- Paperback: 224 pages
- Publisher: Phoenix; New Ed edition (4 Nov 2004)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0753819554
- ISBN-13: 978-0753819555
- Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.8 x 2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 153,960 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Review
M. John Harrison has abjured the high-pitched melodramatics of TOUCHING THE VOID for a microscopically observed novel about a group of climbers... descriptions of the various climbs are painstaking and suspenseful, and Harrison has a sharp ear for dialogue. But most impressive is his acute sense of place... the raw beauty of the Pennines. (Sinclair McKay The Daily Telegraph )
'Stunning.... Harrison makes an intensely poetic and evocative brew of the interstices between sport, passion and obsession. Moments of exquisite surreality rub against others in which you can smell the soil and stone'. (The Times )
'Stunning.... Harrison makes an intensely poetic and evocative brew of the interstices between sport, passion and obsession. Moments of exquisite surreality rub against others in which you can smell the soil and stone'. (The Times )
Book Description
The only novel ever to win the Boardman Tasker Prize: 'Sheer brilliance' - Iain M. Banks
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Mike is a failure in his "real" life; fleeing a loveless marriage he returns to his ancestral North and falls in again with a clique of gritstone climbers; the novel essentially follows a series of tangled, fragmented lives through a year of climbing, contrasting the precision and determination required to master increasingly challenging problems on rock with disorganised, aimless lives. This is a book written by a climber; Harrison has been active in the sport for many years. The descriptions of climbing are powerful and seem authentic; the tales of Northern life just as affecting and powerful.
Harrison is more known for his fantasy and science fiction; this book brings the same cool detachment and eye for detail to a more mundane milieu and works just as well as his more fantastic work. A compelling and powerful novel.
Harrison is more known for his fantasy and science fiction; this book brings the same cool detachment and eye for detail to a more mundane milieu and works just as well as his more fantastic work. A compelling and powerful novel.
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I have been an enthusiast of M John Harrison since I read the incredible 'In Viriconium'. This book captures the single mindedness obsession and isolationism that occurs when you live for a pastime. It is beautifully written. A window into someone else's life. Highly recommended.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Although I've never climbed in my life, I absolutely loved this novel. It described certain aspects of human behaviour - the tedium of daily life, the desire for escapism, and the ultimate pointlessness of life-avoidance tactics - like nothing else I've ever read. Although inclined to be dour and depressing, the book's scattered with incredible moments of beauty, humour (the adrenaline-junkie who, on falling off a rock-face into a tree, enjoys it so much that he does it again) and surrealism (the feral Scouts and Guides who roam the Pennines). Everyone should read this book.
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