It is the end of the summer. The tourists have already gone, and now the sun is abandoning the Lake District's damp valleys. Only a lone camper remains, enjoying the quiet. He plans to stay just long enough to prepare for a trip to the East. But then the owner of the campsite asks him to paint a fence and he innocently obliges. Soon other odd jobs pile up until little by little he becomes ensnared in the ominous ‘out-of-season'.
All Quiet on the Orient Express
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Amazon Review
Magnus Mills may have single-handedly invented a new fictional genre: the Kafkaesque novel of work. First, his Booker-shortlisted The Restraint of Beasts brought to fence building the kind of black humour found in a Coen brothers movie. Now, in All Quiet on the Orient Express, Mills turns his deadpan prose on some very odd jobs indeed. The unnamed narrator is on holiday for a few weeks, camping in the Lake District before beginning an extended journey to India. He sees no reason not to agree when the campground owner--the sinister Tommy Parker, who seems mainly to engage in "buying and selling"--asks him to help out with a simple chore. As this is a Magnus Mills novel, however, no chore can possibly be simple. Through error or bad luck, one task leads to another and the narrator quickly finds himself trapped by his own passivity and a very English reluctance to cause a fuss. Soon he's doing homework for Parker's daughter, being kicked on and off the darts team at the local pub and learning how to perform a series of menial jobs. ("Have you ever operated a circular saw?" "Driven a tractor before?" "What are you like with a hammer and nails?")
There's a lot that's strange about this little town. Where have all the females gone? Why does everyone seem to think he should take over the town milk route? Why won't the shops stock his beloved baked beans? Both the grocer and the pub are oddly eager to let him run up tabs and there's no sign of payment from Tommy Parker. It seems, in fact, that the narrator's early suspicions have been fulfilled: "I'd inadvertently become his servant." Like the Hall brothers from The Restraint of Beasts, Parker is volatile, irrational and all-powerful--a primitive god ruling over his own creation. As the narrator falls further and further under his sway, All Quiet on the Orient Express becomes a striking allegory of labour and capital, purgatory and judgement, and the uncanniness of manual work. --Mary Park --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
‘Understatedly surreal, deadpan gothic, Mills is a master of the uncanny ... Such a fresh fictional voice' (Esquire )
‘Mills is a master of the cliffhanger and can make even the most deadpan behaviour compelling and funny... A deliciously sly comic fable' (Financial Times )
‘Absorbing, darkly worrying and very, very funny' (The Times )
‘Mill's great strength is in mixing quiet amusing amusements with a deeper feeling of malice' (Guardian )
‘Mills is a master of the cliffhanger and can make even the most deadpan behaviour compelling and funny... A deliciously sly comic fable' (Financial Times )
‘Absorbing, darkly worrying and very, very funny' (The Times )
‘Mill's great strength is in mixing quiet amusing amusements with a deeper feeling of malice' (Guardian )
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
I don't know how he does it, but Magnus Mills captures the dull emptiness of the unexamined life without turning the reader off. This book might be hard going for the first few pages but before long you'll be purring with pleasure even if you don't know why. A guy plans to motorcycle to India but ends up playing darts and delivering milk instead. He buys baked beans. He'd like some biscuits but the shop is out of stock. Stuff happens, but not much. But the book grows ever more creepy and weird while never letting on that anything is happening, until you get to the end and realise how utterly strange, compelling and mad it all was. From the grim banality of the dullest lives imaginable he slowly conjures up a dark, feral bad-dream world that seems more real than life no matter what bizarre events happen. The only current writer I can compare him to is George Saunders of "Civilwarland in Bad Decline", but Mills is even more low key and deadpan, creating delicious madness from the most unpromising material imaginable.
It's a rare book that leaves you both very satisfied and thinking "what the ****ing hell was that all about?" And this is it.
12 of 13 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
What is amazing about this book is just how little of it there is. Mills doesn't waste words describing every pointless little detail, creating beautifully tight prose. Even the protagonists name is omitted - but so what? What difference does it make whether it is John or Jack or Peter or whatever? Other reviewers claim that this makes the book unevocative, shorn of individuality. Rubbish. Instead the sparse writing leaves your imagination room to create connections, giving the book a wonderfully brooding and almost surreal feel. The protagonist says 'Hi' to his landlord, but because it is so underwritten, you read in sinister undercurrents to the exchange. You are also more aware of themes and motifs, which helps set up a wonderful twist. A fantastic book, well worth buying.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
Unremittingly compelling, the plot threatens to explode at every page, and consistantly refuses to do so, but holds the reader enthralled. At any moment the novel will deliver excitement, romance, intrigue, lust even, but tastefully avoids it. Characters can disappear in a subtly underplayed fashion, leaving one deeply worried, but no one else is! Somehow the simplicity of the book entices the tastebuds leaving you dying for more but at the same time pleasantly relieved that it's all over!
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
An interesting read
An interesting insight into the recent social and community history of the village and area I now live and work in.
Published 9 days ago by Mr. D. Beattie Mrs Beattie
3.0 out of 5 stars
Quite entertaining
Three and a Half Stars. Quite entertaining.
Ignoring the staggeringly over-zealous hype surrounding Mr Mills' novels, this is a mildly entertaining first-person... Read more
Ignoring the staggeringly over-zealous hype surrounding Mr Mills' novels, this is a mildly entertaining first-person... Read more
Published 2 months ago by Zak
5.0 out of 5 stars
I can't quite put it into words, but this is a great book
I really love Magnus Mills style and this for me is my favourite so far. The thing is I can't really put my finger on what it is that draws me in, maybe the simplicity mixed with... Read more
Published 4 months ago by Manda Moo
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Very Enjoyable Nothingness
From its Ladybird Book cover to the last page this was an original and highly amusing novel. Just the right length for a book that does not take itself too seriously and several... Read more
Published 5 months ago by pantodame
1.0 out of 5 stars
A new genre of fiction
As is claimed in the blurb, this guy has invented a new genre of fiction.
It can be summed up as follows: Short story with (minor) sting in the tale, padded, padded,... Read more
It can be summed up as follows: Short story with (minor) sting in the tale, padded, padded,... Read more
Published 20 months ago by Easy Goin Roj
5.0 out of 5 stars
The worlds longest joke?....
Could this be essentially the worlds longest joke? Without giving a spoiler away:
I first read this book years ago, but it's still an old favourite of mine. Read more
I first read this book years ago, but it's still an old favourite of mine. Read more
Published 20 months ago by Andy Gibson
5.0 out of 5 stars
Utterly Brilliant!
Some of the people who have left bad reviews just don't seem to get it, but then the world would be a very dull place if we all liked the same things! Read more
Published 24 months ago by Phonics Fan
1.0 out of 5 stars
Is that it?!
I didn't enjoy this book (to put it bluntly!) The spare, unemotional prose didn't appeal and there wasn't enough dark undertones to make the book interesting. Read more
Published on 23 Dec 2010 by pbgeary
5.0 out of 5 stars
Ever so slightly absurd
A wonderfully enjoyable tale, written in a deceptively simple way. A comedy with a very subtle, dark undertow.
Published on 19 Aug 2010 by Tom White
5.0 out of 5 stars
Not so quiet.....
I'm not sure if the early Magnus Mills are the best - certainly this one manages to combine his usual deadpan humour and horror simultaneously. In 'All quiet.. Read more
Published on 15 Oct 2009 by Peter Burke
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