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A review by kaisa
List of the Lost by Morrissey
dark
funny
slow-paced
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.75
What an absolute mess this was!
Even though I love Morrissey's lyrics, I didn't have very high hopes for List of the Lost. I've had this sitting in my shelf for a few years now, picking it up every now and then and losing interest after half a page. Still, when I finally decided to actually read it, I thought, sure, stars of track and field, that might be interesting. While it sets out to be a novel about four college athletes, it is, in my opinion, not a novel about four college athletes, but a novel about... Morrissey.
At times I had to wonder why he even bothered writing a novel about these specific characters, since he seemed to be so desperate to write about anything besides them or what they were going through. While the cast of characters was never diverse to begin with, I could barely tell these people apart. There was nothing distinct about any of them. They all acted the same way and spoke with the same arrogance, their voices all muddling together to be one hateful voice that, in style, resembled a crossover between a tragic Shakespearean monologue and an angry Facebook rant written by someone who's, like, really good at Scrabble but for some reason permanently pissed.
This novel was riddled with (what I consider to be) faults and mistakes I would expect from someone who is a beginner in writing fiction. For example, the text keeps jumping from past tense to present tense and back, with seemingly no rhyme or reason. I never knew where the events took place, and so the story felt as if it were floating around in thin air. After finishing the book I still have no idea who was telling the story and why exactly it needed to be told. There was no consistency in the voice telling the story, either, as it seemed to shift into whatever the writer had felt like at that exact moment, making the whole reading experience utterly confusing. Not in an enjoyable way.
List of The Lost is pompous, irritating, dense, rambly, angry, and, at times, sexist.
The story itself is a sequence of sad and shocking things that all just happen to happen within a very short period of time, almost as if someone is simply throwing obstacles at these characters. In the second half begins the name-dropping of politicians and major events from the 1970s, mainly in dialogue, which ended up feeling simply like a clumsy excuse to sneak in yet another reminder that Morrissey's hatred for Margaret Thatcher is the only thing in life we can truly trust. Throughout all of this, we, the readers, are supposed to believe the events that take place shake the protagonists to their very cores, yet none of it felt believable whatsoever, as no one has to face the long term consequences for any of their actions. I found it virtually impossible to muster up the energy to be interested in these two dimensional characters that I knew less than a half a page worth of information about.
While some of this could have been saved if it hadn't all been written in such an arrogant tone, I think one can't write something this over-the-top and not be able to laugh about it. Now it just reads as pretentious. The sensitivity I love so much about Morrissey's lyrics was completely missing from this novel.
Even though I love Morrissey's lyrics, I didn't have very high hopes for List of the Lost. I've had this sitting in my shelf for a few years now, picking it up every now and then and losing interest after half a page. Still, when I finally decided to actually read it, I thought, sure, stars of track and field, that might be interesting. While it sets out to be a novel about four college athletes, it is, in my opinion, not a novel about four college athletes, but a novel about... Morrissey.
At times I had to wonder why he even bothered writing a novel about these specific characters, since he seemed to be so desperate to write about anything besides them or what they were going through. While the cast of characters was never diverse to begin with, I could barely tell these people apart. There was nothing distinct about any of them. They all acted the same way and spoke with the same arrogance, their voices all muddling together to be one hateful voice that, in style, resembled a crossover between a tragic Shakespearean monologue and an angry Facebook rant written by someone who's, like, really good at Scrabble but for some reason permanently pissed.
This novel was riddled with (what I consider to be) faults and mistakes I would expect from someone who is a beginner in writing fiction. For example, the text keeps jumping from past tense to present tense and back, with seemingly no rhyme or reason. I never knew where the events took place, and so the story felt as if it were floating around in thin air. After finishing the book I still have no idea who was telling the story and why exactly it needed to be told. There was no consistency in the voice telling the story, either, as it seemed to shift into whatever the writer had felt like at that exact moment, making the whole reading experience utterly confusing. Not in an enjoyable way.
List of The Lost is pompous, irritating, dense, rambly, angry, and, at times, sexist.
The story itself is a sequence of sad and shocking things that all just happen to happen within a very short period of time, almost as if someone is simply throwing obstacles at these characters. In the second half begins the name-dropping of politicians and major events from the 1970s, mainly in dialogue, which ended up feeling simply like a clumsy excuse to sneak in yet another reminder that Morrissey's hatred for Margaret Thatcher is the only thing in life we can truly trust. Throughout all of this, we, the readers, are supposed to believe the events that take place shake the protagonists to their very cores, yet none of it felt believable whatsoever, as no one has to face the long term consequences for any of their actions. I found it virtually impossible to muster up the energy to be interested in these two dimensional characters that I knew less than a half a page worth of information about.
While some of this could have been saved if it hadn't all been written in such an arrogant tone, I think one can't write something this over-the-top and not be able to laugh about it. Now it just reads as pretentious. The sensitivity I love so much about Morrissey's lyrics was completely missing from this novel.