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3.54 AVERAGE
3.54 AVERAGE
slow-paced
This is a painful read full of bad writing, difficult sentences, you feel bad about the protagonist who's gone blind after an encounter. I hated it and kept waiting for things to change but it is a difficult to read book with little or no sign of hope or redemption. I don't know why this one the booker. Thats why I read it.
challenging
dark
funny
reflective
medium-paced
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
N/A
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This book was perfect for me to read now. The narrator has just experienced a traumatic event and has to somehow slog through blindly (literally, in his case) and move the fuck on. I wanted to underline some turn of phrase on every other page and actually did copy a paragraph into my diary, something I hadn't done in at least a year.
Brilliant piece of writing, just brilliant. Not easy to read but worth the effort. The rhythm of the language and the story as rendered from inside the head of a working class, alcoholic, petty criminal make this novel one of the most interesting I have read in a long time. Sammy made me sigh but in the end I loved him as much or maybe more than I despaired of him.
I genuinely enjoyed this book, which is a first for the class I read it for. Despite the Glaswegian slant, it was a really literary book - not much happens, you're always stuck in Sammy's head, except when there's a narrator sort of?
But it was good to read, did a really good job of sympathetically portraying distrust of the welfare system in the UK, and also was utterly believable. Nothing about it made me question Sammy's personhood at all - it was as if it were autobiographical, which it isn't. Really impressive and nice to finally enjoy something on the theme of "depressing steam of consciousness novel about how shit it is to be ill in Scotland in the 80s"
But it was good to read, did a really good job of sympathetically portraying distrust of the welfare system in the UK, and also was utterly believable. Nothing about it made me question Sammy's personhood at all - it was as if it were autobiographical, which it isn't. Really impressive and nice to finally enjoy something on the theme of "depressing steam of consciousness novel about how shit it is to be ill in Scotland in the 80s"
dark
funny
reflective
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This was a re-read because I found myself unable to stop thinking about it. Sammy will not be everyone's cup of tea (he's a bit of an alcoholic twat) but I loved him for his never-say-die attitude and determination to be a better man.
There are few characters of novels who have stayed with me as powerfully and lastingly as Sammy.
There are few characters of novels who have stayed with me as powerfully and lastingly as Sammy.
Winner of the 1994 Booker Prize for Fiction. I read this many years ago and you really had to let yourself get into it for the stream of consciousness and dialect to work. When I finished it, I was more addled than anything else, but it is one of the books that I most remember reading years later. I actually miss Sammy. One of these days I need to revisit this one.
challenging
dark
funny
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes