Customer Reviews

Armadillo

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Lorimer Black is a loss adjuster working in the City of London. Unwittingly he becomes a pawn in a darker world and a side of business life, where corruption, greed and snobbery prevail.

From the outset this book had a hold on me. It was fascinating immediately, and very funny. I recognised the characters in people I know and laughed outloud so many times that I became a real pain to those within earshot. I very rarely find literature funny, only Spike Milligan in fact.

The writing is crisp and flows beautifully.

The bad type of British male: slobby, uncouth, aggressive and misogynist was supremely portrayed in Torquil Helvoir - Jayne. I have seen these guys so many times in real life. William Boyd makes the point that despite his name and connections Torquil is no different to other pig ignorant individuals who happen to be below him in the class order.

William Boyd has a fine reporter's eye and can build characters that are believable and a wonder to behold.

There are a number of important themes in this book but the main one is the struggle to be someone other than ourselves. A British trait I am afraid, a response to the class bias where we are judged as soon as we open our mouths, in our accents, the way we speak and dress.

Like so many others in Britain poor Lorimer fell for it hook, line and sinker.

There is a great play in names: Milo Blocj becomes Lorimer Black, David Watts the clapped out rock star had also changed his name. Pretence and more pretence.

The book says that underneath it all we are all the same insecure and fragile individuals. Eventually the unreality catches up and drags us down. We wear armour that eventually proves to be too heavy, to be discarded so that real life can enter. Hence the armadillo - the little armed man. The layers are slowly stripped away. And the final piece - the helmet is cut away.

Despite Lorimer's adherence to style and clambering up the English greasy pole of class snobbery, in the end he reverts back to himself - Milo the European ethnic. That's when he starts to live life and find true happiness.

It is a great book and one of my best reads for the year 2001. I can't wait to read some more William Boyd.

Based on the book's jacket quotes, I expected a much darker, more ominous book. Instead I got the loss adjuster's version of High Fidelity written more dramatically. Which is fine, since I couldn't imagine the words Kafka and comedy being used in the same sentence anyway. To be fair, Armadillo is deeper, more thoughtful than High Fidelity. Throughout, the protagonist Lorimer Black is woven into a complex, dangerous, and utterly believable tailspin full of symbolic events, coincidences and resolutions. I enjoyed the finely written characters, each so vividly drawn that I snarl at the thought of people I know who fit similar descriptions. I also appreciate how the book left some issues unresolved. There are things that Lorimer doesn't know and never will know and the reader shouldn't either. Believe me, it adds to the enjoyment of reading this book. Overall a very rich, well-told and satisfying story which I'd reccommend to anyone who appreciates modern fiction, especially with an English twist.

This quintessentially English dark comic novel explores the life of star insurance adjuster Lorimer Black, who has constructed an entire confident persona as a shell to disguise his real self. Among the things he keeps private is his insomnia, his "colorful" immigrant background (his real name is Milomre Blocj) and family, and his expensive antique armor collection. Of course, with Boyd at the helm, there are a number of themes being brought out at once: social satire (people keep assuming he's the son of a Scottish aristocrat), identity (he hides beyond the facade that's gotten him ahead), home (he's secretly bought a small home in suburbs), family (he hasn't quite come to grips with his family), obsession (he falls for a mysterious model and tracks her down). This is all laid against a backdrop of professional entanglements that threaten his job and even his life. Be forewarned, it takes about 40 or 50 pages before things start to get clear, but it's worth it. As usual, Boyd's prose crackles with wit as the notion of identity in the modern Western world is held up for examination. Don't be put off by the big themes though, this is a real page-turner. Not everyone will be satisfied with the ending, which leaves a number of loose ends and on an ambiguous note of hope.

Whilst beginning Armadillo, I was slightly put off by the slow start. I thought, a few times, that I might move on to something else. Boyd spends a lot of time setting this one up. However, I continued and the payoff was worth it. Boyd is a fabulous writer and was able to produce this wonderful novel that seems to cross all types of genre barriers - is it a mystery, thriller, romance?

Bottom line: I was very pleased that I read Armadillo. A fine book by a fine author.

there are so many threads to this highly entertaining and ultimately compelling blackish comedy that you may well find yourself wondering what on earth is going on after forty or so pages. i urge you to persevere. the threads soon begin to intertwine and what quickly emerges is an affectionately written and brightly amusing thriller-of-sorts with unexpected twists aplenty and enough memorable scenes to make a pretty good movie (in fact i think they're making it into a movie right now - i vote that rufus sewell should play lorimer).

Hilarious and thought provoking. Boyd brings the reader so close to his main character, were it not for for his previous works you would scarcely believe Armadillo is not significantly autobiographical.

While "Armadillo" is a must read for fans of Boyd, newcomers to this brilliant contemporary author should read "A Good Man in Africa", "The New Confessions", "Brazzaville Beach", and "The Blue Afternoon" before tackling Armadillo.

While Armadillo has the same sublime character development as these earlier works, the plot creates dissonances which are never resolved, and the novel seems to be truncated rather than concluded, as if Boyd intends to give us a second volume but doesn't bother to tell us.

Read the book and enjoy the richness of the characters, but keep in mind that Boyd has done a better job merging character and plot in most of his other works.

A brilliant piece of psychology as well as a genuinely good read. Boyd makes the reader really care about his highly flawed protagonist, who is among the most believable in modern literature. "Armadillo" ranks with the best work of William Trevor, Martin Amis, and Ian McEwan.

Boyd can and has done much better than this rather unconvincing tale of deception and self-discovery set against an even less convincing backdrop of sordid property deals and sharp practice in loss adjustment.

The book's hero, Black, does eventually come to terms with both his past and, symbolically, his name. He comes to realise that living a largely isolated if materially successful bachelor life is all very well up to a point. What pushes him up to and beyond that point, hardly a literary first this, is his falling hopelessly in love with an actress seen in a TV commercial.

The vehemence with which some of Black's quirky preferences are expressed (he likes stylish clothes, he doesn't like smoking, he abhors western pop music...) suggest to me that here speaks the author and he is becoming just a trifle pretentious not to say intolerant.

Loss adjustment ? Boyd's view of the commercial world is clearly a cynical, jaundiced one in which the main factors for success are old boy connections, heartlessness, bloody-mindedness and the ability to consume alcohol. It is a world strikingly at odds with the one I know (as a professional of the insurance sector) and, even as a caricature, it is probably some way off the mark.

Sleep disorder ? Has been done with a great deal more care and interest before (of course, Jonathan Coe's remarkable "The House of Sleep"). And as for the stylistic device of slipping in a page of italics from the narrator's personal diary every now and then, I think I have read one too many modern books which relies on this trick.

On the credit size, the merciless bully of a boss reigning over all whose life he touches jumps off the pages at you and has you cowering behind the sofa. He is the novel's clearest, although not its only, success. At times Boyd writes with compassion and humour, particularly in describing say the family mini-cab operation or a set piece party at which virtually the entire cast of the book makes an appearance.

In his more recent works Boyd has abandoned the trademark shock tactics on which his early reputation was largely based. It is not clear from "Armadillo" that he has really found anything with which to replace them.

Armadillo follows the life and career of Lorimer Black, picking up on the many mini-dilemmas and struggles faced by the modern male executive. Lorimer is from a strictly low to middle class background. Working in "The City" whilst maintaining links with family and friends he grew up with, Lorimer finds himself constantly adapting to the surrounding environment. He appears confident most of the time although there are constantly niggles of self-doubt and the feeling that he never quite fits in.

The characters and situations encountered are hilarious right from the off and Lorimer is not the only one to face despair at times, however, it is Lorimer that maintains my sympathies throughout. A simple, concise and easy read. Thumbs up!