how completely dead the prose is. It
gives you no sense of the sensations of the story, little impression of the characters,
absolutely no sense of location and mood; you find your eyes skimming across the page, your
mind shooting past any detail and being lulled into an unresponsive state by the sheer bulk and
banality of all that passes by, rather like when driving down a motorway.
The novel is written in 1st person perspective in the present tense and any descriptive writing
that does occur is completely clinical and concerns one or two seemingly irrelevant pieces of
information that the character picks up, as if our author believes that internal monologues, in
order to be believable, have to be devoid of any focus or artfulness or simply anything
whatsoever that the reader’s mind could hold onto. If you want to get a sense of exactly what
this sterile narrative sounds like, all you have to do is think of a few of the great, evocative 1st
person narratives (to kill a mockingbird, one flew over the cuckoos nest and dracula are a few
that spring to mind) and try to imagine how they would sound if the narrators had been
lobotomised.
Now onto the angry shit;
What i really don’t like about this novel is just how transparent it is and how perpetually aware
you are of the author’s presence. At no point does it feel like an actual novel, a properly
constructed, logically progressing novel, but always more of a series of written fantasies by a
rather unpleasant personality. First of all it’s stunning just how obvious it is that the girl in the
story is just the author herself. They share similar physical characteristics, similar interests and
upbringing, so from the start, this feels like the author injecting herself into an indulgent fantasy
land.
These fantasies include:
An electra-complex fantasy in the shape of the author having this romantic relationship with a
man who is simultaneously a lover and father figure.
Next we have the redemptive fantasy.
In an early scene in the book the 2 protagonists exact revenge on an old boyfriend who
screwed the girl around a while ago. Explained like this, the act doesnt sound too offensive, but
its simply the way the author writes it that makes it so transparent that this is another of her
indulgent fantasies rather than a valid piece of a plot. Theres a sense of glee resonating off the
pages as she torments this character and airs her own ugly demons. I could just see her as
she wrote this sequence, her cruel lips wrought into a twisted smile, a withered claw, quivering
as it drove each stroke of the pen like a stab straight into the heart of every mysogynist bastard
that ever messed with her.
It was quite an ugly thing to witness.
Anyway, after this scene i found it hard to relate to either the author or her characters and
whenever it came to having a sweet, intimate scene between the protagonists i just couldnt
picture them without finding myself thinking "you evil bastards".
Next we have a kind of lifestyle fantasy.
The Author gives herself a privileged cultured upbringing and surrounds herself with these
pretentious arseholes that she would like to hang out with. This was the thing that annoyed me
the most in this novel.
Almost any time some of the characters are having a conversation they seem to be having
these infuriating, superficial discussions which are little more than uninterrupted lists of cultural
refferences, be they about punk bands, composers, philosophers, whatever. Besides being
part of this nauseating fantasy world It all feels like some misguided attempt by the author to
show a little cultural credibility, a really tacked on effort to make this moronic trash a little more
highbrow.
The effect this has on the characters is devastating. I’m fairly sure that you know someone who
likes to give the impression of knowing more than they really do, who will raise their voice when
engaging in faux-intellectual conversation so that the immediate public can be aware of them,
who will guffaw like a fucked-up printer whenever someone says something witty, the sort of
person who, were i to ask you what you thought of them, would most likely inspire "TWAT" to
be the first word to pass your lips.
Well, if any of this sounds familiar to you, this is pretty much how the characters in this novel
and the author herself come across…Bunch of twats…
Finally, we have the time travelling fantasy. A fairly minor issue i have with this is the sloppy use
of timetravel itself. It makes no attempt to deal with the whole "grandfather-paradox" issue and
simply tries to pass it off with the phrase "time travel is a screwy thing". Hm… sorry, not good
enough.
Besides the logical traps the novel sets for itself thanks to the time travel process it also has
been allowed to run havoc with the story, the basic result being that there is no story. Theres
not much of a pattern to where the time travelling occurs or where it goes, leaving the reader
unsatisfied with the act itself, making it seem like a privilege of the writer to use it whenever and however she wishes as on a whim. If this werent bad enough the author has allowed the time travel motif to also destroy any kind of linearity in the story, jumping completely at random to diferent points in the two characters’ life.
It’s the lawless, patternless nature of the time travel that makes it feel like a shallow fantasy
rather than a bona fide plot device, not just because it also destroys any semblence of a plot
this story could have had.
When you write a novel, to some extent you are subjugating your desires about what you want
to write in favour of what is best for the novel. As far as i can tell, at no point has the author
done this and the result is a painful indulgent mess that scarcely even deserves to be called a
novel.
The novel is VERY sloppily written, but it could be worse. The simple fact is that, aside from
the fact that i despised it, much of the novel was more overpoweringly mundane than it was
god-awful. The analogy i gave about the motorway is probably pretty close to the truth. The
experience of reading this book from cover to cover is akin to an overlong and tiresome
journey down a motorway… in a car filled with bastards.
jon.
12. Season 1, Episode 21: Symbiosis
5. Season 6, Episode 18: Starship Mine
1. Season 4, Episode 14: Clues
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10. The siege of krishnapur by JG Farrell (1973)
9. The Forever War by Joe Haldeman. (1974)
8. Dune by Frank Herbert (1965)
7. Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut (1963)
6. Replay by Ken Grimwood (1987)
5. Watchmen by Alan Moore (1986)
4. The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain (1934)
3. Ham on rye by Charles Bukowski (1982)
2. The Call of the wild by Jack London (1903)
1. The Drowned World by J.G. Ballard (1962)
10. Jean De Florette/Manon des sources, dir: Claude Berri (1986)
9. This Is England, dir: Shane Meadows (2007)
8. When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in four Acts, dir; Spike Lee (2006)
7. The Devil and Daniel Johnston (2005)
6. The Motorcycle Diaries, dir:Walter Salles (2004)
5. The Gift, dir: Sam Raimi (2000)
4. Black Narcissus, dir: Michael Powell (1947)
3. Punch Drunk Love, dir: Paul Thomas Anderson (2002)
2. The Apartment, dir: Billy Wilder (1960)
1. 28 days later, dir: Danny Boyle (2002)
9. Charlie Mingus : Mingus Ah Um (1959)
6. The National : Boxer(2007)
5. Fugazi : Red Medicine (1995)
4. Pavement : Slanted and Enchanted (1992)
3. radiohead : In Rainbo_ws (2007)
2. Built To Spill : Perfect from now on (1997)
1. neutral milk hotel : In the aeroplane over the sea (1998)
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