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A review by sonofatreus
Beast by Paul Kingsnorth
3.0
The best thing about Beast is the style of prose. I've heard some compare it to Cormac McCarthy and this isn't totally wrong. It is incomplete though. Kingsnorth's prose only progressively becomes less rigid, or, put another way, it gradually degrades over the course of the novel (first losing some punctuation, then capitalization, then mostly without either). This degradation is directly tied to the story itself, speaking to the mental state of our Buckmaster. Perhaps this is best represented with the few instances where Kingsnorth deliberately breaks off the narrative mid-thought (and mid-word). I found this aspect of the book to be effective and the main reason I kept reading. Given Kingsnorth's brilliant creativity for the first book in this trilogy (the Wake), this should come as no surprise.
As for the story, it was good by the end but could be downright tedious for much of the book. The scenes and lines I did like were drowned by the day to day grind facing the protagonist. By the time the novel ended I was finally getting into the story itself, so I wonder if more time could have been spent in the later half of the book, less on his broken leg.
As for the story, it was good by the end but could be downright tedious for much of the book. The scenes and lines I did like were drowned by the day to day grind facing the protagonist. By the time the novel ended I was finally getting into the story itself, so I wonder if more time could have been spent in the later half of the book, less on his broken leg.