Customer Reviews

The Restraint of Beasts

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(22)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

I absolutely loved this well-written glimpse into the life of 3 fence builders and their adventures in Scotland and England.I was laughing throughout this book, but readers should be forewarned that the humor isn't for everyone (it is a very dry humor, even a black humor) and the plot, such as it is, tends to ramble, meander and go in anything but a straightforward direction. Still, I couldn't put it down, riveted by the lives of these three men, the various crises that came up and their way of bumbling through each day as best they could. It was obvious that the author know about the life described here.

This book was read on the BBC Radio 4 "Late book".

So fascinated was I that, on returning home from the pub, I met a group of mates who said "Come for a late drink! " and I said "Er - no- I have to listen to the late book on the wireless..." (And thereby marking me down as a VERY SAD PERSON INDEED)

I read a LOT of books last year and this was one of the two that really hangs around (lurking in a leather jacket) in my memory. Brilliant, and yes, VERY funny.

PS My partner didn't like it - he said it had "No proper ending"!

PPS The other book was Seamus Deane "Reading in the Dark" - also brilliant (and not as depressing as you might think).

I have a weakness for dark comedies about average people just trying to get from day to day while retaining grasp of their pride and sanity, and this book fits into the surreal end of that category. The pace is slow, the action is monotonous, the characters lack insight into their own actions--yet I found myself far more engaged in a novel revolving around fence post driving than I ever expected to be. The languid predictability of day after day of work becomes hypnotic, until jagged reality asserts itself. An excellent afternoon's read.

At its heart, this is simple study of a working relationship between a foreman and his two very likeable, if shambolic subordinates. Carried by a simple, linear plot line with no twists and turns, the atmosphere builds up quickly and returns like a familiar smell each time you pick up the book and start to read agin.

Do not buy this if you want a beginning, a middle, and an end. There is no ending. At all. I like this technique as it leaves the reader to consider the likely outcome. But then, many people seem to prefer closure of the plot themes, and if you are among that number, this final chapter will drive you crazy.

Like many novels of this type the accolades on the cover claim great comedy and laughs within. I can't say I laughed out loud, but there are several examples of amusing dialogue between the main protagonists and the more peripheral characters.

This is the first of Mills' books I have read, and will be interested to read more. However, I don't think I want to read two of his in close succession.

A group of three low-class fence layers get themselves into a dark situation. Things go from bad to worse, and keep going that way.

I was by turns amused, shocked, and frightened by this story. Not frightened in a 'boo! Aagh!' kind of way. More like a Twilight Zone. There is contrast in this story that I sincerely loved. On one hand, Mills gives us low-wage workers of the basest sort. Their lives are endless repetition of the mundane. But then Mills begins to dish out some truly bizarre circumstances, things that can't ever happen ... can they? Surely they shouldn't. Beneath the mundane was a core of something sinister.

I can't say I understand what the morale is, or if there was one. But the book was entertaing, and certainly thought provoking.

[T]he main concern of farmers was that their fences should be tight. Without this the restraint of beasts was impossible. -The Restraint of Beasts

Take a forty-something, bus-driving, first time novelist; start some rumors of a huge advance; for good measure, add in a cover blurb from the notoriously reclusive Thomas Pynchon; and you've got the recipe for a hype machine that just won't quit. Not surprisingly, the book was nominated for both the Booker and the Whitbread, though it didn't win either. Meanwhile, obscured in all of this is the fact that, like many a neophyte before him, Magnus Mills has a very clever idea for a novel here, but in the end doesn't really seem sure what to do with it.

The basic story is simple enough : a nameless English narrator works for a Scottish company building fences. He's made foreman of a crew which consists of two sullen and lazy Scotsmen, Tam and Richie. The three of them are sent to England on a special job where they spend their days laying fence, often quite lackadaisically, and their nights drinking up all their wages in local pubs. They leave a trail of dissatisfied customers in their wake, but fortunately, a series of accidents contrives to also leave these customers quite dead, and buried, unceremoniously, beneath fence posts.

Mills presents the story in utterly straightforward fashion, the narration so affectless that the deaths are barely noticed. Considering the author's working class origins and the monotonous existence of the work gang, it's natural to expect the story to turn into a parable about labor and exploitation, but there's nary a complaint, and he makes no effort to make the workers the least bit sympathetic. It's all just work, drink, death, work, drink... If they're the beasts, we'd just as soon they be restrained.

This is actually pretty funny, especially at first. You can't help expecting the narrator to explain away the deaths, but the story just moves right on past them. Eventually though, Mills needs to do something with the scenario he's concocted, and here he falls somewhat short.

Absent all the hype, this would be a perfectly acceptable first effort. And I don't know that it's fair to judge the book by the expectations that extraneous factors raised. Just forget all the award nominations and other nonsense and approach it like any other first novel and you'll enjoy it well enough.

GRADE : B

What a strange little novel! Deadpan tale of a fencing crew in rural Scotland... told from the POV of the reluctant crew boss, who is put in charge of two guys that are both a couple of tacos short of a combination plate... Incredibly droll, it nevertheless pulls you in with its perfect pitch... strange, dark-humored, odd... I was pleasantly confused for days after I read it. Quite enjoyable, although I'd hardly rate it a prizewinner. I look forward to his new one coming out in paperback.

This simple, straight and gloomy book is a punch on the nose. It clearly blows down our faith in the post-Industrial Revolution rethoric that tells us that being a paid worker is the best we can get from our lives. Well, perhaps it's not. Perhaps we can end up getting a as empty existence as Tam and Richie got. And trying to fill it up with pints and pints of beer, as they do. I dare to say that, if Chaplin had had a nightmare the night before he conceived "Modern Times", he would come out with something quite similar to this little great book by Mills. I suggest you to buy it now and read it as soon as possible, so you can feel a bit more human, besides being a worker. But, if you've got to get back to work, give those two Scots a call later, because they might want to invite you for a pint or two.

I loved this book from the first page. There's black humour all the way through it and from my own experience of being an Englishman doing menial work in Scotland (making wooden pallets for three years) of course it was realistic. The three main characters are treated like beasts themselves by their bosses worthless except for the money they represent(the term beasts is what the Scots use to describe livestock).The work they have to do all day is so boring and laborious that all they've got to look forward to at the end of the day is a few drinks in the pub. Oblivion in any form to take them away from the drudgery of their lives. Two of them keep stopping for smokebreaks at the slightest chance, anything to stop this depressing work. Also I liked the way that there weren't any women in their lives, they seemed totally cut off socially from them by circumstance, bad pay and lack of experience. Fenced in themselves, if you like.I liked the bits in the english pub where they sit and drink and there is almost an invisible fence between them and the proper world outside. Sprinkled through the book are plenty of laughs but this will depend on you, the reader, as it is all so subtle. The author doesn't spell everything out for you and there are hidden meanings and hidden laughs all the way through. I'm so glad that books like this that are so different and creative can still be written and find their way to the shop shelves. I'll be keeping an eye out for more of Magnus Mills.

The Restraint of Beasts is simply not a simple novel, though it gives that deceptive appearance.
Magnus Mills writes in simple English. Hemingway would applaud his stark and plain style. Yet, there are things going on just beneath the surface that will grasp your imagination and have this simple story haunting your mind for days after you read the last page.
It is a simple story: the newly appointed foreman of a fence-building crew is sent from Scotland with his two-man crew to do a job in the north of England. The foreman, the unnamed narrator of the tale, soon makes it apparent he has reservations about his assignment and, in particular, his crew who are as skilled in avoiding work as they are in doing it. Things go awry even before they leave Scotland when a customer is accidentally killed. Rather than reporting the incident or taking other actions we would assume "normal," they bury the man and move on. A similar incident occurs soon after their arrival in England.
There are reminders here of Kafka and Becket and humor of a decidedly dark turn between turns of repetitious drudgery and pub-crawling that is the lot of these hapless laborers. Mills crams some memorable characters into the short 214 pages of this novel, including a father who builds a stockade to keep his son away, the obsessive owner of the fence-building company and the equally obsessed Hall brothers.
I believe I'll be wanting more of Mills' tales.