After losing his eyes and half of his face in a car accident, a famous author advertises for an assistant to communicate the visual world to him. The amiable John Ryder seems to be the answer to his prayers - but there is an old axiom: be careful of what you wish for, or you might just get it.
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More About the Author
GILBERT ADAIR was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1944 and moved to Paris as a young man, because, as he told an interviewer, "If you were a film buff in the sixties, you went to Paris." Adair later returned to the UK and spent his time writing experimental fiction, as well as film and literary criticism. His works include The Death of the Author, The Holy Innocents, later made into Bernardo Bertolucci's film The Dreamers; The Postmodernist Always Rings Twice, a book of literary criticism; and the novel Love and Death in Long Island. Adair lives in London.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
love the title,
This review is from: Closed Book (Paperback)
its been awhile since Ive actually read this book, but I thought it was very good, and thought provoking
1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
A book I wish I'd closed sooner,
By
This review is from: Closed Book (Paperback)
This was the first of Adair's books I picked up, save the translation of Perec's A Void, and I was sorry I did. The plot concerned a stodgy old writer, based on caricatures of the last group of interesting British writers such as Kingsley Amis, who gets into a horrific car accident that renders him not only blind, but also eyeless. He proceeds to explain why this is such a huge difference, using terrible metaphors and analogies while being ornery, but not quite as sharp and biting as Adair seems to think he is. He hires an amanuensis to help him write his final book, an autobiography. What follows is a thriller clearly meant to invoke Hitchcock and Welles, but that winds up falling flat on deaf ears, or blind eyes.The unfortunate part of this attempt is that every part is underwhelming. The book they are writing together sounds horribly pedantic, while the narrative about them living together is filled with banal instructions on how to care for a blind person (Please don't leave stuff on the staircase!!!). The worst part comes at the inevitable twist, which emerges with all the excitement and surprise of paint drying. After reading about Adair's novels I was excited to read more, but after reading this one, I will have a difficult time picking up another one.
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