Customer Reviews

The Love Hexagon

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

 

 

I rushed through Sutcliffe's book over a weekend. His quick prose flows brilliantly through a complex multi-character story of relationships gone awry. I should be lucky to find friends who could psychoanalyze relationships this well. Love Hexagon is not heavy reading, but a complex journey any Gen-Xer will appreciate, infused with brilliant dialogue and Sutcliffe's wry humor. Recommended for a relaxing weekend read, or cross-ocean flights.

After reading Are You Experienced?, I eagerly checked out this novel and was not disappointed. The plot isn't groundbreaking but what makes the book so interesting is Sutcliffe's astute observations of single life and all of it's hilarity. This is the perfect book to read when you want to take a break from heavier stuff but this isn't to say that Sutcliffe shouldn't be taken seriously. His wit and dialogue make a perfectly engaging read that other writers could only dream of creating.

i read this one a couple of weeks ago, because i was on a british kick...i was in england last fall and i really like the place and the people...what i liked most about the story was that..although the characters started out one way, by the end, they turned out unlike what i expected...and whether by choice or by circumstance, every one gets what they want....

Truman Capote didn't like Jack Kerouac. Referring to "On the Road", he said: "That isn't writing, that's typing." Heaven knows what Truman Capote would have made of William Sutcliffe's books.

Bear with me. This shouldn't take too long.

Some words just make your heart fall. In a moment, I'll use the word "misadventures". It's against my better judgement and I use it knowing that the word is used to enliven an essentially tired proposition (I figure that "misadventures" is used in much the same way as defibrillators are used against the chest of somebody with cardiac problems). For misadventures, read typical. For misadventures, read boring. For misadventures, read predictable and stale.

"The Love Hexagon" (don't get me started on that title) concerns itself with the misadventures of six Londoners (three men and three women - are we still living in the nineteenth century?) as they fall in and out of friendship, love, bed, the off-licence, the video shop and the pub. Some of them sleep together. Some of them break up. Some of them are mean. Some of them are alright. All of them - all of them - are instantly forgettable. (I could refer back to the book and tell you their names but the names are ciphers for empty space - these people aren't shallow, these people don't exist beyond the confines of reported speech.)

Much of the book is conversation between two or more people. That isn't a problem, as such. (I mean, Manuel Puig wrote at least two books I know - the wonderful "Kiss of the Spiderwoman", the equally wonderful "Eternal Curse on the Reader of these Pages" - entirely in reported speech.) It's more the fact that what gets said is just so damn worthless. The back cover copy reads: "Six young Londoners all looking for something more from life." What is should read is: "Six young Londoners all doing the same kinds of things as you only with less imagination."

It should be an essential truth for anybody who sits down to write a book (and I mean anybody): you should say what has never been said before. If you can't do that, then at least aim high (because, let's face it, you're Icarus, baby : you're aiming for the sun and you either make it or leave a terrible mess on the pavement). You don't aim to write an episode of "Friends" because - when you fail (and, take my word for it, "The Love Hexagon" fails) - what are you left with?

What you are left with, to paraphrase Truman Capote, is this: not writing, not even typing, just bad conversation.

I picked up "Love Hexagon" after reading and enjoying "Are you Experienced" by William Sutcliffe. In one sentence, if I had not read any of Sutcliffe's other works, I would have put this book down after 15 pages. I felt no emotion for the characters and generally found this book to be unoriginal, extremly predictable, and unbelievable Let me explain.

1. This book is unoriginal because it focuses on 6 twentysomething friends who live and work in London. (Seems to be a popular theme these days).
2. The story line is beyond predictable. After the first couple of chapters any capable reader can guess who will end up with whom.
3. Finally this book is unbelievable. All six characters have the ability to discover exactly what they are feeling, why they are acting the way they are, what they should do and what the other person is thinking. There is no fumbling, and no guessing when it comes to figuring the situation out.

If you are going to read anything by Sutcliffe, go for "Are you Experienced" and leave "Love Hexagon" on the shelf.

I eagerly picked up this novel, hoping to find the sense of personal discovery of "New Boy" (Sutcliffe's first novel, deserving of a long overdue release in the States), or the manic, comic glee of "Are You Experienced?" "The Love Hexagon" offers neither. What it does offer is an account of twenty-something Londoners who are cynically detached from their jobs, their aspirations, and their personal relationships. The six main characters can't really come to terms with each other, as they have yet to come to terms with themselves.

After what seems like a decade of "Friends" and far too many films starring Ethan Hawke-types as self-loathing urban romantics, the plot of this book is patently unremarkable. Still, Sutcliffe is a superior talent; his dialog moves crisply with superb cadence and aural vigor. As with his other works, Sutcliffe demonstrates why he is an international talent who deserves the acclaim he's received: he understands the anxieties of our generation and presents them in a manner void of the didactic and the bombastic. His characters speak with the requisite sophisticate irony, but with a sense of candor -which if not done well would come across as whiny earnestness.

This is an entertaining read, though ultimately unsatisfying when compared to his other works. If you have yet to read any Sutcliffe novels, start with this one and move on to the others. Whatever its shortcomings, "The Love Hexagon" has not diminished my anticipation for Sutcliffe's next book.

There is one quite memorable scene in this book where two of the characters try discussing a movie they have just seen but find themselves unable to do so because they have forgotten the movie already. It wasn't a bad movie - just a bit nothing. Oddly enough, that's pretty much how I'd describe this book - with the exception of the aforementioned scene. I read the book quite happily, but as soon as I had turned the last page the whole reading experience seemed a bit of a blur.

I think the real problem is that the characters just coast along without being particularly interesting or funny. I can vaguely remember William Sutcliffe creating some potential for the exploration of some pretty deep stuff during the middle of the book but then nothing developed - I wonder why not? Maybe the author just got bored and took it out on his characters?

If you are looking an easy read on a long flight then this book is as good as any - but if you're looking for something with a bit more spunk try William Sutcliffe's earlier book "Are you Experienced" .

While the plot might be nothing new, I really thought the author revealed some good insights into the nature of relationships and people's unspoken motivations in them. In some ways, it reminded me of Nick Hornby's "High Fidelity," without the music references. Generally it was well-written, and I found it far more entertaining and believable than the couple of novels I've read by Mike Gayle and other lad lit authors.

An absolutely terrific book that probably would never be published in the U.S. without the help of U.K. success. Full of smart, witty and tone perfect dialogue, the story moves at a brisk clip and feels in many ways like a TV show or movie, but so what really? We lose too many good writers to movies/TV because the literary world refuses to accept that writers' ideas of comedy and story are out-pacing what used to be "literary". William Sutcliffe is a terrifically entertaining writer and for all those who love his books because of it, there will be a handful of influential who fear him because of it.

An entertaining dissection of the workings of the soul of 3 British (very British) couples. I particularly enjoyed how the author shows the vanity of his characters who go at extraordinary lenght not to be "found out" -- not realizing that they didn't fool anybody in the first place. It takes depth to write about ordinary people. I found myself is those characters.