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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Engaging, but disappointing, March 30, 2002
This review is from: Ordinary Horror (Paperback)
I found "Ordinary Horror" compelling at the outset. It draws the reader in immediately with a terrific first paragraph, vivid imagery, and a story that suggests an ominous, cynical adaptation of "Little Shop of Horrors." The first third of the novel reads well, has an unusual, well-drawn protagonist, and moves along at slow but tantalizing pace. I did not want to put it down. By the middle of the book I could not stop putting it down. Every chapter seemed like a challenge to finish, for the simple reason that Searcy never tightens the story's early sensation of creepy uneasiness. Instead he just draws it out, until every ominous symbol becomes watery-thin. It becomes boring, which is terribly unfortunate given the promising start. The book jacket promises a riveting climax as the payoff, but I found the finale confusing and artificial, tacked-on. There was no horror, no tension, no interest left for me at that point. Inertia alone led me to finish the novel. Searcy is a fine prose stylist, and much of the imagery in "Ordinary Horror" is memorably vivid. But there's too much of it, and too little emotion. One of the reviewers -- I think it was Russell Hoban -- compared him to Borges, and I think the comparison is valid. But Borges was a brilliant editor as well as an ingenious storyteller, which is why almost every story he published was less than 15 pages long. Had Searcy applied the same level of intensity to his own rewriting, "Ordinary Horror" might have been something special. Instead, it is a messy first novel by a gifted author. Despite my criticism, I look forward to reading Searcy's next book.
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17 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
What was the Point?, February 28, 2001
I think the FBI needs to investigate David Searcy. His book, Ordinary Horror, is obviously an encoded message, intended for Russian Intelligence. A message that I certainly was unable to decipher. To his credit, the author has a wonderful command of the English language. He describes simple, even mundane, objects and events with such vivid detail, you form a stunningly clear image of what's going on. You can really feel the emotions of the characters and understand their experiences. However, the author never takes the story beyond a series of excruciatingly detailed observations, and the detail finally becomes overwhelming. At the start, the story seems to hold so much promise -- a mysterious plant that wreaks havoc on it's owner and his neighbors. But, the author quickly swerves away from this plot and never really explores any of the wonderful possibilities that it holds. Disparate elements of the plot are thrown at the reader throughout the book, but in the end are never explained and never tied together. Just as you think things might be starting to come together, the story slams into yet another dead end. Another red herring -- you realize that the agonizing discourse on Amazonian biotoxins that you just trudged through leads the story nowhere -- in fact has nothing at all to do with the outcome. The cover jacket promises: "As incidents of 'ordinary horror' multiply, Searcy's extraordinary tale gradually builds to an apocalyptic -- and unforgettable -- climax." Unfortunately, the story builds and builds, but never reaches the promised climax. As I turned the last page and finished the last paragraph, I remained hopeful that something brilliant would rise from everything that had been constructed up to that point. In the end, I was just left asking: "what was the point?".
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
What's not to get?, November 4, 2004
This review is from: Ordinary Horror (Paperback)
I'm surprised nobody has reached the same conclusion as myself. The plants were an opiate, an hallucinogenic... they had the neighbours and Frank stoned out of their minds for months. The effects were like LSD, where Mr Delabano found himself losing hours at a time staring at minute details, hence the narratives long, ponderous attention to the explicit details. It is why he couldn't recognise a dead animal, or Janie at the window. It also mirrors the outline of the book he has on Amazonian botany which features similarly pointless stories - and similarly pointless photos of seamingly nondescript pathways which are labelled 'luminesence'. The authors were clearly exposed to the same plant. Hence the title Ordinary Horror. Ther horror was not lurking within some monster, it was in the tedium of suburban life as highlighted and drawn into focus by the effects of the plants. ie. the sisters fixed to the TV. The horror....the horror.
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