Product Description

He has nowhere to go. So he goes there. An alienated young man can see no meaning in life. He doesn't even see the point of getting out of bed in the morning. To escape from his family he decides to set off on a hitchhiking adventure around Europe and is picked up by a friendly lorry driver with an unusual interest in philosophy. But the journey soon becomes a violent and kafkaesque nightmare...

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #226640 in Books
• Published on: 2005-05-02
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 249 pages

JACK
'Slick, pacy period piece from one of the UK’s most successful thriller writers.'

The Times
'Very good...Kafka lurks in the background through all this...concerning how to remain human amidst inhumanity.'

Daily Telegraph
'A pacy, tense and often funny read.'

Customer Reviews

A pleasing mixed bag
Sometimes you don't choose books, they choose you. So it was with this, a thought-provoking novel that I had never read a review of, never seen, never knew about and whose author was unknown to me. I was browsing a local bookstore, found it staring up at me, read the blurb on the back about a young man (I am one), on a journey through Europe (which I am considering), who finds himself in a Kafkaesque nightmare (I hope I don't!) and rethinks his life (would be nice). So I bought it, and I honestly can hand-on-heart tell you that it has made me completely reassess my relationships with pretty much everybody I know. My family all of a sudden look a great deal better than they did 2 days ago - it sounds callous, but my love and respect for them has grown. I read this book in two sittings, the only reason it took that long was I had to go away and think about some of the story before being prepared to continue.

As a story, Society of Others starts out in a rather plodding way. The first chapter or two there are undertones of that "I want to win a Booker"-style: young man, disenfranchished with life, dislikes his family, life has no direction, etc. I thought I could smell the rest of the story from there. I think at this point I only put the effort in continuing because I related to the character. I underestimated Nicholson as a writer, that isn't where this book heads.

The story isn't like that at at all. It's insane. It's beautiful. It makes no sense, and yet that's the point. In the early chapters there were the subtle undertones of an influence from Banks' 'The Wasp Factory' which were all another red herring (or were they?). It all starts to get uneven, unsettling, unsure... I think that's the point.

The influences here are wide and varied. The narration is often rich, sometimes not particularly well paced, but all rather hypnotic and surreal in its own way - not maddeningly so, but there. The story takes us through a journey that makes no sense yet in the same way, is the only journey that could be taken for this young man.

If this all sounds rather philosophical, rather airy, then yes, that's the point. If you're the sort of person who liked Zen/Motorcycle Maintenance, liked Sophie's World, likes to think, likes to explore your own mind and those of others, this is an enjoyable book. At times it feels like it's trying to be a Clancy or something like Ipcress File, other times it feels like Vonnegut has been at the typewriter and is trying to squeeze some Bokonism in there and other times still it's just a story about a guy who is really, really lost.

And therein lies the clincher - this is all about being lost. It's all about sacrifice and not always the sacrifices you make for others, but those made for you.

I'm going to be reading a lot more Nicholson from now on. I originally considered giving this book 4 stars because the pace shifts and some parts are just wholly unbelievable, and I'm not sure they weren't meant to be. It's hard sometimes to suspend disbelief and there are weak spots here. Whilst the writing sometimes felt patchy to me, on the whole, the overall effect that I walk away with is pretty brilliant. When a novel makes you think a little more about others in the World around you and less about yourself, well, how can you not give it 5 stars?

Odd
Mr. Nicholson decides to leave The Society of Others' main character nameless, and this seems to suit him. He, the main character, starts the story as an aimless twenty/thirtysomething. His philosophy of apathy sees him locked away from the world in his bedroom at his parents' house, spending his days with the television on, but the sound down.

The story kicks into gear when the desire grabs the character, of a sudden, to get out of the house and away. Not to go anywhere in particular, but just to travel for the sake of it. This new, no-strings wanderlust sees him dumped in an East European country - again, unnamed - of the decaying, former Soviet variety. Against this backdrop, one of a violent police/gangster state and a backroom rebellious intelligenstia, our character goes through a series of personal revelations and 'awakenings'. Overlaid on this is a higher, more peculiar sense that he's seen all of this before, despite never having come to the country previously.

The tale thunders along, gathering pace from the brilliantly observed mundanity at the beginning of the book, to a ludicrous, psychedelic/existential unravelling at the end. It's this, the book's bodge-it-and-run end, which has cost the rating I've given the book a good two stars. It left me wondering precisely what the author's point was and whether he was unable to cope with the drive and scope of his own writing to that point.

In spite of this, Mr. Nicholson wins back an extra star or two because his book has the magic cannot-put-down factor which is surely the ultimate test of any novel. His writing has an irresistable pace and energy. It's a shame, then, that this momentum peters out in such a diffuse and puzzling way.

It's testement to Mr. Nicholson's skill that I felt a lot in common with what went on in the character's head before his adventure. The series of personal, almost spiritual revelations experienced by him smacked slightly of more insidious, cultish works like the Celestine Prophecy and so the more the character developed, the more I disassociated myself from him.

Borrow or buy on budget, but be prepared for the damp squib ending.

Journey of a lifetime.
A series of most beautifully written surprises. Bored, aimless, the central character sets out and takes with him the lucky reader. Adventure, suspense and seriously funny and well related observation make this a fly-through read, but one that'll echo back at you for ages after as the insights flung at you like gifts from an author with gifts to burn, so quickly as the plot runs on, will leave you in a gentle state of surprise for days. Intelligent and fun, one of those books you'll lend out readily, then fear for its safe return. I'd love to tell you more as I enjoyed the book so much, but evey little thing in it is so core to the plot that it'd ruin it. A very, very special book! Perfect.