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ashmash's review against another edition
challenging
dark
mysterious
reflective
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.0
Most boring book I’ve ever read. Every page is just the ramblings of an unlikable man with zero personality. There is a short amount at the end where the story picks up but by then you’ve trudged through pages upon pages of nothing, so you’ll just be wanting it to finish already. I would have dropped this book early on if it wasn’t part of my coursework.
ferretonfire's review against another edition
4.0
"My own diagnosis of my problem is a simpler one. It's that I share 50% of my genome with a banana and 98% with a chimpanzee. Banana's don't do psychological consistency. And the tiny part of us that's different—the special Homo sapiens bit—is faulty. It doesn't work. Sorry about that."
The beginning of Engleby by Sebastian Faulks is deeply irritating. The narrator's condescension and generally disgust with society became boring quickly; this made me mistakenly place the novel into the groan-worthy genre of Embittered Failing Male Tells the World Why It Sucks.
I was, thankfully, wrong. This novel is a satire, one which understands its subject (namely, self-absorbed young men) so well that it took me an embarrassingly long time to realise that the qualities which made me dislike the novel were intentionally over-the-top. Faulks had been constructing an arsehole-pinata, which readers get to enjoy watching him beat down over the final 200 pages of this book.
To think you know a character well and then have your perspective flipped is always an exhilarating experience, one of the most fascinating an author can provide. As Engleby went on, I came to realise that I had been attributing mistakes of the protagonist with mistakes of the author—yes, the protagonist was an insufferable, pretentious blowhard, but this was to set up an unusual narrative which is easily worth the novel's rocky start.
Aside from the strange story-structure and protagonist, the novel has some fantastic details about life in 70s England. Faulks' portrayal of a "gaslight grey" country still struggling to rise from the ashes of the second World War thirty years on is a convincing one, filled with nice details of dilapidated buildings and soot-smeared skies.
This is, ultimately, a fascinating character study, despite a beginning which may turn off readers who aren't prepared to grit their teeth. The final chapter makes it all worth it, though.
The beginning of Engleby by Sebastian Faulks is deeply irritating. The narrator's condescension and generally disgust with society became boring quickly; this made me mistakenly place the novel into the groan-worthy genre of Embittered Failing Male Tells the World Why It Sucks.
I was, thankfully, wrong. This novel is a satire, one which understands its subject (namely, self-absorbed young men) so well that it took me an embarrassingly long time to realise that the qualities which made me dislike the novel were intentionally over-the-top. Faulks had been constructing an arsehole-pinata, which readers get to enjoy watching him beat down over the final 200 pages of this book.
To think you know a character well and then have your perspective flipped is always an exhilarating experience, one of the most fascinating an author can provide. As Engleby went on, I came to realise that I had been attributing mistakes of the protagonist with mistakes of the author—yes, the protagonist was an insufferable, pretentious blowhard, but this was to set up an unusual narrative which is easily worth the novel's rocky start.
Aside from the strange story-structure and protagonist, the novel has some fantastic details about life in 70s England. Faulks' portrayal of a "gaslight grey" country still struggling to rise from the ashes of the second World War thirty years on is a convincing one, filled with nice details of dilapidated buildings and soot-smeared skies.
This is, ultimately, a fascinating character study, despite a beginning which may turn off readers who aren't prepared to grit their teeth. The final chapter makes it all worth it, though.
apolasky's review against another edition
5.0
What a distressingly gripping psychological thriller with a Woolfian stream-of-conciousness narrative and a highly unreliable narrator!
Engleby is an uncomfortably relatable character. He’s the type of person with whom you wouldn’t want to have thoughts in common, but some of his deep and dark feelings hit a close to home.
Faulks’ amazing writing style manages to make the reader understand where the protagonist is coming from and why he feels the way he does.
You can’t help wanting to turn the page to know what’s going to happen next, or what has really happened in the past.
Highly recommended to readers looking for Gone Girl, You and Fight Club vibes.
Engleby is an uncomfortably relatable character. He’s the type of person with whom you wouldn’t want to have thoughts in common, but some of his deep and dark feelings hit a close to home.
Faulks’ amazing writing style manages to make the reader understand where the protagonist is coming from and why he feels the way he does.
You can’t help wanting to turn the page to know what’s going to happen next, or what has really happened in the past.
Highly recommended to readers looking for Gone Girl, You and Fight Club vibes.
mgeryk's review against another edition
4.0
This was a really compelling read. I read Birdsong many years ago, and I think that's the only Faulks novel I've ever read--and I frankly don't remember too much about, including whether or not I liked it, so it's unlikely I would have picked this up on my own. An NPR interview steered me in the direction of this book.
A fascinating character study of a sociopath, more telling(particularly early on) in what isn't implicitly stated than in what is. I couldn't put it down. I find myself unable to say a lot about it, because I've now recommended it to several people, and the things I find that I'd like to discuss would spoil the plot too much.
A fascinating character study of a sociopath, more telling(particularly early on) in what isn't implicitly stated than in what is. I couldn't put it down. I find myself unable to say a lot about it, because I've now recommended it to several people, and the things I find that I'd like to discuss would spoil the plot too much.
gitsy's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
tense
slow-paced
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
anunande's review against another edition
Mike Engleby is a working class boy from Reading who gets admitted to a famous English university on a scholarship. Then something happens. Jennifer Arkland, the fellow student he admires from afar, disappears. This kicks off something that comes to fruition in London, more than 12 years later, though not even Mike knows how.
1) It's part mystery, part evolution of an interesting era - the 1970s (politics, music, culture, fashion, women's rights) - and part slice of life of the first person narrator who immediately strikes us as rather odd but not necessarily in a bad way. More awkward than anything. But it's eventually a portrait of a sociopath.
2) As the story moves forward, the strong sense of things simmering under the surface is starkly evident. The narrative voice reflects this subtly but clearly, and I enjoyed the overall style of writing.
3) Mike's intelligent, strongly opinionated, matter-of-fact and, as becomes clear soon enough, rather troubled. He's unlikeable, unsympathetic, unable to feel empathy or joy, but it initially appears dissociative than worrying. It makes for an uneasy read, especially when he's being particularly honest, but each of these confidences are nothing but engaging, even as they reveal parts of him that are uncomfortable and even disturbing.
4) The sense that he's an unreliable narrator becomes more pronounced in the second half of the book when the narrative really gets going.
5) The only "complaint" for me, personally, was that at times, what was going on in Mike's life otherwise wasn't that interesting and there was a fair bit of rambling. Some of the observations made were spot on, the underlying dark humour well-written, but it dragged on too much while the main thread was at an impasse. It seemed rather pointless.
All in all, an interesting first read by an author whose books have been on my shelf for a few years. I look forward to delving into his French trilogy next.
1) It's part mystery, part evolution of an interesting era - the 1970s (politics, music, culture, fashion, women's rights) - and part slice of life of the first person narrator who immediately strikes us as rather odd but not necessarily in a bad way. More awkward than anything. But it's eventually a portrait of a sociopath.
2) As the story moves forward, the strong sense of things simmering under the surface is starkly evident. The narrative voice reflects this subtly but clearly, and I enjoyed the overall style of writing.
3) Mike's intelligent, strongly opinionated, matter-of-fact and, as becomes clear soon enough, rather troubled. He's unlikeable, unsympathetic, unable to feel empathy or joy, but it initially appears dissociative than worrying. It makes for an uneasy read, especially when he's being particularly honest, but each of these confidences are nothing but engaging, even as they reveal parts of him that are uncomfortable and even disturbing.
4) The sense that he's an unreliable narrator becomes more pronounced in the second half of the book when the narrative really gets going.
5) The only "complaint" for me, personally, was that at times, what was going on in Mike's life otherwise wasn't that interesting and there was a fair bit of rambling. Some of the observations made were spot on, the underlying dark humour well-written, but it dragged on too much while the main thread was at an impasse. It seemed rather pointless.
All in all, an interesting first read by an author whose books have been on my shelf for a few years. I look forward to delving into his French trilogy next.
aelred's review against another edition
2.0
Faulks is such a smug writer. He's intelligent, but seems insecure and anxious to show this intelligence. This is a poor man's version of John Lanchester's The Debt to Pleasure. Still, not as bad as Birdsong.
srenee213's review against another edition
2.0
About an English college boy in the 1970s named Engleby. He has a very distant view of his life and relationships (especially a girl named Jennifer, who goes missing) and one can assume that he has some sort of psychological disorder and, possibly because of this, is involved in Jennifer's disappearance. Nothing exciting or very intriguing, but the ending was rather interesting. Okay.
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Find more book reviews at A Quick Red Fox.
balancinghistorybooks's review against another edition
2.0
I read this some years ago and wasn't overly enamoured with it, but I think it could certainly be time to pick it back up and challenge my younger self.