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A review by hrstarzec
The End of Mr. Y by Scarlett Thomas
4.0
It begins wonderfully off-kilter with a university falling down into itself, and with the words that mean nothing at the start but would become prophetic -- YOU NOW HAVE ONE CHOICE. It immediately captures a tone I'm drawn to, something as plausible as a building collapsing accented with brushstrokes of absurdism. So I have to say that this novel had me from the start, the academia of it all, the flourish of magical realism (or the promise of it, with no indication yet whether it will become real or simply theoretical). I think I enjoyed that pursuit of the unreal more than the eventual representation of it, considering somewhere short of the halfway mark the novel did slip from my grasp a little, where somehow both the plot and the philosophical musings are ramped up in a way that doesn't mesh, the Troposphere being represented as a sort of video game or computer simulation environment, and then two characters having a conversation about philosophy and choice and religion right in the middle of the action. It began to remind me unfavorably of The Midnight Library, where an intriguing idea is brought down a little by YA-level plot development.
However, I was able to get back on this novel's wavelength. It's a bit like a mash-up between Being John Malkovich and The Matrix, but even more concerned with philosophy than the latter. It gives itself a bit of an excuse to be overly absurd at times, and regardless the imagery is often fascinating. I don't know a ton about philosophy and I didn't read this with the assumption that any of it holds any actual philosophical ground (I wouldn't be surprised if there are a million philosophers screaming at the pages). Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't, but it still did enough to be thought-provoking and, viewing it from the perspective of a speculative fiction novel, it creates a fascinating, intricate world. Even at the very end there are aspects of the plot I wasn't really on board with, but I can let that go in service of a very unique read.
However, I was able to get back on this novel's wavelength. It's a bit like a mash-up between Being John Malkovich and The Matrix, but even more concerned with philosophy than the latter. It gives itself a bit of an excuse to be overly absurd at times, and regardless the imagery is often fascinating. I don't know a ton about philosophy and I didn't read this with the assumption that any of it holds any actual philosophical ground (I wouldn't be surprised if there are a million philosophers screaming at the pages). Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't, but it still did enough to be thought-provoking and, viewing it from the perspective of a speculative fiction novel, it creates a fascinating, intricate world. Even at the very end there are aspects of the plot I wasn't really on board with, but I can let that go in service of a very unique read.