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3.29 AVERAGE
3.29 AVERAGE
Not really my cup of tea - nor wee dram. Existential angst set in a Scottish-style idyll gone wrong has been done before and better.
I did not like this book but I had to know how it ended. Found my way to this, Andrew Ervin's first novel, via the New York Times Book Review. Sounded like an interesting premise, which it was. But I could not abide most of the text; liked the story but not the writing. Still, managed to make it to the end by skimming much of the book after the first chapter. Interesting ideas which might have been better served with different prose.
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Though…(as I think about it) maybe the prose was perfect! You will have to see for yourself.
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Though…(as I think about it) maybe the prose was perfect! You will have to see for yourself.
The right setting and the wrong character. The Isle of Jura is wonderfully alive on these pages, and the characters our protagonist affronts there are almost all fascinating.
But the main character here (Ray Welter) is as much of a smug pedant as his beloved Orwell. The character arc is predictable from the early pages: disaffected former ad-man escapes vile America for idyllic Scotland only to find that his problems can't be geographically escaped and to return to Chicago a changed, evolved, simpler (and in this case even more smug) man. Every stitch of his pre-Jura life in Chicago (about 1/4 to 1/3 of the book) is waste--just pages and pages of my reading life I'll never get back. Ray is a condescending shitbag, a terrible reader of Orwell, a self-centered prick who never really loses that egocentrism, and a general bore.
I'd happily return to Jura, which Ervin writes about compellingly, but I can't stand another page of Ray. Perhaps the most disappointing moment of the text is when he is NON-fatally shot. Such a missed opportunity. I mean just a few more inches to the left...
But the main character here (Ray Welter) is as much of a smug pedant as his beloved Orwell. The character arc is predictable from the early pages: disaffected former ad-man escapes vile America for idyllic Scotland only to find that his problems can't be geographically escaped and to return to Chicago a changed, evolved, simpler (and in this case even more smug) man. Every stitch of his pre-Jura life in Chicago (about 1/4 to 1/3 of the book) is waste--just pages and pages of my reading life I'll never get back. Ray is a condescending shitbag, a terrible reader of Orwell, a self-centered prick who never really loses that egocentrism, and a general bore.
I'd happily return to Jura, which Ervin writes about compellingly, but I can't stand another page of Ray. Perhaps the most disappointing moment of the text is when he is NON-fatally shot. Such a missed opportunity. I mean just a few more inches to the left...
Meh. Too much swearing and violence for no reason, not enough follow through. Well written, but very little substance.
Whisky, Winston Smith, and werewolves? Oh my!
This is solid debut novel with good writing. It's clear that the author has thought a lot about Orwell and [b:1984|5470|1984|George Orwell|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1348990566s/5470.jpg|153313], and the only clunky parts of the book were when he goes too "literary theory" and feels the need to flag down the similarities between the themes of 1984 and main character Ray's situation like an insane airplane marshall.
What is interesting is the parallel though inverted journeys of Winston Smith and Ray Welter. While Winston fights Big Brother for as long as possible before succumbing to save himself (which itself is debatable and we don't have to go into it here), Ray has built his life by supporting Big Brother. As a high-powered ad executive, he uses propaganda and cunning persuasion to make most of America think they want gas-guzzling, environmentally unfriendly SUVs. With the weight of his bad choices piling around him, he looks for escape on the Isle of Jura, a remote island of Scotland's Outer Hebrides where Orwell penned his classic dystopian novel.
What I find myself still thinking about is if in the end Ray becomes enlightened and makes a free decision to end up where he does, or if he is just like Winston Smith, succumbing to the powers that be and letting them control him if only to maintain a bit of himself and his sanity. The similarities between 1984's Julia and Molly, the young Scottish girl Ray befriends, are striking, especially in the ending. I don't want to give it away, but Molly's final decision is a confusing one. Maybe Ray, like Winston, realizes that Big Brother is going to be there no matter how far he runs. Is the ending optimistic or not? I think it can be read both ways, but you'll have to read for yourself to see.
A quick read, but a good summer book with a lot more meat to it than any of the pulpy beach fiction floating around right now.
This is solid debut novel with good writing. It's clear that the author has thought a lot about Orwell and [b:1984|5470|1984|George Orwell|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1348990566s/5470.jpg|153313], and the only clunky parts of the book were when he goes too "literary theory" and feels the need to flag down the similarities between the themes of 1984 and main character Ray's situation like an insane airplane marshall.
What is interesting is the parallel though inverted journeys of Winston Smith and Ray Welter. While Winston fights Big Brother for as long as possible before succumbing to save himself (which itself is debatable and we don't have to go into it here), Ray has built his life by supporting Big Brother. As a high-powered ad executive, he uses propaganda and cunning persuasion to make most of America think they want gas-guzzling, environmentally unfriendly SUVs. With the weight of his bad choices piling around him, he looks for escape on the Isle of Jura, a remote island of Scotland's Outer Hebrides where Orwell penned his classic dystopian novel.
What I find myself still thinking about is if in the end Ray becomes enlightened and makes a free decision to end up where he does, or if he is just like Winston Smith, succumbing to the powers that be and letting them control him if only to maintain a bit of himself and his sanity. The similarities between 1984's Julia and Molly, the young Scottish girl Ray befriends, are striking, especially in the ending. I don't want to give it away, but Molly's final decision is a confusing one. Maybe Ray, like Winston, realizes that Big Brother is going to be there no matter how far he runs. Is the ending optimistic or not? I think it can be read both ways, but you'll have to read for yourself to see.
A quick read, but a good summer book with a lot more meat to it than any of the pulpy beach fiction floating around right now.
Two things sold me on this novel: the character's self-deprecating style of taking himself down for his failures, and the rich, wry, cranky characters of Ireland's Isle of Jura. I felt like the book could have been twice as long and would have stuck with it for more pages, but a great read nonetheless.
The main character prides himself by repeatedly saying he was raised on a farm but will not go out in bad weather, doesn’t know the use of rubber boots, is repulsed by the sight of dead animals, and cannot run a household. I don’t know what this person did on the farm but working wasn’t part of his life. The character is a pusillanimous putz that almost but unfortunately did not die a violent and painful death.
What you get when you combine the writings of George Orwell, a life crisis, quirky characters, and a cold look at our modern world…but don’t despair because “Orwell was an optimist” and this book proves that is true.
Not sure if the order was off on my audio book, but I felt like I came into the story about halfway through. Couldn't find it in me to care about the characters and quit listening before to long.