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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Master of Observation, A Gem Of A Book,
By
This review is from: If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things (Paperback)
What a simple, beautiful book. The most unique aspect of this story is the split narrative the author uses. The bulk of the book is spent in various flats on a suburban street in London. Over the course of one day we're let into the minds of the various tenents, their hopes, their fears, and their desires, as the narrative steams like a freight train to a tragedy that we know has happened at the start of the book, but don't know what it is until the end. The other narrative is told first person by a girl who was living there when the tragic event occurs, and the action shifts focus between past and present. It's interesting to read that some of the other reviewers read the book in one sitting or close to it, because that's essentially what I did as well. The book demands a certain amount of attention from the reader because the author has dispensed with names and obvious physical discriptions for characters unless it holds relevence to what's going on with them emotionally.Consequently characters are referred to as: 'The young man in room 18'. or. 'the boy in room 17', but surprisingly this device only adds to the potency of the writing and made for me a more moving reading experience.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Remarkable,
By Book woman (Virginia) - See all my reviews
This review is from: If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things (Paperback)
When I, a nonwriter, read a book, one of the mental games I play is to ask myself if I would be proud to have written it. The answer with this book is that no one but Jon McGregor could have written this spectacular work. It feels more like poetry than prose, more like dream than reality.
McGregor's characters have no names. They are like neighbors that you see in passing and may remember something about, some more than others, but never really know. While the Remarkable Thing referred to in the title at first appears to be an accident witnessed by these characters, it soon becomes apparent that there are many things of which nobody speaks--love, death, fear, grief. This failure to tell the things that matter to the people that matter leaves everyone bereft. Only at the end does the protagonist start to speak and to listen, and the book ends on a note of hope. McGregor uses repetitive thems in his imagery, including fire and water, birds, mirrors, and the mirror images that are twins. In particular, he focuses on the twins to represent continuity and hope. There are scenes that have the surreal feeling of dreamscapes--flowers growing in a burned-out townhouse, people racing down the street in office chairs. This is a book to read for the sheer joy of the language, the structure, and the poetry. It is truly a remarkable thing.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A beautiful work,
By Reader and Writer "Chris" (Canada) - See all my reviews
This review is from: If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things (Paperback)
The book is less a novel, (not that it matters, but don't expect one if looking for that sort of read.) It's more a lengthy poem or a novella -- I see it more as a musical tone poem. Declarative sentences of beautiful, sensitive construction build and awaken our eyes to an awakening day in London. The first few pages are stunningly strong and while all the book doesn't maintain this pitch, indeed no living person could, we don't particularily worry because at ever turn of a page is a new discovery.
Reading it in one shot is to be overwhelmed in the way watching the entire ring cycle or mahabarrata (sp?) would overwhelm. I enjoyed it over a series of nights, taking my time, and the language seeped into my dreams. It's a dreamlike work, and one any contemporary writer should check out both for it's strength and structure.
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