Customer Reviews

Habitus

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

If you don't mind sifting through all the tedious and pretentious biology and science too much, the little gold nugget passages of wordy ingenuity you will stumble across at one or the other point will make it worth it.

What I have to reproach is that, while his science might be flashily correct, the guy knows nothing about shop-lifting or drugs. The ways he depicts department store thieving and amphetamine consumption are the typically quasi realistic ones of someone who has never done any of it!

James Flints depth of knowledge astounded me in his debut, which upon reading gave me a thorough insight into many different areas of modern humanity, that previously I would have shrugged off as too complicated for my humble brain to comprehend(eg chaos theories,astounding mathematical problems and things which will leave your head in a state of thorough confusion for weeks afterwards). Althougth the tempo is slow to begin with, the pieces of the book slowly start to fall into place but the events in the book are widely open to differing personal interpretation which leaves the reader confused on what the hell the author is trying to get at. This odd factor to the book causes it to rise in my opinions as it fits in nicely with the direction the book as it has information coming from so many differing fields thus bringing no monotony to its content. Flint's fresh angle on modern day society gives the reader a rare yet fresh perspective to consider as it is so varied but the extra thought that is required to comprehend the book might prove to be too much for those not used to this more informative style of book.

'This book should not be tossed aside lightly, it should be thrown with great force', and there were many times when I felt like doing just that. I don't normally struggle to finish a book, but I did with this one. Apart from the haphazard, disjointed plot, lurching from scene to scene for no apparent reason, the subject matter didn't really appeal, littered as it was with tawdry sexual couplings (and singlings - there was a fair bit of wanking going on, by both the characters and the author). The mystery to me was how Habitus got such uniformly good reviews from likes of New Scientist and Time Out. New Scientist said it was a 'witty often erudite stylish commentary on our pre-millenial condition'. It barely raised a smile with me, and the commentary was more on the state of the author's pot addled grey matter than the human condition, pre-millenial or otherwise.

There were some genuinely good passages from time to time, but all too often we would be zooming off somewhere else to ponder some other bodily function, in dispassionate scientific terms of course, but tasteless nonetheless. This was the problem, the science was generally accurate, but seemed to be designed not to inform or educate, but to show off. All in all, a disappointing read which could only be measurably improved by reducing the constituent pages to their original chemical elements, preferably at a temperature of a thousand degrees Centigrade.

I found this book to be much more enjoyable after I accepted the author's premises and went on to his conclusion. I think the key to reading this is to not get caught up in logical or scientific inconsistencies. Thus, with suspended disbelief, did I make it through this inventive novel.

I enjoy fiction that makes me think - and this truly fit the bill. We have metaphysics, physics, math and philosophy intermixed with significant quantities of mind, body and mood altering substances. The three main adult characters are dysfunctional families all to themselves.

The constant switch in which character we are following causes the reader to have to pay close attention. Many times I had to back up a few pages to get back in synch with the flow of the story. Patience will be rewarded as this convoluted tale unfolds.

There is plenty of info in the Editorial Reviews and Product Description (above) to describe the storyline. Flint's writing is uneven at times, with occasional use of stream-of-consciousness which adds little to the book. Neither science fiction nor fantasy, he makes use of weird twists in reality to push the story along.

The ending was very rushed and a little weak. If you are not a fan of post-modernism and magical realism, you should give this one a pass. It was a page turner for me, even though it should have had at least fifty pages worth of material edited out.

I haven't even finished the book and I already feel I have to share with you that I really, really love it! Habitus mixes space travel, genetics and the comming of age of the computer with Hollywood and the Holocaust --- and in doing so, it doesn't even seem farfetched. Some of the sentences are mere jewels, I can hardly put this book down (although it is easy to do so, since the chapters are pretty short). It is right up there with Tim Powers' Expiration Date!

I loved Habitus, for his way of intermixing personnal destinies with the great technological discoveries of the century (satellites, computers, genetics). Beautifully written (it could be american), Habitus is the book to read if you like Pynchon, Gaddis and Richard Powers. Such a promising fist novel is more than precious. The structure is masterly orchestrized and the characters won't leave you for a long time. And despite (or thanks to) the extraordinary architecture of the book, there is real emotion. I look forward to read Mr. Flint next novel.

He boasts on his website about not bothering about his studies and being more concerned with "smoking dope" whilst at Oxford. You can see the way it's warped his mind, because 'Habitus' is an incomprehensible read, scripted in a pretentious way which says "hey, look how clever a writer I am".

I like dogs very much, therefore I loved this book. My dog too. He saw the cover and ate it instantly, and personally, I found the pages delicious if cooked right.