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daja57's review against another edition
5.0
The houses of Innertown cluster around the abandoned chemical plant. Many of the people living there are sick and dying, all of them have abandoned hope. A teenaged boy disappears. The policeman knows what happened but he helps the town's richest resident cover it up. Since then another five lads have vanished, one after another.
Leonard thinks he will be the next. Meantime he cares for his dying father, reads voraciously at the local library, fucks his girlfriend, Elspeth, drinks psychedelic tea with the Moth Man, and gets rather too involved with Jimmy's gang.
Chapters of the stunning story are narrated in the third person by the policeman, his wife, his ex-employer, and Elspeth, but the bulk of the story, including a prologue which seems to be written after his death, is narrated in the first-person by Leonard. The story is strange, haunted by themes of avenging angels and guilt and loss and the desolation of decay. The narrating characters are beautifully described: the guilt-ridden policeman ("that dim, self-pitying doormat of a man"; 1: The Book of Job: Connections) and his alcoholic wife, the cynical and manipulative boss, needy but loving Elspeth. Jimmy's gang is wonderfully feral, following only the rules of the pack (and provides a hilarious moment when Mickey gets chloroform and chlorophyll confused). Mythic roles are taken by John the Librarian and the Moth Man (a character first met at the 50% turning point and presumably named after the strange folklore supernatural creature from West Virginia). And, central to all, is the doomed Leonard, intelligent and caring, but accepting of his fate. I just wish he'd had the chance to finish reading Proust.
Leonard thinks he will be the next. Meantime he cares for his dying father, reads voraciously at the local library, fucks his girlfriend, Elspeth, drinks psychedelic tea with the Moth Man, and gets rather too involved with Jimmy's gang.
Chapters of the stunning story are narrated in the third person by the policeman, his wife, his ex-employer, and Elspeth, but the bulk of the story, including a prologue which seems to be written after his death, is narrated in the first-person by Leonard. The story is strange, haunted by themes of avenging angels and guilt and loss and the desolation of decay. The narrating characters are beautifully described: the guilt-ridden policeman ("that dim, self-pitying doormat of a man"; 1: The Book of Job: Connections) and his alcoholic wife, the cynical and manipulative boss, needy but loving Elspeth. Jimmy's gang is wonderfully feral, following only the rules of the pack (and provides a hilarious moment when Mickey gets chloroform and chlorophyll confused). Mythic roles are taken by John the Librarian and the Moth Man (a character first met at the 50% turning point and presumably named after the strange folklore supernatural creature from West Virginia). And, central to all, is the doomed Leonard, intelligent and caring, but accepting of his fate. I just wish he'd had the chance to finish reading Proust.
kreuz's review against another edition
challenging
dark
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
meemawreads's review
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.0
Couldn’t get a good sense of time and place, it was vibes-only world building. Women in the story mainly serve as projections of the male characters’ insecurities. Bored by the endless monologing about “brave flowers” and other attempts at poetic scene-setting. The child/teen character is naive one minute and musing about leftover moonlight the next. Couldn’t connect. End was stupid.
currerbell's review
5.0
An average of 3.05? Did we read the same novel?!
I've taken a few days since finishing The Glister to think about it and come down from my excitable state, so that this review didn't read like an incomprehensible smattering of "oh wow!" and "brilliant!". This was only my second Burnside novel, but I feel confident in saying that he is one of my favourite contemporary authors. He writes with such mastery, and the way that he illustrates Innertown and its ghostly, menacing atmosphere is distinct and chilling. I adore how this is written, switching from third person to first and providing the reader with glimpses from different characters but propelling the tale through Leonard's narrative. In the same way that I got anxious as I neared the end of The Dumb House and nothing had been resolved, I was intensely curious when I got to the final 30 pages of The Glister and there was no resolution in sight. Just as the town is depicted as bleak, murky, and mysterious, we become implicated through our own confusion at what is going on. Burnside doesn't provide any conclusive answers. I thought that this novel was brilliant before I got to the ending, but once I read the final page, I was in absolute awe. If you're interested in an atmospheric, grey haze type of novel, a Holden Caulfield-type narrator, the familiarity of Lepidoptera in disturbing texts but with a distinctive and sacred twist, you will enjoy this.
I've taken a few days since finishing The Glister to think about it and come down from my excitable state, so that this review didn't read like an incomprehensible smattering of "oh wow!" and "brilliant!". This was only my second Burnside novel, but I feel confident in saying that he is one of my favourite contemporary authors. He writes with such mastery, and the way that he illustrates Innertown and its ghostly, menacing atmosphere is distinct and chilling. I adore how this is written, switching from third person to first and providing the reader with glimpses from different characters but propelling the tale through Leonard's narrative. In the same way that I got anxious as I neared the end of The Dumb House and nothing had been resolved, I was intensely curious when I got to the final 30 pages of The Glister and there was no resolution in sight. Just as the town is depicted as bleak, murky, and mysterious, we become implicated through our own confusion at what is going on. Burnside doesn't provide any conclusive answers. I thought that this novel was brilliant before I got to the ending, but once I read the final page, I was in absolute awe. If you're interested in an atmospheric, grey haze type of novel, a Holden Caulfield-type narrator, the familiarity of Lepidoptera in disturbing texts but with a distinctive and sacred twist, you will enjoy this.
fant_ine's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
manwithanagenda's review
dark
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
1.25
'The Glister' promises a great deal, but in the end it has little more to offer than that cheap trick of the modern "literary" novel: writing the last chapter in obfuscating prose to mask the fact that as an author you never had an end-game in mind.
Burnside's Innertown's post-industrial decay and dispirited inhabitants aren't too far off from reality, and the mystery of the missing children, the cover-up and the desperation add an urgency to the story. The whole novel suffers from overwriting, but that's something I'll always forgive - especially if the effect is as pleasing as 'The Glister' was - if the author can back up their fluff with something substantial.
Leonard, the teenage boy who we're led to believe is our protagonist, seems to be on the right track to figuring out the problem that is Innertown, or at the very least escaping it, until his journey fizzles. He doesn't learn anything. His character starts as being worldly wise and ambivalent and the novel leaves him that way. Am I naive to have wanted more? Am I hopelessly stuck with some modernist expectation for a novel to achieve something? Should I just shrug 'The Glister' off because even if it didn't amount to anything, at least it sounded good while it lasted? Maybe there's something to that, but if I'm going to redefine my expectations of what a novel should be, its going to be something damn better than this.
Burnside's Innertown's post-industrial decay and dispirited inhabitants aren't too far off from reality, and the mystery of the missing children, the cover-up and the desperation add an urgency to the story. The whole novel suffers from overwriting, but that's something I'll always forgive - especially if the effect is as pleasing as 'The Glister' was - if the author can back up their fluff with something substantial.
Leonard, the teenage boy who we're led to believe is our protagonist, seems to be on the right track to figuring out the problem that is Innertown, or at the very least escaping it, until his journey fizzles. He doesn't learn anything. His character starts as being worldly wise and ambivalent and the novel leaves him that way. Am I naive to have wanted more? Am I hopelessly stuck with some modernist expectation for a novel to achieve something? Should I just shrug 'The Glister' off because even if it didn't amount to anything, at least it sounded good while it lasted? Maybe there's something to that, but if I'm going to redefine my expectations of what a novel should be, its going to be something damn better than this.
abetterbradley's review against another edition
2.0
The book was so-so. It's a really good story (a dying town with an abandoned chemical plant on the outskirts and teen boys going missing) but, at the end, it really goes nowhere.