Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #12740 in Books
• Published on: 2008-03-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 848 pages

Guardian
`A sprawling book, funny and frightening, strange and yet strangely unputdownable, this is one to loose yourself in'.

Scotland on Sunday
'...an ambitious, daring, delightful and compelling work...it is
fearfully gripping...'

Susan Mansfield
'Her books are experimental in style, endlessly inventive.'

Customer Reviews

Dull (boring)
This is one of the most boring books I've ever read. The constant (about 3 times in every paragraph) use of brackets is really off putting (the author constantly points out the obvious) and hugely irritating and pointless (she uses these to include information that has no need to be in brackets). I trawled through it hoping that something may happen in line with the back cover description to no avail (it didn't happen).

Many times throughout the book I had to put it down out of sheer frustration it made me so angry. I would have binned it long before the 800 and odd page finale if I wasn't on holiday with no book shops to hand. Don't buy it. The only positive point was one chapter in which a repressed, stuffy character is forced to join a dinner party with a group of middle class couples - this is the only part of the book that I enjoyed. So thats about 25 pages out of 800+ that I liked - not much bang for your buck.

what a drivel
Shortlisted for Man Booker Prize?? Please! Makes you question the opinions of the Guardian and Observer reviewers. I wasted hours of my time, lost count of the use of SCOWL after about 30, "scowling" comes up on every other page - you call that good writing? The book is so frustrating it made me write my first review on the Internet ever.

Magnificent
I'm not going to go into long plot explanations - others have done it already far better than I could. I just want to say that this is a magnificent novel. I've not read any Nicola Barker before, and I was just blown away by the sheer audacity and exuberance of her prose. Yes, this book is long, but within a few pages I was completely gripped, barely able to put it down as it built up an exquisite dramatic tension. Barker develops, layer by layer, scene by scene, an almost anarchic assortment of characters, throws them together and shows us the unpredictable results. It's an almost cinematic approach to novel-writing, and makes for a demanding read - you work hard to piece together the clues scattered in her narrative - but it's totally engaging and thoroughly rewarding.

Not for a long time have I come across a writer with such a playful feel for language. Her observations, too, are startlingly fresh and apt. Yes, the novel does rely heavily on coincidence, but then so did Thomas Hardy. I don't think her aim is to be 'realistic'. We're drawn into a more magical and mysterious version of the 'real' world, and leave the novel both entranced and enriched by the experience.