Customer Reviews

Mr. Mee: A Novel

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

 

 

This novel deals with big questions. What exactly is the link between Rousseau, the internet, and Jimmy Shand (a well known Scottish accordion player)? And is fire a lifeform?

Andrew Crumey is one of a new type of British writers, more interested in a tradition exemplified by Borges, Calvino, Barthelme, and Kundera, than another suburban study of the humdrum lives of humdrum people. (Dan Rhodes is another writing in this way) In reviews elsewhere on these pages I have made reference to his place within this seam of writing, the novel of ideas.

Crumey is an exemplary model in this regard. His previous novels include Music in a foreign language (a Calvinoesque look at fiction and love); Pfitz; and D'Alembert's Principle (the latter two books in a loosely related triptych on memory, reason, and imagination concluded by this novel). In this novel there are echoes of these earlier works throughout, and their themes, and some of the characters and ideas, permeate this new novel. And like those previous works this novel is a Chinese box. This time there are three interlinking narratives - Mr Mee's own introduction to the internet and Rosier's Encyclopaedia; the story of two copyists that disturb Jean Jacques Rousseau's peaceful retreat (Ferrand and Minard, two characters referred to fleetingly in Rousseau's Confessions, that have something of man of Porlock of them); and the confession of an academic studying eighteenth century French fiction. The strands come together wonderfully.

Crumey's fiction taps the rich source of eighteenth century French philosophical thinking (as well as modern variants). However, to refer to this gives a misleading impression of the novel. His work is clever, but his intellect is worn lightly. The novels set you thinking. But, most importantly, Andrew Crumey is very funny. Like his previous novels this is witty and charming.

Andrew Crumey gets better and better. I very much look forward to his next work.

Mr. Mee is very much a novel of ideas, and much of the action of the novel comes in the form of Crumeys playful tweaking of intellectual and literary history and his insistent investigation into philosophical questions of reality, fantasy, and imagination. Through a prolonged examination of the legacies of Rousseau, Proust, andto a lesser extentFlaubert, Crumey creates a novel in which fact is inextricably conjoined with fiction, and the line between reality and fantasy becomes very problematic indeed.

The novel is distinguished by a complex intertextuality in which three separate narratives weave in and out of each other, connecting, confirming, contradicting. The first is the epistolary record of Mr. Mee, an elderly antiquarian in search of the elusive and possibly apocryphal Rosiers Encyclopedia. The second (and finest) of the three narratives chronicles the adventures of Ferrand and Minard, two bumbling characters who are forced to flee Paris after a commission to copy the Encyclopedia involves them in murder and conspiracy. The third concerns a literature professor's preoccupations with issues of memory and imagination as he contemplates seducing one of his students.

Although there are some distracting philosophical asides and some forced humor, Crumey manages to create a playfully inventive fiction that examines the intellectual legacy of the Enlightenment in light of information theory and quantum mechanics. If that sounds interesting to you, by all means proceed. If not, you'll be better off looking elsewhere.

Mr. Crumey has brought together so many ideas and themes that it makes my head spin trying to keep up. At the end of the day, what I felt was sad....so sad that after all the great ideas and stories, we came down to the old fella sitting in the room with the sad girl. If you end up reading the book, I would wish you the same feeling - there is a bit more to wrap up the plot line, but... overall, I think Mr. Crumey thinks us a sad lot.... either that or he has been reading to much Moliere :)) Worth a look at, but be warned, there is some graphical descriptions... my fourteen year old is going to have to wait a while...

Interesting thing about this book is that I am not sure what to do with it now. One would have to be pretty "into" philosophy and some of the old writers to even have a chance of keeping up with the flow. Rousseau and internet pornography....Most folks that find one interesting, won't have a thing to do with the other! interesting match (thus the wildly divergent reviews)!!

All the best,

Jay

I just finished this book, and was curious how it was reviewed by others. I don't think I've ever seen a book with so wild a divergence of opinion, (1 star, 3 stars and 5 stars).

I thought the book was clever and fun. Mr. Crumey had me laughing out loud many times at the inventive activity of the fairly well developed characters. I look forward to checking out his other offerings

I set about reading Andrew Crumey's new book with the highest of expectations. I absolutely loved his Pfitz,. Alas, this was a big mistake and fatally doomed any possible enjoyment of Mr. Mee for me from the start. This book is not at all as good as Pfitz , and not close to being in Calvino's class. My major complaint would be that Crumey doesn't really decide which genre his novel should inhabit. As a result, Mr. Mee wanders back and forth between fabulous history, incredible happenstance, quantum physics, literary criticism, sexual frustration, and just plain exhaustion. If you like Proust (I don't), you won't like Mr. Mee, but you will learn something interesting things (maybe) about poor Proust (and others). But to what end? The book is fairly clever, well-written, an easy read, moderately funny, but generally pretty thin stuff. It won't stretch your mind too much or engage your sense of wonder, as Pfitz might. Then again, it's not Pfitz (or Calvino).

Everyone gets all excited about David Mitchell and his ability to weave seemingly unrelated stories into a gripping narrative. And with good reason. He is great.

But why don't people get equally squidgy about Andrew Crumey?

I know not, but it needs sorting out.

In Mr Mee, Crumey alternates between three tales. An elderly man writing to a lifelong friend recounting his new-found adventures on the internet as he tries to track down an obscure old book, a legendary 18th century encyclopedia that may or may not contain the first examples of quantum theory. A university professor, an expert on Rousseau, falls for one of his students. A couple of French buffoons, contemporaries of Rousseau, bumble around Paris trying to piece together an unusual encyclopedia that they have been asked to copy out but don't quite understand.

These strands, as you might expect, slowly come together to answer most of the questions the reader poses as he flicks through. It is a tantalising and teasing book which, thankfully, pretty much delivers a satisfying conclusion by the end.

It is clever without showing off, full of ideas without being confusing, and frequently prompts guffaws. The adventures of the old gent getting to grips with the world wide web are hilarious.

This is now the second of Crumey's books I have read, the first being Mobius Dick, and they are both highly entertaining and impressive novels. I have Sputnik Caledonia on the shelf waiting to be read. I don't think I'll be able to wait too long.

Wednesday, March 22, 2006
"Mr Mee" by Andrew Crumey, © 2000
Mr. Crumey has written an odd story. The chapters bounce from an old, academic man, to two poor Parisian men who need to find a way to earn some subsistance, a lecturer at a small college and his disease and unfaithfulness. These folks are tied to each other by the happenstance of the two fellows are part of a mystery that evolved around the writer Voltaire. The old man wants to write an article about some encyclopedia that they are mentioned in or are associated with somehow. The two fellows are the subjects of his inquiry. The lecturer has studied those same two fellows and their place in history.
The best part of the story is the interplay of the old fellow and the world outside his house. He is so insulated from the world outside that he barely knows that there are two parts to the species, male and female. I also enjoyed the discourse on 'why write?' It is the penultimate notion that I and most others have who want to be creative and write, but have no reason to do so but their own satisfaction.
The story is written in a very interesting way: Mr. Crumey starts to write about one situation a character is in, then follows his thoughts and develops their history, or cause and effect, or what not, then brings you back to the character and the orginal situation. It seems as if he loses track of where he is in the story, but he always ends up explaining and developing the story further then if he just told it straight. It does seem to be a bit off, or lost, while you are reading, but always feel like Mr. Crumey knows very well what he is doing, so you just follow and enjoy the reading.

I am facing the year 2009 with the prospect of no more paid work looming, so I have been haunting Amazon and second hand book stores and Op Shops, buying up books and stockpiling them to read in my enforced retirement. Mr Mee, at 50 cents, is an absolute find. I couldn't wait! I have been sneaking a look inside whenever I can, and I shiver with delight thinking about the time I can collapse in a hammock and read and read and read the delectable Andrew Crumey ...

After finishing Mr. Mee, I was furious! Andrew Crumey put me through a sometimes interesting but most excruciating story and didn't even give it an ending. It's almost as if he just simply stopped writing and didn't end the book. What was it all for? I thought that the book was going somewhere, but it didn't. Very disappointing book.

Amazon recommended this book for me, but I don't know what I did to anger them. Some of this story is told from the perspective of a 90 plus year old, Mr. Mee, who speaks with complete ignorance about the world wide web, and a woman a jogger he meets on the street who he is afraid is injuring herself because her breasts move so violently as she runs. Maybe the character is having a good time, but I can't imagine any reader could be. Buy this book only if you are incapable of getting annoyed.