Remainder (Paperback)

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

McCarthy's debut novel, set in London, takes a clever conceit and pumps it up with vibrant prose to such great effect that the narrative's pointlessness is nearly a nonissue. The unnamed narrator, who suffers memory loss as the result of an accident that "involved something falling from the sky," receives an £8.5 million settlement and uses the money to re-enact, with the help of a "facilitator" he hires, things remembered or imagined. He buys an apartment building to replicate one that has come to him in a vision and then populates it with people hired to re-enact, over and over again, the mundane activities he has seen his imaginary neighbors performing. He stages both ordinary acts (the fixing of a punctured tire) and violent ones (shootings and more), each time repeating the events many times and becoming increasingly detached from reality and fascinated by the scenarios his newfound wealth has allowed him to create—even though he professes he doesn't "want to understand them." McCarthy's evocation of the narrator's absorption in his fantasy world as it cascades out of control is brilliant all the way through the abrupt climax. (Feb.)
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From Bookmarks Magazine

Rejected in England before it was acquired by a small French publishing house, Tom McCarthy's debut novel is now a popular and critical success. The author, who in 1999 launched the semihoax International Necronautical Society (INS)—designed to map and colonize the space of death—transfers some of the Society's philosophical concerns to his novel. About human reality, social constructions, and the quest for identity, Remainder offers a highly original and insightful allegory of our times. In a clear, deadpan tone, the narrator, "an existential Everyman" (Los Angeles Times), tells a bizarre, disorienting, and compelling story. The vagueness may bother some readers, but most will enjoy pondering the ambiguity of it all.
Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 308 pages
• Publisher: Vintage (February 13, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0307278352
• ISBN-13: 978-0307278357
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (34 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #110,816 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

31 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Faulty Memory, February 23, 2007

By	C. Hutton "book maven" (East Coast, USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This is a strange novel. Exploring the human memory in a way vaguely similiar to the film, "Memento", the narrator loses his own memory while being compensatated with millions for the accident. Without a memory, their is no center for the increasingly delusional narrator who stages events from his life and from ordinary life with no pattern or meaning. There is no plot, just a series of random events, including the ending. This book is not for everyone but the writing is clear and interesting for the reader who sticks to it.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Existential Paradox, June 4, 2007

By	Dr. Stephen M. Sagar (Ancaster, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Remainder is a novel to be read for the existential discomfort that it leaves you with. Those who read this for a plot will not be satisfied. It attempts to recreate (or "re-enact") the soul and its connection to the material world, and cleverly poses the question who is observing who and what is the real self.

If you do not wish to contaminate your experience of the novel, then do not read on. Just read the following paragraph, which is my conclusion:

I highly recommend this book to those interested in exploring existentialism, the philosophy of body and soul, and also post-traumatic stress syndrome. Besides that, I found this to be an entertaining novel that I could not put down, full of a quirky British sense of humor.You may find yourself reading the book a number of times to digest the full meaning.


What is reality? The author may have cleverly "tricked" the reader into thinking that the novel takes place in the "real" material world....

My take on this novel(and this can be interpreted in many ways) is that the whole sequence is a dream, possibly of someone dying on a ventilator in an ICU, having experienced a horrific trauma. It may even have occurred at the instant preceding death...there is much emphasis on slowing down and stretching time.The re-enactments cleverly contain dream-like images and metaphors of the events surrounding the trauma. As he struggles to live (possibly within a coma and a paralysed body)he recreates the moment of "death", stuck in a state that borders on life and death at the moment of the trauma. As he struggles to hang on to life, he reinvents the traumatic moment...he is stuck at that point. At the end, he appears to hover between life (and its pain) and death (with its release) as the plane metaphorically banks to and from the airport. At that point he has released the trauma, relinquished his fear, and recovered his soul... and lost the painful need to understand.

I consider this book to be an excellent piece of literature which enables the reader to experience multiple levels of the soul. Life and our sense of what is real are paradoxes. Tom McCarthy has managed to express this in a fascinating novel. The interpretation is clearly left with the reader...some may find that unsatisfying...but that's the whole point...there is no ultimate answer, simply re-enactments of existence.

I highly recommend this book to those interested in exploring existentialism, the philosophy of body and soul, and also post-traumatic stress syndrome. Besides that, I found this to be an entertaining novel that I could not put down, full of a quirky British sense of humor.

33 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Neither the Best Nor the Worst, March 14, 2007

By	Becky Lee (New York) - See all my reviews

I picked up this book on the basis of the strength of a review in Entertainment Weekly (an A-, I believe.) It might be worth the $9 Amazon is selling it for now, but don't go out and buy it at your local store for full price.

The beginning is a bit slow but, overall, the novel is not poorly written. It was an enjoyable read in general - right up to about the last few pages. Given what McCarthy has written and how, the story escalates the only way it can (savvy readers will see it coming) and yet, the end is unsatisfying. I found myself unsympathetic - or maybe unempathetic - to the main character and I had trouble believing & understanding his motivations. It felt like the book ended too early and there are several red herrings / character circular thought patterns that don't really lead anywhere.

I think McCarthy's book is a bit self indulgent. I think I was supposed to feel it was all very clever and cool but I feel like it was several hours that would've been better spent reading something else. That being said, it isn't the worst book I've ever read - it's squarely middle of the pack material.