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A review by readerstephen86
Impossible Object by Nicholas Mosley
challenging
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
Impossible about sums it up. A cluttered rag-bag of dislocated metaphors, swimming on a swell of tidal psychobabble.
The kaleidescopic multi-perspective sections worked to an extent, and just when I could have cheerfully thrown it across the room, it reeled me back in with looping repetitions (Rome, hide-and-seek, the emotions of going to war, Nietszche) that chanelled some of its loose fluidity. However, I was just trying to finish it off at the end, and even if it only took me a day to read its 189 pages, it was a million miles away from the absolute joy I felt 6 months back being swept up by Woolf's 'To The Lighthouse'.
It might just have been too clever by halves for me, and maybe I just didn't fully understand. Perhaps if I had actually read Nietszche rather than skimming over him in teenage years, it might have made more sense? God-as-Prometheus... The fickleness of love in adultery... Love as an illusion... Believing history is repetition as a way of fostering some sense of structure and stabilty. Is this what it was about?
Whatever it was, it was a disappointing end to my 1969 Booker shortlist year, even if it was in no way as execrable as that year's 1-star 'winner', 'Something to Answer For'. Spark's was mid-table, I quite like Williams's nihilistic Scottish coming of age tale, and would probably put it between Murdoch and England for my personal winner. The idea that a fairly graphic POW escape tale could have been my favourite flies in the face of expectations. Perhaps I'd built up hopes for Mosley, but it was baffling, and I'm just relieved that neither he nor Newby made the shortlists ever again.
The kaleidescopic multi-perspective sections worked to an extent, and just when I could have cheerfully thrown it across the room, it reeled me back in with looping repetitions (Rome, hide-and-seek, the emotions of going to war, Nietszche) that chanelled some of its loose fluidity. However, I was just trying to finish it off at the end, and even if it only took me a day to read its 189 pages, it was a million miles away from the absolute joy I felt 6 months back being swept up by Woolf's 'To The Lighthouse'.
It might just have been too clever by halves for me, and maybe I just didn't fully understand. Perhaps if I had actually read Nietszche rather than skimming over him in teenage years, it might have made more sense? God-as-Prometheus... The fickleness of love in adultery... Love as an illusion... Believing history is repetition as a way of fostering some sense of structure and stabilty. Is this what it was about?
Whatever it was, it was a disappointing end to my 1969 Booker shortlist year, even if it was in no way as execrable as that year's 1-star 'winner', 'Something to Answer For'. Spark's was mid-table, I quite like Williams's nihilistic Scottish coming of age tale, and would probably put it between Murdoch and England for my personal winner. The idea that a fairly graphic POW escape tale could have been my favourite flies in the face of expectations. Perhaps I'd built up hopes for Mosley, but it was baffling, and I'm just relieved that neither he nor Newby made the shortlists ever again.