On a bright spring day in Amsterdam, a man goes out to buy a packet of cigarettes. He is a dancer - charismatic, talented and physically beautiful. What happens next takes him completely by surprise and marks him for ever. He awakens to find that he has been abducted by three hooded strangers and subsequently imprisoned in a mysterious white room, which will have consequences that are both poignant and highly disturbing.
The Book of Revelation: A Novel
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
Rupert Thomson has a solid reputation as a cult writer: his earlier books have garnered increasing acclaim without ever really propelling him into the authorial big time. Still, his 1998 novel, Soft!, marked a definite upswing in terms of recognition. And it would be a shame if The Book of Revelation, his sixth and latest, didn't continue this trend, given its level of psychological and aesthetic daring.
The narrator of Thomson's book is a dancer living in Amsterdam. One day he goes out to buy some cigarettes for his girlfriend--also a dancer--and is kidnapped and held for a period of time before being released. It would be unfair to give away too much more. But suffice it to say that each development adds an additional coordinate to what we might call the novel's emotional geography. Indeed, the Dutch metropolis seems to be a full participant in this intricate fiction:
There was a sense in which the city had been trying to tell me something all along. You'll never solve this case. You might as well forget it. But I had not been listening, of course. Look at the map. It's all there, in a way. The whole story.At a time when so many writers are obsessed with trauma--particularly child abuse and its psychological fallout--Thomson chooses to explore the concept through an event that is both more and less sensational. The narrator's ordeal evokes the sort of highly ritualized bastinado that we encounter in, say, Story of O. Yet the author distances us from these events by switching from the first to the third person, a simple device that complicates and deepens the effect of the book as a whole.
Thomson's strange, disturbing tale asks profound questions about the burden of the past, especially of past events that set one apart from others. In this sense, The Book of Revelation chips away at the very notion of objectivity. How do we relate to others when we have experienced events that defy explanation or resolution? Perhaps such truths can be delivered only by (as it were) revelation. --Burhan Tufail --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
From Publishers Weekly
Thomson, a brilliant Londoner, certainly never writes the same book twice. Air and Fire was a wonderfully ambient tropical adventure, Soft a devastating contemporary London thriller. Revelation which resembles his previous novel, The Insult, more than either of these, ponders the consequences of an extreme episode in the life of an attractive (and unnamed) English ballet dancer and choreographer working in Amsterdam. One day, on a brief sortie to buy cigarettes for his lovely girlfriend, he is abducted by three mysterious masked women and held for nearly three weeks as a chained sexual slave in a bright room somewhere in the city. He is tattooed, violated, painfully tethered by his penis. He fights to preserve his equilibrium, gives the women imaginary names, tries to memorize their bodies. Then, as suddenly and unexpectedly as he was taken, he is released and must resume his existence. But his life has been twisted out of joint--his girlfriend doesn't believe his story; he finds he cannot work and becomes obsessed with searching for the women. Aided by a sudden legacy, he travels the world for several years, a lonely and disaffected soul in search of an anchor. Finally, back in Amsterdam, thinking he has discovered one of his captors, he assaults a girl in a club and is arrested. All this is conveyed in Thomson's usual fluent and riveting style, and the effect is mesmerizing. It is also affectless, however, for once the gripping sex-slavery episode is over, the book seems like a long anticlimax, which is concluded in a peculiarly unsatisfying way. Thomson can never be dull, and the notion of a man trying to recover from the consequences of rape is an intriguing one. Despite this narrative's glittering surface, however, it is not one of his sharper efforts. (Feb.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
26 of 29 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Interesting if not as good as Thomson's previous work.,
By Nigel Funge (Redwood City, California United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Book of Revelation (Hardcover)
`The Book of Revelation' is an interesting book if not as good as Thomson's previous work which is still an amazing accomplishment. The first half of the novel, while not as shocking as some have said, concerns the kidnapping of a male classical dancer and his subsequent sexual torture by three masked nude women. The second half of the book details his escape and subsequent soul-searching. The theme of the latter part of `The Book Of Revelation' is very reminiscent (to me) of a lot of Hermann Hesse's work. The only issue (and this is, admittedly, rather petty) I had is that Rupert Thomson's brilliant descriptions that were so prevalent in his fantastic `The Insult' and `Dreams of Leaving' aren't as abundant. I frequently stopped and admired the analogies and descriptions in those two books. If you haven't read either `Dreams Of Leaving' (which you'll have to track down in a used bookstore in the U.S. - or an auction site - since it's not currently being published here) or `The Insult', I'd recommend those first. However, if you have already read and enjoyed those, certainly read `The Book Of Revelation.'
16 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Wow.,
By Steve Y (Alpharetta, GA USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Book of Revelation (Hardcover)
I finished this book in 1 1/2 days. It's very powerful and moving. Thomson has a nice style, and the subject matter is both shocking (the first half) and universal (the second half). Don't be put off by the subject matter...the story is about so much more than "sex".
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
a tour de force,
By Pieter de Rooij (37) (Amsterdam, The Netherlands) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Book of Revelation (Hardcover)
Rupert Thomson (1955) has written a fascinating and compelling sixth novel, and once you start reading 'The Book of Revelation', it's difficult to put the book down. A nameless 30-year old english dancer/choreographer lives and works in Amsterdam. He has a succesful career and for some years he's been living happily with his nice girlfriend Brigitte, also a dancer. In his life there are no real troubles, until... everything changes forever. He's abducted in Amsterdam by three cloaked and hooded women, who hold him captive and chained naked to the floor of an anonymous white empty room for eighteen days. For no apparent reason. During his captivity the only option there for him is total submission. The young women, presumably of his own age, appear often naked -though always hooded- to him. They have their way and play all kinds of games with him, mostly for their sexual pleasure. When the women's demands become more fierce, total dehumanisation and humiliation follows. The man is defenseless against this depraved performance of power, domination and desire. The ordeal he's subjected to includes rape and even brutal mutilation. For the reader this is a shocking nightmare as well. The captivity-part of the book reminded me of Pascal Bruckner's bizarre and weird, but brilliant novel 'les voleurs de beauté' (1997), and of two films where a similar sort of events takes place: Pasolini's `Salo: the 120 days of Sodom' (1975) and Michael Haneke's `Funny Games' (1998). What happens there is that you're forced to witness extreme atrocities, while you know there will be no escape from these brutal violations of human dignity. And of course, as a `witness', it makes you sick, you feel horrible. It's the same with Thomson's `Book of revelation', with one big difference, ... a relief. The man regains his freedom. After eighteen days the women all of a sudden decide to release him. The book is really about what follows then. Of course, after his release he's not really free. He will carry the horrible events he endured in captivity for the rest of his life, probably without ever knowing the identity of his torturers. In a brilliant way Thomson manages to describe the psychological process that accompanies the quest that now lies ahead of this deeply wounded man. His life-after looks like an endless re-evaluation. How to live with yourself, with these scars, how to deal with your sexuality, with the people around you, and how to put your life in some sort of right track again... Facing all these problems the man begins a search for the women who made a ruin of his life. A search that will also bring his innermost self to the fore, in a way he never could have imagined. The outline and structure of the novel is well balanced, and the shifting of perspective, using the first person (`I'-form) and third person (`he'-form) alternately in different sections of the novel, works fine and efficient. I read all Thomson's novels and one of his best writing skills throughout his work is the use of analogies. In `The Book of Revelation' display of that skill may not be as abundant as in `The five gates of hell' and `The insult' -his most mesmerizing and intoxicating novels- but the outline and the psychological development of the main character is as good as ever. And, what's more, in `The Book of Revelation' Thomson reveals a deep wisdom to everyone of us about the essences of life, concerning relationships, sexuality, human dignity and freedom. A remarkable achievement, and taking into account the difficult subject Thomson is dealing with here, I consider `The Book of Revelation' a succesful `tour de force'. In an oeuvre that's far from complete I hope. NB: also recommended: Pascal Bruckner - les voleurs de beauté (Grasset et Fasquelle, 1997) I read this brilliant French novel -overlapping Thomson's 'Book of Revelation' in theme and mood- in dutch translation, titled 'De dieven van de schoonheid' (De Bezige Bij, 1998)
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