Wonderful.
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This book really wasn't what I expected, but it had me hooked straight away, and sucked me right in. Very original, witty, and sad, and moving. I don't want to risk spoilers, so I'll just say this is a must read (and I'm a big fan of Ian the cat).
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Two times around
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I'm reading this book the second time around (first the original, and now the danish translation) -- and wow! You really should read this book at least 2 times. It is a totally entaining and thought provoking book. Madness looms, it shows you what the mind is capable of creating, it shows you what profound sorrow is.
And best of all, it is interspersed with an endearing humør. What an accomplishment!
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2.5
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Too much hyperbole took the teeth out of this original idea. Couple of interesting 'visual' word experiments but clunky dynamic between the love interest mars. Good promise, unjustified pre-hype equal's 2.5 on my ( clearly ) highly subjective ratings system.
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what is the concept?
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I found this book whilst searching for something different to read, read the blurb and decided to give it a go, and tough going it was.
It starts in such a promising way but seems to get lost just like its main charcter in a sea of conceptual nonsense that quite frankly the author is not skilled enough to reel in. There are some promising ideas within this book, however it does feel as though the author has got carried away with it all. It's not as thought provoking as it would have you believe and it has to revert to meshing together ideas that you already know of from films and books alike in order to make it work.
The author does not back up any of his ideas or plot lines and therefore the copied Jaws ending just feels lazy, the only reasoning for it being that at some point in the book the main character mentions he is scared of the shark. Hooked? You shouldn't be.
It's a good example of too many stolen ideas rehashed into one misjudged one.
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Splashing!
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I found this an imaginative and easily readable journey, filled with puzzles, romance, nostalgia, pain and humour. It was an entertaining read from start to finish and reminded me a little of Jonathan Coe's "What a carve up!" - you come to relate strongly to one person's pathos filled journey of self discovery.
Some reviewers have noticed lots of influences in the book - these mostly passed me by and so I'll assume originality on the part of the author, however you can't miss the obvious "Jaws" parallel. I'm a bit surprised that Steven Hall can get away with simply retelling a story for a large chunk of this book. However there was easily enough other stuff to keep me turning the pages.
Didn't quite get the ending, but found it moving nevertheless and I guess you're meant to interpret it for yourself. Didn't understand a few other things too, for example the title or the relevence of the coded message within the coded story, but I may well be being dim and anyway it doesn't spoil anything. I didn't see all the "letter pictures" on first read but others clicked when I later re-flicked through the book. Some were very clever, others I think I still need to stare at a bit longer! I found some of the italicised preludes to chapters a bit pretentious and adding little. Also, very minor point, but who writes a post card using a typewriter?
I've briefly looked at the website which accompanies the book and it seems well worth a deeper explore, but I hope Steven Hall doesn't waste his talent with other "Raw Shark Text" spin offs (I've read somewhere worrying rumours of new parallel chapters etc...); he should not get up his own backside trying to be overly clever with pseudo-philosophising Matrix style over this book, but rather he should leave it alone and get on with his next novel, because if it's half as good as this it'll be well worth the read.
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