Customer Reviews

Death of an Ordinary Man: A Novel

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

 

 

The theme of this novel is revealed in a quote near the ending of the book: "Sartre said all writing's an act of infidelity. So's surviving the dead" (p. 286). In this beautiful, spare novel, Duncan explores the many betrayals that make up a family, ranging from an all-too-common marital infidelity to the infinitely more tragic betrayal of not being able to protect one's child from brutality. We meet Nathan, the central character, in his first few moments of his awareness of being dead. At first there is nothingness: "It was neither dark nor light but if he lifted his hand in front of his face he wouldn't be able to see it." As the novel progresses, Nathan regains memories as well as being allowed to witness his family member's actions and thoughts. As details emerge, the reader begins to realize there is much more here than an ordinary life and death.

This is not a book to read for a laugh, as there are few laughs, if any, in it. It is instead a book for any parent who has dared to confront the unthinkable: How would I react if it happened to my family? Could I cope? How could someone possibly cope? Nathan's story provides the uncomfortable confirmation of your suspicion that, sometimes, things happen that just can't be coped with. This message will linger with you long after you've put it down. Duncan does a wonderful job of portraying characters as humans, fully dimensional, possessing hidden strengths yet simultaneously capable of thoughtless and mean behaviors. Duncan's talent becomes apparent when you finish the book, despite full awareness of the wrongs committed by the people within it, feeling great sympathy and tenderness for all members of Nathan's family, including Nathan himself.

Extra--Ordinary Death

Glen Duncan's compelling fifth novel, Death of an Ordinary Man, is a gripping novel about one man witnessing his own funeral. Such an experience would be awesome and mystical, if we could be able to hover over our own wake; this is the case for Nathan Clark. While having the ability to view his own ceremony, he also has the ability to hear people's thoughts. Nathan experiences the whole day as a ghost, and as such he tries to understand those who were closest to him. Nathan also uses his after-life encounter to re-experience events during his life, which he could not remember at the time of his death. While Nathan still has this time to experience reality as a ghost, a question that is the major focal point of the story is what happened to Lois? Another intriguing question that keeps readers entangled is how did Nathan die? Death of an Ordinary Man, by Glen Duncan explores a common theme about reviewing one's life, but Duncan takes it on with a lovely, yet morbid angle that, throughout the novel, continues to shock the reader and shape the story.
With constant reference to the new house, in which the novel takes place, Glen Duncan releases many themes. While Nathan is afloat in his after-life state, he uses the experience to open doors to the past. With each door in his family's new home he finds the mysteries that have haunted his life. With every story Nathan learns from the house, the reader is awarded insight into what kind of character Nathan became. The house contains clues that Nathan must find in order to move towards his destiny in eternity.
Although Glen Duncan's novel, Death of an Ordinary Man, is a creative way to view after-life, the plot is thorny at times. In the novel, Nathan is able to engross himself in another character's flashback where the author, at times, loses his readers. When involved with a certain character, Glen Duncan gives Nathan unrestrained thoughts which will lead to distraction of the theme for average readers. Even though there are some negative facets in Duncan's narratives, the imagery he uses in his stories is astonishing.
The one aspect of this novel that Glen Duncan has truly mastered is his language. The reader experiences a rollercoaster of a trip in the original way the author explains the story. There are some parts of the story that whisper poetry not prose. If there is one downfall in which the novel flows linguistically, it is the use of profanity. Duncan has found it necessary to explain his theme with the constant use of the `f-word'. Even though while reading the novel the reader experiences Nathan's true emotions with the use of profanity, the overuse destroys the brilliance of the work.
The title, Death of an Ordinary Man, is an ironic name for a novel that involves such a multifaceted character, in which Nathan becomes a medium for multiple themes. It is almost a game while reading the novel to find ordinary attributes for him. Nathan is not the only unique character in the novel. The author has a slew of characters, most importantly, Lois that captivates the reader in wanting to know more about her unordinary life. Duncan also uses his characters to maintain a complex novel, but with a simple measure he uses few characters. By using only a few characters Duncan traps the reader into several different stories about each one, compounding the theme.
There are multiple themes this novel tackles, the central theme is vague, but it is life. Through Death of an Ordinary Man, Glen Duncan questions his readers' ideas on life. Duncan allows the readers to become as one with Nathan and try to understand what Nathan's life has meant and where his family must go from here. First time readers will read this novel and experience it as entertainment, as they make their way through, but at the end will question their own beliefs and internally analyze themselves. Although the story is centered upon Nathan, who is a deceased ghost, Glen Duncan does a superior job in isolating his novel on the living and what it means to live, not die.
Death of an Ordinary Man, by Glen Duncan reaches a selective audience because of its content. Those who do not like the idea of self examination through the thought of their own personal death will not enjoy such a read. The novel vividly touches on many vulgar activities, so those who enjoy censorship might want to put it back in the shelf. The average reader also might want to shy away, because during the course of the novel it is easy to get lost in the thoughts of someone else examining those thoughts. Overall this is a good book that comments on a resounding theme, shared by every human on earth: life, and what to think about it. Although the author, Glenn Duncan examines life taking a different approach, he does so in an enchanting way.

I echo Artic Fox's review. I'd just read "The Mercy of Thin Air" - also narrated by a dead person - and truly a haunting, moving book. It was clear from the beginning that "Death of An Ordinary Man" had a different agenda.

It was good enough for me to keep reading it, but only a chapter at a time. The narrative style - while certainly introspective and thought provoking (assuming you are terrifically moved by the book) - was rambling, and I skimmed places. Then I'd have to go back and read it because suddenly I'd be like, "Whaaaaa?"

It didn't really move me, but it was well written for that style. If you really dig the first few chapters, you'll love the book. If you find yourself iffy on it, or bored - you might as well put it down because I doubt it will grab you when you get further in.

The review on the front cover of the NY Times Book Review says it all: "A bracing new novel... Duncan gives us an afterlife swept clean of comforts and distractions, where nothing but the fading sounds of present life and the odd echo of the past can disturb the spooky quiet of the naked self. . . . It works brilliantly because the arduous, complex process of extracting meaning from one's own life is [Duncan's] true subject -- it's what's really on his mind. This is less a novel about death than a novel about thinking, written by someone who's done enough of it to know that it's a distinctly mixed blessing, necessary but not always sufficient; that a fair amount of courage is required to do it properly; and that sometimes -- sometimes for entire lives -- we're just not quite in the mood. In this superb, uncoercively moving novel, the afterlife is the place where thinking is all that's left to us, which makes it both heaven and hell."

However that's not to say it fails to suck in general. I'm the type of reader that gets pulled into a story and has to read a book cover to cover. I have to suffer through this one. Blah blah blah for the first half of the book... come on Glen, throw us a bone dude. He actually comes close to giving us a piece of the puzzle halfway when he teases us into thinking he's going to tell us how the daughter dies. Then bam it's a cliffhanger. I guess he thinks we'll sit through 100 more pages of pretentious whiny [...] before we get to it. 2 stars for this one. I wish I could get my ten bucks back.

When Ifinished this book, I said to my husband: this book resembles the book I am presenty writing so much, that I can stop now. It has been done already. It is a truly haunting story about family life and love, and its destruction by death of a child. It ordinary - and yet sophisticated and truly marvelous in the way emotions are depicted, especially the small ones. The people who did not like the book were maybe looking for an easy read, or simply easily bored because deep emotions are not to be superficially accessed. And the one lady who wrote in her review that children do not have sexual feelings is very much mistaken: by wishful thinking or repression maybe?

At one time or another doesn't everyone wonder what people they know will say, do or think once they're dead? Nathan Clark finds out when, in spirit, he attends his own funeral and stays around to re-examine of his life as well as the thoughts and actions of those he was closest to. The reader is seeing everything through dead Nathan's eyes and thoughts. At times it's disjointed, but isn't that how people's thoughts often are?

Glen Duncan is a genious writer. I found this to be a deeply thought provoking read that was so closely tied to stream of consciousness I felt it was pulling the thoughts right out of my head - complete empathy for the narrator. I was drawn in directly from the beginning, and sorry when the reading experience was over.

I have now started to read "The Bloodstone Papers," and though a very different kind of read, I am finding that Duncan is a masterful writer. I look forward to reading everything he has written.

I liked the book, but felt it was a long time coming to a conclusion. I don't know, I mean I liked the way the book progressed through the conceptual levels of death and its revelations vs. the living and it's stages of grieving, but there was just a bit missing for me. I have to praise Glen for attempting something like this novel, how can you know the experience of death without actually dying...and then trying to relate that to the counter experience of the survivors.

Deep stuff, I suggest reading it if you haven't.

Initially i found this book hard to follow until i'd got past the funeral.I thought it was written too much in the abstract to be tolerable.But then i got the jist,then narrative and the point.Just as the ghost gropes for these things during the book.Things occur to people in the book above and through their stream of conciousness.(That's how its written) and one senses the dream-like delirium of the ghost in extention and beneath this stream because being dead he's already starting to trip out on a higher power/awareness (God?)or just on the pure dark infinity of space,on the way to really being dead.Against this back-drop facts occur to him,and so the plot builds, along with clearly condensing and collating the myriad motivations and expression etc.. of those in his family and people they knew to solve the mystery of his death and why he's a ghost.Apart from being well written,the book kept occuring to me that the ghost's mode of recall is like the creative process itself and how writers/artists get an intuitive grasp on the delirium of their imagination to throw up something concrete in art.