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raven88 's review for:
Upstairs at the Beresford
by Will Carver
It’s always a double edged sword picking up a book like Upstairs At The Beresford, as on the one hand you know you’re going to love reading it, but you know it’s gonna be an absolute bugger to review causing variations of…
Um? Er? Where to begin?
Intermingled with head scratching/pencil chewing/sighing/coffee-making avoidance techniques [delete as appropriate]
So let’s make a start.
Right everyone, buckle up, take a deep breath and prepare to launch yourselves back into the dark recesses of both Mr Will Carver’s mind, and the Hotel Beresford itself- a hotel which easily undermines The Overlook as the creepiest boarding establishment in fiction, and whose inhabitants will, once met, never be forgotten.
Well, aside from haunting your dreams and prone to unleashing the forces of hell.
You get my drift.
This is the prequel to the equally dark and unsettling The Beresford, which is hands down one of my favourite books by this author, and where we were introduced to a cast of characters that were unique in their peculiarities, quirks, perversions, murderous compulsions and insecurities,
“The people who lived at The Beresford did not belong. They had that in common. The kind of people who wanted to sit in the centre of the circle but existed on the side of a square. They were outside. They floated on the periphery.”
Very pleasingly this book explores the lives of some of the previous inhabitants of this uniquely weird establishment, where the structure and feel of the hotel itself is as intrinsically central to the plot as those that dare to reside within its walls. Carver paints a beautiful picture of the faded glamour of this once grand hotel, and how its careworn and run down interior reflects the sadness and isolation of many of its guests. It is a place where desperation and fruitless hope permeates its every corner, and where goodness is rarely rewarded and evil can prevail.
“You don’t get involved. You turn a blind eye. You let things slide.
Everyone has their own shit going on.”
Once again, Carver imbues his characters with all permutations of the seven deadly sins, stripping human nature to its barest core, unveiling a visceral and carnal litany of violence, abuse, sex, drugs and wanton behaviour in these claustrophobic and suffocating surrounds. All of his characters are so clearly and beautifully defined, by not only their physical attributes, but by the way their lives are so deeply in contrast to each others- the ones content with their arc of their own existence and those that literally make a deal with the devil in a bid to gain happiness, success or emotional satisfaction. I love the way he teases out and explores the degrees of darkness that lay at the heart of his characters, and how they interact with, or exploit each other’s strengths and weaknesses. His characters are a heady mixture of those things that define us as humans, and you find yourself completely mesmerised by some, wanting to shake the hell out of others, despising the most odious of them, and knowing not to get attached to any of them. As I said before, goodness is rarely rewarded…
And then, at the very heart of this book, one of the supreme joys of Carver’s writing, where we are transported into a world of cerebral explorations of the human psyche, the evil of religion, the wickedness of humans, the futility of, well, pretty much everything, framed in beautifully brutal diversions from the main narrative. Once again I picture Carver shaking his fists at the sky as we follow his pithy and pertinent ruminations on the blandness and paucity of common sense that seems increasingly to define our existence, and equally finding myself in agreement at his needle sharp, and at times, darkly witty observations.
If you think nothing important happened today, get yourself comfortable, pick up and read a Will Carver book, and then you can safely look back the following day and think something important happened yesterday. You discovered one of the most challenging, creative, and unique writers you will ever encounter.
Trust me.
Um? Er? Where to begin?
Intermingled with head scratching/pencil chewing/sighing/coffee-making avoidance techniques [delete as appropriate]
So let’s make a start.
Right everyone, buckle up, take a deep breath and prepare to launch yourselves back into the dark recesses of both Mr Will Carver’s mind, and the Hotel Beresford itself- a hotel which easily undermines The Overlook as the creepiest boarding establishment in fiction, and whose inhabitants will, once met, never be forgotten.
Well, aside from haunting your dreams and prone to unleashing the forces of hell.
You get my drift.
This is the prequel to the equally dark and unsettling The Beresford, which is hands down one of my favourite books by this author, and where we were introduced to a cast of characters that were unique in their peculiarities, quirks, perversions, murderous compulsions and insecurities,
“The people who lived at The Beresford did not belong. They had that in common. The kind of people who wanted to sit in the centre of the circle but existed on the side of a square. They were outside. They floated on the periphery.”
Very pleasingly this book explores the lives of some of the previous inhabitants of this uniquely weird establishment, where the structure and feel of the hotel itself is as intrinsically central to the plot as those that dare to reside within its walls. Carver paints a beautiful picture of the faded glamour of this once grand hotel, and how its careworn and run down interior reflects the sadness and isolation of many of its guests. It is a place where desperation and fruitless hope permeates its every corner, and where goodness is rarely rewarded and evil can prevail.
“You don’t get involved. You turn a blind eye. You let things slide.
Everyone has their own shit going on.”
Once again, Carver imbues his characters with all permutations of the seven deadly sins, stripping human nature to its barest core, unveiling a visceral and carnal litany of violence, abuse, sex, drugs and wanton behaviour in these claustrophobic and suffocating surrounds. All of his characters are so clearly and beautifully defined, by not only their physical attributes, but by the way their lives are so deeply in contrast to each others- the ones content with their arc of their own existence and those that literally make a deal with the devil in a bid to gain happiness, success or emotional satisfaction. I love the way he teases out and explores the degrees of darkness that lay at the heart of his characters, and how they interact with, or exploit each other’s strengths and weaknesses. His characters are a heady mixture of those things that define us as humans, and you find yourself completely mesmerised by some, wanting to shake the hell out of others, despising the most odious of them, and knowing not to get attached to any of them. As I said before, goodness is rarely rewarded…
And then, at the very heart of this book, one of the supreme joys of Carver’s writing, where we are transported into a world of cerebral explorations of the human psyche, the evil of religion, the wickedness of humans, the futility of, well, pretty much everything, framed in beautifully brutal diversions from the main narrative. Once again I picture Carver shaking his fists at the sky as we follow his pithy and pertinent ruminations on the blandness and paucity of common sense that seems increasingly to define our existence, and equally finding myself in agreement at his needle sharp, and at times, darkly witty observations.
If you think nothing important happened today, get yourself comfortable, pick up and read a Will Carver book, and then you can safely look back the following day and think something important happened yesterday. You discovered one of the most challenging, creative, and unique writers you will ever encounter.
Trust me.