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'A chilling, fabulous mirror on reality ... An involving and inventive book full of beautiful writing. It has the momentum of a thriller harnessed to the substance of a modern classic' Scotland on Sunday 'A sophisticated storyteller and portrayer of character, who writes in rhythmic prose enriched with original imagery' Sunday Times 'Astonishing ... The novel is filled with colourful eccentrics and unworldly happenings, quirky characters and supernatural undercurrents ... Exceptionally well-written' Times Literary Supplement 'Seethes with originality ... An ingenious, sardonic and seductive roman noir' New York Times Book Review
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There was a sailor's graveyard in Moon Beach. This was where the funeral business first started. Rumour had it that the witch's fingers used to reach out and sink ships. But there hadn't been a wreck for years, and all the funeral parlours had moved downtown.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
12 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This was the second book by Rupert Thomson which I had read (the Book of Revelation was the first - The Five Gates... is far superior to my mind). I didn't know what to expect; from the title one would presume some sort of horror, but infact this wasn't to be the case.
Firstly, the quality of writing in this book is superb. For me, his use of language compares with Martin Amis; a description of someone's skin as being "green, like the colour of slow rivers" is one phrase which really stuck in my mind, but the book is full of throwaway descriptions which please and astonish by turns.
The story almost plays second fiddle to the wordsmithing, but it's still very good. The characters are complex individuals, and they are set in a story which doesn't feel the need to be conventional but doesn't seem forced for all that.
Those with an obsessive need to pigeonhole novels may find themselves frustrated by this; its not horror, its not a thriller, its not a whodunnit or a crime novel...throughout the entire book, there's the faint whiff of the supernatural - quite where this smell emanates from is very hard to pinpoint.
In summary, this is a fabulous book: uneasy, unusual, but unputdownable as well. Highly recommmended if you like something a little out of the ordinary.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I am a convinced admirer of Rupert Thomson's novels, even while admitting that they are sometimes rather odd, though faithful to their own logic, even when imagining an alternative future development of entire countries, as in his strange and rather rambling novel The Divided Kingdom. In The Five Gates of Hell, however, he has written a literary thriller with a difference which carries the reader onwards with unfailing brio and commendable urgency.
I'm still puzzling over where this novel is set and decided it can only be the south coast of Australia because of the reference to banks of coral - Moon Beach sounds Australian too. However, at one point Jed, one of the main characters, heads off into the mountains and the setting here sounds and feels much more like America. It's probably not an important point and Thomson is the kind of writer very capable of imagining somewhere that is an amalgam of both countries. His writing throughout is vivid and atmospheric. In one metaphor he writes of "hunchback darkness on his shoulder" as the young Nathan creeps downstairs one night and I could have quoted similarly resonant images from almost any page. These pyrotechnics are integral parts, not foregrounded as self-conscious poetics, of the well-paced plot.
There are two main narrators: Nathan, who lives with his widowed Dad and sister Georgia, but as the novel opens Nathan is staying at his Aunt Yvonne's. He meets a group of boys, an incipient gang called the Womb Boys (Womb standing for War on Moon Beach), who crop up periodically throughout the novel. The other narrator is Jed, a member of the gang and it is his narrative which carries most of the weight of the thriller element, until the end section when the two plot-lines collide in a violent denouement.
This book is not for the squeamish. Sexually explicit and visceral, it packs quite a punch, especially where the novel explores the deeds of the villainous Neville Creed who has the monopoly on funeral provision in the city and supplies many of his own clients. One criticism that might be levelled at this book is that Creed himself and some of his henchmen are caricature villains. Not having the benefit of any background story, they simply appear as the dark to Nathan's lightness (and Nathan is terrifically naïve at times in this story). Jed is more ambiguous - perhaps he's the twilight element.
Straddling the divide between literary novel and thriller, there is a lot of ambition here, so maybe it's understandable that it doesn't always quite hold together. But this is a Rupert Thomas novel and it is unfailingly intriguing, exciting and enjoyable, nevertheless.
I'm still puzzling over where this novel is set and decided it can only be the south coast of Australia because of the reference to banks of coral - Moon Beach sounds Australian too. However, at one point Jed, one of the main characters, heads off into the mountains and the setting here sounds and feels much more like America. It's probably not an important point and Thomson is the kind of writer very capable of imagining somewhere that is an amalgam of both countries. His writing throughout is vivid and atmospheric. In one metaphor he writes of "hunchback darkness on his shoulder" as the young Nathan creeps downstairs one night and I could have quoted similarly resonant images from almost any page. These pyrotechnics are integral parts, not foregrounded as self-conscious poetics, of the well-paced plot.
There are two main narrators: Nathan, who lives with his widowed Dad and sister Georgia, but as the novel opens Nathan is staying at his Aunt Yvonne's. He meets a group of boys, an incipient gang called the Womb Boys (Womb standing for War on Moon Beach), who crop up periodically throughout the novel. The other narrator is Jed, a member of the gang and it is his narrative which carries most of the weight of the thriller element, until the end section when the two plot-lines collide in a violent denouement.
This book is not for the squeamish. Sexually explicit and visceral, it packs quite a punch, especially where the novel explores the deeds of the villainous Neville Creed who has the monopoly on funeral provision in the city and supplies many of his own clients. One criticism that might be levelled at this book is that Creed himself and some of his henchmen are caricature villains. Not having the benefit of any background story, they simply appear as the dark to Nathan's lightness (and Nathan is terrifically naïve at times in this story). Jed is more ambiguous - perhaps he's the twilight element.
Straddling the divide between literary novel and thriller, there is a lot of ambition here, so maybe it's understandable that it doesn't always quite hold together. But this is a Rupert Thomas novel and it is unfailingly intriguing, exciting and enjoyable, nevertheless.
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This wonderfully constructed story of two young boys from very different backgrounds and how their lives cross and un-cross as they grow older was superb. The continual shift in the narrative and introduction and re-introduction of certain characters was highly efficent.
Thomson employed all the common literary tools and extrapolated their effectiveness.
The language was always coarse (minimal swearing however) and during any 'love' scenes the imagination played a greater part than the words on the page.
The ending was in some ways obvious. There had to be a point in tracing both paths of the two protagonists, but they entwinned fantastically at the end.
This is my third Rupert Thomson novel and the next one is about to be ordered. A fantastic author with a fantastic style.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Jarring disturbing gripping
I never quite knew for sure where I was in this strange and wonderful tale. I very much liked the sense of dislocation and can recommend this and all of Mr Thompson's diverse... Read more
Published 16 months ago by stew
Good escapism
Soothed by the seedy surrealness of his worldscapes, his jarring similes and peculiar people I don't go to Thomson expecting a meaningful examination of the human condition or any... Read more
Published on 20 Dec 2006 by J. I. De Beresford
The Five Gates of Hell lead to heavenly fiction
This is by far the best Rupert Thompson novel I've read so far (after Soft and The Insult) and in Thompson's visionary kingdom of descriptive imagery only the three-eyed are kings. Read more
Published on 12 April 2002 by tposnett@hotmail.com
More twists and turns then a one-way system... brilliant!
From the outset the book tries to dazzle and confuse. Following two seemingly seperate characters through their lives, proving life is by no means simple... Read more
Published on 21 Aug 2000
The most beautiful modern literature I have read
This is a beautifully written book. If you're serious about your literature you should read it.
Published on 20 July 1999
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