- Paperback: 218 pages
- Publisher: Cauliay Publishing & Distribution (16 Jun 2011)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0956881017
- ISBN-13: 978-0956881014
- Product Dimensions: 21.6 x 14 x 1.2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 946,745 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
The Ascent of Isaac Steward
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Product Description
Product Description
The Ascent of Isaac Steward is the remarkable and extraordinary debut novel from the senior editor of the prestigious literary magazine, The View From Here. Written with a literary, lyrical voice, the book follows Isaac Steward in an emotional and original tale as he struggles to deal with the resurfacing of a suppressed memory of a car crash a year ago which killed his wife, Rebekah, his son, Esau, and left his other son, Jacob, in a coma. Isaac becomes increasingly dysfunctional and delusional as the story unfolds in a hypnotic and startling way bringing into play childhood memories of a Punch and Judy show and the revelation from his half-brother, Ishmael, that in order to be reunited with Rebekah he must be brought to a tree from his father's wood called The Dandelion Tree. To help him, Isaac slips in and out of being Major Tom Donaldson, a SAS commander fashioned by his mind to help him regress back to a time of naiveté and happiness before the accident. But Donaldson brings only death and violence and Isaac struggles to keep a grip on reality as he descends into his mind and starts to question if he himself has already died. Atmospheric and sensual and dealing with universal desires of love and reconciliation, The Ascent of Isaac Steward is reminiscent of the surrealist literary experiments of James Joyce but highly readable. Readers will be astounded, transfixed and immersed in the world long after turning the last page.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Ascent of Isaac Steward review,
By
This review is from: The Ascent of Isaac Steward (Paperback)
The Ascent of Isaac Steward is accompanied by some fine endorsements, and this one by author R.N.Morris (A Razor Wrapped in Silk) has been much referred to in various reviews: "Reminiscent of the surrealist literary experiments of James Joyce's Finnegan's Wake but blessedly readable. The Ascent of Isaac Steward is insanely ambitious, startlingly odd, boldly conceived, and executed with tremendous confidence. One of the most extraordinary novels I have ever read."I have no trouble agreeing with anything R.N.Morris has written here - he hasn't put a word wrong as far as I'm concerned - although I have to admit that my knowledge of Finnegan's Wake is based on a brief glance rather than a sound reading. However, it does allow me to reassure prospective readers that, unlike Finnegan's Wake, the prose in Ascent is comprehensible and indeed "blessedly readable". That aside, because Mike French has created a novel which is wonderfully unique and experimental, it's probably normal (and useful) to have such a reference point against which to compare and contrast it, in order to clarify one's thoughts. If I were to liken it to any book I've read before, it would be to Flann O'Brien's The Third Policeman (yes, let's keep this with the Irish, even though Mike French is English, and not Irish... or French). To my mind, The Ascent of Isaac Steward, like The Third Policeman, and William Golding's Pincher Martin even, explores the nether world between the ending of a life and the recognition of death. It's fertile, surreal ground because we have no idea what dying and death is like, so almost anything goes. There were times when I found it hard to keep track of the characters and their alter-egos, and to map out the hierarchy of worlds that Isaac and his cohort journey through, as I did with elements of The Third Policeman, but I found it a very satisfying book when I stopped worrying about this and allowed the crucial elements to reveal themselves. Indeed, because it's such a startlingly original book, and subverts the reader's expectations at a number of points, I found myself approaching the narrative in a different way to usual. Instead of attempting to carefully understand each twist and turn, I grabbed hold of the characters' coat tails and let them take me where they would. In this manner, I went along for the helter-skelter ride, enjoying the spectacle of each scene, and adding one impression to another rather than needing to make absolute sense of every event as they happened. Ultimately, it occurred to me that reading The Ascent of Isaac Steward is somewhat like engaging with a semi-abstract painting: it comprises a number of intriguing and bizarre images that are familiar, but slightly distorted, in the way that a dream might distort them, and, in the process, it creates a mythological world of its own. There are images from the bible, from Punch and Judy, from shoot-'em-up computer games, from underwater prisons... all of which, when you stand back and look at the whole picture, present an intriguing and entertaining story about a man battling with his memories and journeying through an underworld that is, to a large extent, his own nightmarish creation. What I particularly like about this novel (and appreciate about Cauliay's investment in it) is that it takes risks. It is abstract, experimental and entertaining. So don't get hung up on understanding every single detail, but kick back and enjoy the helter-skelter ride yourself.
5.0 out of 5 stars
A mesmerising debut from an emerging new talent,
This review is from: The Ascent of Isaac Steward (Paperback)
This is the captivating story of Isaac, a man swamped by grief and guilt following a car accident that killed his wife and one of his twin sons, leaving the other on a life support machine. Written in the third person, this highly original narrative weaves in and out of the depths of Isaac's chaotic mind. Immersed in Isaac's bizarre inner world, it is difficult to differentiate between the past and the present, those dead and those alive, what is real and what exists only in the recesses of his mind, leaving the reader disoriented and disturbed. The ability to make you feel deranged is the magic of this book as French artfully recreates the state of Isaac's mind as he breaks down. As well as projecting us straight into Isaac's subconscious, where we are privy to the internal dialogue between Isaac's various demons, we are also able to externally observe Isaac's breakdown, for example, watching him shoplift a dirty magazine from the hospital shop and stick a pinup on the wall near his son Jacob's bed, insisting it is a photo of his wife Rebekah. Poignant and painful, there are many beautifully written, tender scenes in this tragic tale. Accompanying Isaac on his emotional journey which 'ends' with as many unanswered questions as it 'begins', left me exhausted and wrung out, as I had come to care deeply about what happened to him. The experiemental nature of the text leaves plenty of room for readers to make their own meaning and I suspect every reader will come away with their own version of Isaac's fate. A fascinating read, which will stay with you long after you turn the final page.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
5.0 out of 5 stars (1 customer review) 1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Last Step to Heave,
By Kathleen Maher - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The Ascent of Isaac Steward (Kindle Edition)
A fascinating, dreamlike novel, The Ascent of Isaac Steward, by Mike French, chronicles the inner life of a man on the verge of death. The narrative traverses the physical and spiritual, the real and the imagined, popular culture and sacred---in other words, life as we experience it.Perhaps most impressively, it conveys the beauty of world and the glory of heaven.The narrative unfolds in three acts, slowly revealing its true meaning. The protagonist, Isaac Steward, has lost his wife and children in a car accident, and death has almost taken him, but he is still clinging to life, desperate to hold onto what was beautiful in his life, but now only exists in his memory. As the story progresses, it becomes clear that he must come to grips with his sins, petty and great, before he can accept death, and ascend, like his family, to heaven. Much of the story takes place in the HM Temporal Gyrus, which (I admit I had to look up) is the inner core of the human brain. Other sections of the story take place in "the subconscious tavern." The novel is filled with flashbacks and fantasies: from beautiful, sensual memories of Isaac's time with his wife, to violent film-like dramas. Reading it as an allegory of man's simultaneous rejection of and desire for God, I consulted my family Bible: Isaac, as in the Old Testament is the son of Abraham, and Ishmael, his half-brother, plays his antagonist. His wife is Rebekah and their two children are Jacob and Esau. Ishmael works with Gabriel, here a tough-assed messenger from above, to help Isaac understand the inevitable truth. The Ascent of Isaac Stewardis the kind of book that, once you have raced through it, captivated by the fantastical, crystalline imagery and caring prose, makes you want to start all over and read it again to find all its hidden meanings. Here's a debut novel, you shouldn't miss. |
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