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A review by greatlibraryofalexandra
I, Lucifer by Glen Duncan
1.0
This book was a mess. Truly. The main problem being that the author, in what I can only assume is an attempt to appear as intelligent beyond belief, swallowed a thesaurus and then regurgitated the most convoluted collection of obscure vocabulary words that I've ever seen, so much so that entire paragraphs were so pretentious that they bordered on incomprehensible. "Micturition" - really? Dear God (no pun intended). On that note, the over-the-top vocabulary was more often than not right alongside the crudest, most childish vulgar descriptions of things - this book wins awards for using the term "vadge" as many times as possible (short, of course, for vagina - the d really isn't needed).
Prose aside, the actual plot of the novel was nonexistent, and I do not complain from a standpoint of irritated Christian sensibilities. After reading Good Omens and The Gentleman this year, I went in search of comical stories that centered around Lucifer/hell et cetera, and this seemed promising. However, Duncan's devil is shallow and heinous without having any depth behind those characteristics; he's not "evil" apparently, but he frequently uses slurs and delights in things like rape and murder, but at the same time there are half-formed, thin attempts at very well-deserved critique of the Christian concept of God/the creation story - for a much better, much richer, and altogether more complex exploration of such, read Anne Rice's "Memnoch the Devil."
There's no impetus for anything Lucifer does in this novel, the human characters are hollow nothings who have no purpose at all except to be the targets of an increasingly crude string of metaphors riddled with groan-worthy SAT words and increasingly shock-jock language. Even the bits that looked like they would get interesting...didn't. Then the book ended quite abruptly as if the author had either gotten tired of writing it, or simply exhausted himself with how painfully hard he was trying to be clever.
The awards really ought to go to whoever so cleverly wrote the blurb describing the book, because they made it sound thrilling, cheeky, and wily. Instead it was absolute drivel.
Prose aside, the actual plot of the novel was nonexistent, and I do not complain from a standpoint of irritated Christian sensibilities. After reading Good Omens and The Gentleman this year, I went in search of comical stories that centered around Lucifer/hell et cetera, and this seemed promising. However, Duncan's devil is shallow and heinous without having any depth behind those characteristics; he's not "evil" apparently, but he frequently uses slurs and delights in things like rape and murder, but at the same time there are half-formed, thin attempts at very well-deserved critique of the Christian concept of God/the creation story - for a much better, much richer, and altogether more complex exploration of such, read Anne Rice's "Memnoch the Devil."
There's no impetus for anything Lucifer does in this novel, the human characters are hollow nothings who have no purpose at all except to be the targets of an increasingly crude string of metaphors riddled with groan-worthy SAT words and increasingly shock-jock language. Even the bits that looked like they would get interesting...didn't. Then the book ended quite abruptly as if the author had either gotten tired of writing it, or simply exhausted himself with how painfully hard he was trying to be clever.
The awards really ought to go to whoever so cleverly wrote the blurb describing the book, because they made it sound thrilling, cheeky, and wily. Instead it was absolute drivel.