4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Striking, exotic, sad, May 30, 2002
I quite liked Jeffrey Ford's previous two novels in his "Physiognomist Cley" trilogy, _The Physiognomist_ and _Memoranda_. _The Beyond_ is the final novel in the trilogy. Although all three novels share the same main character, Cley, they are all quite different books. Cley is originally Physiognomist for the Well-Built City, and in the first book he helps overthrow that City, while in the second book he ventures into the brain of the former dictator of the City, searching for a cure to a disease which has ravaged the newly free residents of the new city Wenau.
In _The Beyond_, Cley has ventured into the eponymous wilderness of his strange world, in company with a tamed, intelligent, demon named Misrix. Cley is searching for the "true Wenau", and his lost victim/love Arla Beaton. The story is told on two tracks: in one, Misrix tells of his lonely life in the ruins of the Well-Built City, and the eventual discovery of him by the people of Wenau. In the other, Misrix narrates Cley's adventures in the Beyond, which he "remembers" by use of the drug Beauty.
In Misrix' tale, he befriends some of the residents of Wenau, but is feared and hated by others. Eventually he is accused of killing Cley, who has never returned from the Beyond. He yearns only to be treated as human, and only by submitting to justice and a trial can he maintain that status.
His tale of Cley's journey is very strange. After Misrix returns to the Well-Built City, fearing that the effects of the Beyond are making him forget his humanity, Cley continues on with his dog, Wood. He survives demon attacks, and a terrible winter, eventually discovering a cave and a mysterious dead person. He wanders through other environments: a desert, an inland ocean, a strange mountain, everywhere encountering strange people, some human, others different: fish people, plant people, huge lizards. He befriends a woman he finds in a besieged city, eventually settling with her in a lonely hut in the woods, but he has one more quest: hopefully to revitalize the dying Beyond.
To an extent some of this wild invention seems arbitrary. In the end, however, Ford redeems his vision, and the weird imaginative strands of the story make some sense, and they interweave with Misrix' own tale, as well. The conclusion is ambiguous and mostly sad, and rather striking. A fine novel.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A beautiful story comes to a close, January 12, 2004
The Beyond is the third book detailing the heartbreaking story of Cley, the former Physiognomist from the mythical and fantastic world of "The City". Please do not read this story without having read the previous two: The Physiognomy and Memoranda, if only for the fact that all three are wonderful stories, full of imagination and are unlike almost anything else you have ever read.
I can't tell you how much I enjoyed this book. Cley's adventures through the Beyond are nicely juxtaposed with the parallel story of the Demon Misryx as he struggles to find his humanity and end his loneliness. Ford has a fantastic imagination and a beautiful writing style which hooks the reader in from the beginning and just keeps dragging you along. The books are almost impossible to put down and you totally lose yourself in this fantastic world.
Unlike most series you read now, I was sorry to see it end. However, that is how it should be (are you listening, Mr. Jordan?). The book ends, leaves you wanting more, yet wholly satisfied with what you have read. Why this book has not achieved more praise is beyond me (if I may use that word). The Fantasy genre needs more authors like Ford and Mieville and fewer Jordans and Goodkinds. This is fantasy for the intelligent, imaginative reader looking for an original story without the neverending wait for a conclusion. Keep up the good work, Mr. Ford.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An intense finale to the trilogy, January 14, 2009
The final book in the Well-Built city trilogy is a stunningly imaginative feast of a quest novel. Cley journeys into The Beyond, the surrealistic no man's land where people tend to disappear without a trace. But Cley needs to find out what happened to Arla, a woman he wronged in the first novel, and to seek her forgiveness. Will Cley finally find the forgiveness he has so ardently sought through these books? Will he find his purpose and solve the mysteries of the Beyond? Will he survive?
There aren't any easy answers for him or the readers. I find it impossible to reduce this book to a few paragraphs, but I will say that it needs to be read as the final chapter of the other two books. I'm not sure it would work as a stand alone, but taken as the culmination of the trilogy, the ending packed an emotional wallop that had me thinking about it for days on end.
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