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A review by drewsof
The Wake by Paul Kingsnorth
5.0
What a fascinating, sometimes infuriating, absolutely unique novel.
Written, as you've likely heard, in a 'ghost language' iteration of Olde English -- Kingsnorth's best attempt at capturing the sound and pace of language from 1066 -- and depicting a period of two years around the outset of the Norman invasion of England, it follows one man's journey at the ending of his world. This is an apocalypse novel, as bleak as THE ROAD, and it is a novel of madness like AMERICAN PSYCHO or anything by Shirley Jackson. It is incredibly dense and deserves to be read under your breath if not aloud, in order to better grapple with the language.
And then something amazing happens, something I equate to learning Shakespeare or learning a foreign language: it starts to click. You start to find it easier going, linguistically, even if the novel itself remains stubborn and dense.
I would've given this a thousand stars were it maybe 75 pages shorter -- but fuccan hell, I'll give it five for being what it was. I've never read anything like this, and I can't imagine I will ever again. I'm so curious to see what the rest of the Buccmaster trilogy looks like...
Written, as you've likely heard, in a 'ghost language' iteration of Olde English -- Kingsnorth's best attempt at capturing the sound and pace of language from 1066 -- and depicting a period of two years around the outset of the Norman invasion of England, it follows one man's journey at the ending of his world. This is an apocalypse novel, as bleak as THE ROAD, and it is a novel of madness like AMERICAN PSYCHO or anything by Shirley Jackson. It is incredibly dense and deserves to be read under your breath if not aloud, in order to better grapple with the language.
And then something amazing happens, something I equate to learning Shakespeare or learning a foreign language: it starts to click. You start to find it easier going, linguistically, even if the novel itself remains stubborn and dense.
I would've given this a thousand stars were it maybe 75 pages shorter -- but fuccan hell, I'll give it five for being what it was. I've never read anything like this, and I can't imagine I will ever again. I'm so curious to see what the rest of the Buccmaster trilogy looks like...