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3.58 AVERAGE
3.58 AVERAGE
Peter Newman’s debut novel The Vagrant follows multiple narratives within a newly war-torn land. We primarily follow the journey of the Vagrant, who is smuggling two very important items across the land, and the novel is also interspersed with extracts that take place between 8 -1 years before the main novel and provide some background on the war and our main character. I ended up giving it 4/5*.
Overall this novel is definitely unique, but the first few chapters were pretty confusing and for a while I thought I was going to give up on the book entirely. Background on the war and the various groups that had formed since was gradually given to the reader at a normal pace, so it took a little while to identify the issue. The Vagrant is a character who doesn’t speak, which is an extremely interesting attribute to give to a protagonist, but in addition to this we also get no internal monologue or thoughts from him. This can give the reader a sense of loss or lack of understanding, but this quickly comes once events and information fall into place and allows the reader to learn about the Vagrant and his character at the same pace as those around him.
One of the items that the Vagrant carries with him is an infant not yet capable of speech, so until others join their party the emotional connection between the child and Vagrant is emphasised. This lack of speech demonstrates how powerful speech can be, but also shows that without it connections can still be built. The interactions between the two still melted my heart even though it purely relied on external behaviour. The lack of commentary also served the novel rather well in that it put him in the position of being an omniscient narrator. This meant that it took longer to get a grasp on the story but was ultimately more rewarding.
Particularly in the earlier half of the novel, the flashbacks to the past were my favourite parts – the characters present in these were given more personality and back story than our main characters, but gradually this personality and connection trickled through to the main narrative. I realise that until this point I’ve made this novel sound like hard work to get through, but once you push through the initial confusion, and are willing to pick up information in other ways this novel becomes extremely fun and interesting.
Another one of my favourite things was one of the first group of characters we come across, who end up adding a man named Harm to the Vagrant’s journey. Due to the inability of the other two characters to communicate through speech, Harm often speaks aloud his own thoughts, but also those that he believes the Vagrant is having, and as the two spend more time together we learn more about our protagonist this way. And of course, the interactions of the pair of older men with the infant was constantly pulling at my heart strings. The bond between these characters is immensely powerful and I ended up having strong emotions in response to events that affected them.
One thing that stood out to me when learning about him were the morals of the Vagrant. Even when I thought he was doing something morally wrong, we would learn not long after that the Vagrant had some explanation for his actions. The English Literature student side of me can’t help but wonder who is narrating the novel; we can’t be seeing things through the eyes of the Vagrant because he gives us little information to work with, but there are no other candidates for narrator. Although you get the impression throughout the novel that the Vagrant and his growing group of friends are definitely on the side of good, it is unclear how much unconscious bias the narrative holds, and how reliable the version of events we are given is.
This novel is definitely a difficult one to capture in a summary or review without spoiling anything, and the best way to get a sense of it is to read it for yourself. Interactions with various “evil” characters force the reader to constantly re-evaluate what they know and think about certain types of creatures in the novel. Ultimately, The Vagrant is a fun and engaging story that takes a while to get into, and challenges the reader, but is a rewarding and unique read. I went from considering DNFing it after the first few chapters to immediately buying the sequel as soon as I was finished!
Overall this novel is definitely unique, but the first few chapters were pretty confusing and for a while I thought I was going to give up on the book entirely. Background on the war and the various groups that had formed since was gradually given to the reader at a normal pace, so it took a little while to identify the issue. The Vagrant is a character who doesn’t speak, which is an extremely interesting attribute to give to a protagonist, but in addition to this we also get no internal monologue or thoughts from him. This can give the reader a sense of loss or lack of understanding, but this quickly comes once events and information fall into place and allows the reader to learn about the Vagrant and his character at the same pace as those around him.
One of the items that the Vagrant carries with him is an infant not yet capable of speech, so until others join their party the emotional connection between the child and Vagrant is emphasised. This lack of speech demonstrates how powerful speech can be, but also shows that without it connections can still be built. The interactions between the two still melted my heart even though it purely relied on external behaviour. The lack of commentary also served the novel rather well in that it put him in the position of being an omniscient narrator. This meant that it took longer to get a grasp on the story but was ultimately more rewarding.
Particularly in the earlier half of the novel, the flashbacks to the past were my favourite parts – the characters present in these were given more personality and back story than our main characters, but gradually this personality and connection trickled through to the main narrative. I realise that until this point I’ve made this novel sound like hard work to get through, but once you push through the initial confusion, and are willing to pick up information in other ways this novel becomes extremely fun and interesting.
Another one of my favourite things was one of the first group of characters we come across, who end up adding a man named Harm to the Vagrant’s journey. Due to the inability of the other two characters to communicate through speech, Harm often speaks aloud his own thoughts, but also those that he believes the Vagrant is having, and as the two spend more time together we learn more about our protagonist this way. And of course, the interactions of the pair of older men with the infant was constantly pulling at my heart strings. The bond between these characters is immensely powerful and I ended up having strong emotions in response to events that affected them.
One thing that stood out to me when learning about him were the morals of the Vagrant. Even when I thought he was doing something morally wrong, we would learn not long after that the Vagrant had some explanation for his actions. The English Literature student side of me can’t help but wonder who is narrating the novel; we can’t be seeing things through the eyes of the Vagrant because he gives us little information to work with, but there are no other candidates for narrator. Although you get the impression throughout the novel that the Vagrant and his growing group of friends are definitely on the side of good, it is unclear how much unconscious bias the narrative holds, and how reliable the version of events we are given is.
This novel is definitely a difficult one to capture in a summary or review without spoiling anything, and the best way to get a sense of it is to read it for yourself. Interactions with various “evil” characters force the reader to constantly re-evaluate what they know and think about certain types of creatures in the novel. Ultimately, The Vagrant is a fun and engaging story that takes a while to get into, and challenges the reader, but is a rewarding and unique read. I went from considering DNFing it after the first few chapters to immediately buying the sequel as soon as I was finished!
Fuck me, this took forever and a year to finish.
The Vagrant is pretty unique and unlike anything I've read in the last year. I love the characterisations of the baby and the goat, two rather minor characters who are sometimes bestowed a telescopic breakdown of their actions. The prose itself really is lovely. Lovely maybe being the wrong term for a grimdark fantasy novel.
It's one of those books where, even though I struggled to get through it, I know other people who will love it.
I can't help but admire this book for all its little quirks.
The Vagrant is pretty unique and unlike anything I've read in the last year. I love the characterisations of the baby and the goat, two rather minor characters who are sometimes bestowed a telescopic breakdown of their actions. The prose itself really is lovely. Lovely maybe being the wrong term for a grimdark fantasy novel.
It's one of those books where, even though I struggled to get through it, I know other people who will love it.
I can't help but admire this book for all its little quirks.
I kept reading this and finished it because I liked the worldbuilding, but the writing style and edginess and the kind of pointless dedication to having the main character never speak got on my nerves. It also irked me that an interesting secondary character was randomly killed after a lot of time was spent developing her, and the defeat of the two big antagonists is a weird deus ex machina. Cool world, though.
The Vagrant. The Vagrant has no name. He is called the Vagrant. The Vagrant is told with short sentences. Relentlessly narrated. Like Hemingway trying to copy Jack Vance. Not good. I couldn't finish.
It's a first novel so I might try the author again after he wraps up this series. Because life is to short for the, the, the WTF.
It's a first novel so I might try the author again after he wraps up this series. Because life is to short for the, the, the WTF.
The Vagrant is an epic story of a quest that seems impossible. The main character, known only as the Vagrant, is mute and carries a baby and a magical sword while he tries to make it to the Shining City, the last bastion of the human race. However, between him and his destination is a world that was devastated by an evil that killed the people’s protection, the Seraph Knights, and it has transformed many of the survivors into things no longer human. It is a dark world, with many horrific creatures, where you never know who you can trust, especially as the evil is searching for the Vagrant and what he carries.
I loved this book! I was hooked from the beginning, and honestly had trouble putting it down. The Vagrant had excellent pacing and even though it is 400 pages I finished in a couple days. One of the best things for me was that the writing style felt a bit like poetry, but without being so complex as to pull away from the story. If I had not found out that The Vagrant was a debut novel, I would have never guessed it with how expertly everything was tied together. Especially interesting is the use of two timelines, there is the main one that is happening currently, and flashbacks interspersed between chapters to fill in the gaps, which is used brilliantly.
Before I dive further into why I loved The Vagrant so much, I do need to discuss my one issue with the book; which is how hard it was to figure out what was going on at first. I could see where people might be tempted to put the book down, if I had not been so intrigued by the premise and loved the style of writing it might have been tempting to put it down. For fans that are not usually science fiction/fantasy, especially with more complex worlds, this may be a book that is difficult to follow at first. However, if you push through things begin to come together amazingly, and the beginning makes more sense. In the end it was a bit like a mystery novel with the pieces only coming together as you read on. I am rather excited to re-read the beginning now that I know where the book is going, as I think there was a lot that I missed.
In the novel it was a very brave choice by Newman to have a main character that does not speak, and the other main characters are a baby and a goat. On top of this, as it is written in third person, with shifting focus, we never actually see into the Vagrant’s head, which again is more complicated. However, Newman really made this work. With looks and small motions the Vagrant is able to convey his point. While he is wrapped in mystery, as we never hear the Vagrant’s story from his point of view, he was still a completely realized character. My favorite interactions though are the ones between the Vagrant and the baby. You can see one of their interactions below.
“The next kick is more vigorous. Pulling back his coat once again, the Vagrant frowns down at the baby. It stops kicking and looks up at him. He raises his eyebrows at it and the baby smiles. The cycle repeats several times, the baby smiling a little more with each repetition. The Vagrant stops walking and sighs.”
Adding to the Vagrant’s appeal is the fact that he does not fall into many of the conventions that readers can expect from a character completing a massive quest. Instead, whilst he is brave the Vagrant is also fallible. He fails people, he can’t save everyone every time, he is not able to dodge everything and gets injured, there are times when he is so exhausted he passes out, and he also occasionally does not know what to do. There were times he reminded me of Captain America (which is a great thing for me), in that the Vagrant is devoted to the ideals he supports and he will occasionally go against those from the institution that should align with those ideals. More than that the Vagrant acts, without his knowledge, as a beacon within a dark world that gives some people the first hope in a long time.
The characters that the Vagrant interacts with are all interesting and rather varied. It is hard to talk about any of them specifically without giving plot points away. Mostly it is interesting to realize that in such a dark world it is never clear what people’s intentions are, and who can be trusted. It was also remarkable how the different characters interacted with the Vagrant’s muteness. There is one character in particular that I really loved, especially in how he was able to really read the Vagrant, and their interactions always made me smile!
For me a hero is nothing without a good villain, and there are number of evil characters that the Vagrant faces. The main evil is the Usurper (who has several other names as well), who in turn has many minions. There is also the Uncivil, the First, and a plethora of other dark creatures. It took me a while to figure out that the Usurper and the Uncivil were different entities, but once I had that figures out the plot was easier to follow. It also was a bit hard to figure out how all the different terms associated with evil in the story fit together, but I feel that has more to do with my unfamiliarity with high fantasy novels. The villains and their alliances and infighting are part of the story that I am most looking forward to re-reading.
It has been a long time since I was so completely blown away by a book, and this one really did that. One of my main worries when reading a book that I love right away is what is going to happen at the end? I have had many books ruined at the end for me, whether I disagree with what the author did, or things are left unexplained, or the books changes direction abruptly. I admit I was so worried going into the last few chapters of this book (and was very worried it would actually turn out to be a series with no real ending). However, I absolutely loved the ending, especially the last few sentences. Honestly, I couldn’t stop smiling because it was such a perfect ending for the story! This book is going on my favorite list, and I will be forcing several of my friends to read it. I think people who enjoy the worlds of Garth Nix in the Old Kingdom books will like this world, and fans of slightly flawed heroes will appreciate the Vagrant.
Final Verdict: An amazing and complex journey with amazing characters that I am already planning to re-read!
This review was originally posted: https://francesandlynne.wordpress.com/the-vagrant/
I loved this book! I was hooked from the beginning, and honestly had trouble putting it down. The Vagrant had excellent pacing and even though it is 400 pages I finished in a couple days. One of the best things for me was that the writing style felt a bit like poetry, but without being so complex as to pull away from the story. If I had not found out that The Vagrant was a debut novel, I would have never guessed it with how expertly everything was tied together. Especially interesting is the use of two timelines, there is the main one that is happening currently, and flashbacks interspersed between chapters to fill in the gaps, which is used brilliantly.
Before I dive further into why I loved The Vagrant so much, I do need to discuss my one issue with the book; which is how hard it was to figure out what was going on at first. I could see where people might be tempted to put the book down, if I had not been so intrigued by the premise and loved the style of writing it might have been tempting to put it down. For fans that are not usually science fiction/fantasy, especially with more complex worlds, this may be a book that is difficult to follow at first. However, if you push through things begin to come together amazingly, and the beginning makes more sense. In the end it was a bit like a mystery novel with the pieces only coming together as you read on. I am rather excited to re-read the beginning now that I know where the book is going, as I think there was a lot that I missed.
In the novel it was a very brave choice by Newman to have a main character that does not speak, and the other main characters are a baby and a goat. On top of this, as it is written in third person, with shifting focus, we never actually see into the Vagrant’s head, which again is more complicated. However, Newman really made this work. With looks and small motions the Vagrant is able to convey his point. While he is wrapped in mystery, as we never hear the Vagrant’s story from his point of view, he was still a completely realized character. My favorite interactions though are the ones between the Vagrant and the baby. You can see one of their interactions below.
“The next kick is more vigorous. Pulling back his coat once again, the Vagrant frowns down at the baby. It stops kicking and looks up at him. He raises his eyebrows at it and the baby smiles. The cycle repeats several times, the baby smiling a little more with each repetition. The Vagrant stops walking and sighs.”
Adding to the Vagrant’s appeal is the fact that he does not fall into many of the conventions that readers can expect from a character completing a massive quest. Instead, whilst he is brave the Vagrant is also fallible. He fails people, he can’t save everyone every time, he is not able to dodge everything and gets injured, there are times when he is so exhausted he passes out, and he also occasionally does not know what to do. There were times he reminded me of Captain America (which is a great thing for me), in that the Vagrant is devoted to the ideals he supports and he will occasionally go against those from the institution that should align with those ideals. More than that the Vagrant acts, without his knowledge, as a beacon within a dark world that gives some people the first hope in a long time.
The characters that the Vagrant interacts with are all interesting and rather varied. It is hard to talk about any of them specifically without giving plot points away. Mostly it is interesting to realize that in such a dark world it is never clear what people’s intentions are, and who can be trusted. It was also remarkable how the different characters interacted with the Vagrant’s muteness. There is one character in particular that I really loved, especially in how he was able to really read the Vagrant, and their interactions always made me smile!
For me a hero is nothing without a good villain, and there are number of evil characters that the Vagrant faces. The main evil is the Usurper (who has several other names as well), who in turn has many minions. There is also the Uncivil, the First, and a plethora of other dark creatures. It took me a while to figure out that the Usurper and the Uncivil were different entities, but once I had that figures out the plot was easier to follow. It also was a bit hard to figure out how all the different terms associated with evil in the story fit together, but I feel that has more to do with my unfamiliarity with high fantasy novels. The villains and their alliances and infighting are part of the story that I am most looking forward to re-reading.
It has been a long time since I was so completely blown away by a book, and this one really did that. One of my main worries when reading a book that I love right away is what is going to happen at the end? I have had many books ruined at the end for me, whether I disagree with what the author did, or things are left unexplained, or the books changes direction abruptly. I admit I was so worried going into the last few chapters of this book (and was very worried it would actually turn out to be a series with no real ending). However, I absolutely loved the ending, especially the last few sentences. Honestly, I couldn’t stop smiling because it was such a perfect ending for the story! This book is going on my favorite list, and I will be forcing several of my friends to read it. I think people who enjoy the worlds of Garth Nix in the Old Kingdom books will like this world, and fans of slightly flawed heroes will appreciate the Vagrant.
Final Verdict: An amazing and complex journey with amazing characters that I am already planning to re-read!
This review was originally posted: https://francesandlynne.wordpress.com/the-vagrant/
Protagonista mudo e misterioso, sem monólogos internos ou um ponto de vista mais íntimo para ele, acompanhado por um bebê e um bode em um cenário pós-apocalíptico/demoníaco que me lembrou Fallout + Mad Max. Bem legal.
An interesting and ambition story, one that I didn't fully click with but was impressed none the less, all the more so for it being a début. Maybe it suffered from being a bit in-between in terms of approach or style, but it was something out of the ordinary and wins extra points for that. While it lacked the hallucinatory style of the Gunslinger there's a similarity to a new weird fantasy in something approximating a post-apocalyptic setting. It's not that dark, is gently sprinkled with humour but played fairly straight throughout, so maybe not quite committed to any particular sensibility to be really successful - at the same time however an easier, lighter read for all of that which, if you don't want super-dark grimness in everything you read, is good. Throw in three of the four main characters not speaking and use of the present tense, and it's clear Newman set himself quite a challenge. And while the end result isn't perfect, that he pulled it together so well in his first novel kinda pisses me off when by all rights this should have been a godawful mess...
I enjoyed it right to the end, which for me is the main thing. The humour wasn't forced, occasionally a bit too deliberate but never out of place or anything, and the characters showed enough humanity to overcome the lack of speech etc. The plot wasn't exactly complex, but having read similar novels it still compares well, and he balanced the backstory nicely - a deft touch with the world-building when often this sort never gets much explanation. All in all, one I'd recommend others try even if I may not find time for the sequel.
I enjoyed it right to the end, which for me is the main thing. The humour wasn't forced, occasionally a bit too deliberate but never out of place or anything, and the characters showed enough humanity to overcome the lack of speech etc. The plot wasn't exactly complex, but having read similar novels it still compares well, and he balanced the backstory nicely - a deft touch with the world-building when often this sort never gets much explanation. All in all, one I'd recommend others try even if I may not find time for the sequel.
‘The Vagrant’ is sort of a post-demonic apocalyptic travelogue, one man trying to escape the ruins of the world with a sword and a baby, always moving from one desolation to the next. The writing is excellent and evocative -- the demonic forces are sinister and overwhelming, what remains of civilization is convincingly crumbled and tainted, and every page reveals another dark corner of the world. It’s also great because despite the hopeless magnitude of his task, we get to read of the small victories along the way; even though the salvation he looks for might not even exist any longer, there are moments of light that make it worth still trying. That hope-in-bleakness is really attractive to me right now, and I’d really recommend this to anyone looking for a bit of relief.
Oh, this is a tasty story!
There are so may things to like about The Vagrant, the characters are all well defined (even the goat has it's own personality!) and they all have believable motivation.
The plot is decent from first to last page.
I'm not normally a lover of flashbacks but in this book they really worked and gave the central characters additional layers.
The death of the hammer; I know why it was done and the how fit with the story but I didn't think it was necessary and it kinda bugged my happiness.
There are so may things to like about The Vagrant, the characters are all well defined (even the goat has it's own personality!) and they all have believable motivation.
The plot is decent from first to last page.
I'm not normally a lover of flashbacks but in this book they really worked and gave the central characters additional layers.
The death of the hammer; I know why it was done and the how fit with the story but I didn't think it was necessary and it kinda bugged my happiness.
Really wasn't sure about this to start with, it took a while for the style to click. By the end I loved it :)