- Hardcover: 320 pages
- Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson; First Edition edition (12 May 2005)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0297643592
- ISBN-13: 978-0297643593
- Product Dimensions: 23.6 x 15.2 x 3.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,184,393 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Review
'This is a text you will remember for years.....austere, authoritative fiction, a fine and melancholy novel, its poignant insights shimmering......' (Hilary Mantel London Review of Books )
'Neil Belton's first novel is an improbable masterpiece.....what makes this such an impressive first novel is the eloquence and energy of the prose..... thoroughly to be recommended.' (Daniel Johnson THE EVENING STANDARD )
'Historical novel, tragic romance, war fiction, epic of ideas, (it) is full of such menace...... worth reading and re-reading' (Finn Fordham THE GUARDIAN )
'He writes of dreariness with beautiful clarity that makes it as exhilarating as a mid-winter swim in Dublin Bay.' (Patrick Skene Catling THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH )
'an ambitious and atmsopheric novel.' (Hephzibah Anderson OBSERVER )
'This is a book steeped in veiled threats and intrigue......Belton's novel is hauntingly powerful.' (James Morrison LITERARY REVIEW )
'Neil Belton's book is very different and really good... Its greatest strength is in its depiction of Dublin.....powerful and enthralling.' (Allan Massie THE SCOTSMAN )
'elegantly received and deftly executed' (Stephanie Cross THE DAILY MAIL )
'Written with a poet's ear for the resonance and ambiguiteis of language, A GAME WITH SHARPENED KNIVES unfolds its narrative of lives dislocated by time and change with subtlety and skill.' (Nick Rennison WATERSTONE'S QUARTERLY )
'Neil Belton's first novel, A GAME WITH SHARPENED KNIVES takes the life of the physicist Erwin Schrodinger and makes something strange and wonderful of it.' (Ian Jack THE GUARDIAN )
'dense, subtle and, perhaps surprisingly, entertaining novel of ideas.......' (John Banville IRISH TIMES )
'Neil Belton's first novel is an improbable masterpiece.....what makes this such an impressive first novel is the eloquence and energy of the prose..... thoroughly to be recommended.' (Daniel Johnson THE EVENING STANDARD )
'Historical novel, tragic romance, war fiction, epic of ideas, (it) is full of such menace...... worth reading and re-reading' (Finn Fordham THE GUARDIAN )
'He writes of dreariness with beautiful clarity that makes it as exhilarating as a mid-winter swim in Dublin Bay.' (Patrick Skene Catling THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH )
'an ambitious and atmsopheric novel.' (Hephzibah Anderson OBSERVER )
'This is a book steeped in veiled threats and intrigue......Belton's novel is hauntingly powerful.' (James Morrison LITERARY REVIEW )
'Neil Belton's book is very different and really good... Its greatest strength is in its depiction of Dublin.....powerful and enthralling.' (Allan Massie THE SCOTSMAN )
'elegantly received and deftly executed' (Stephanie Cross THE DAILY MAIL )
'Written with a poet's ear for the resonance and ambiguiteis of language, A GAME WITH SHARPENED KNIVES unfolds its narrative of lives dislocated by time and change with subtlety and skill.' (Nick Rennison WATERSTONE'S QUARTERLY )
'Neil Belton's first novel, A GAME WITH SHARPENED KNIVES takes the life of the physicist Erwin Schrodinger and makes something strange and wonderful of it.' (Ian Jack THE GUARDIAN )
'dense, subtle and, perhaps surprisingly, entertaining novel of ideas.......' (John Banville IRISH TIMES )
THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH
'He writes of dreariness with beautiful clarity that makes it as exhilarating as a mid-winter swim in Dublin Bay.'
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Not a book for a quickie review, this work requires and rewards a bit of effort.
The premise I already find tricky; an entirely fictional tale about people that really existed. Thus we follow the world-renowned physicist E Schrodinger - he of the Cat fame (you know the one. It's in a box and you do something that has a 50% chance of killing it and until you open the box is the cat dead? Or alive? Or both?) - as he flees pre-war Europe, disgusted by Fascism and his own attempts at appeasement.
"Neutral" Dublin is his destination, a city of political ambiguities as the infant state picks a precarious path between its long-term "associates" the UK, and a feared suitor that dare-not-speak-its-name, but which might answer some problems. These uncertainties reflect not only the electron of Schrodinger's work-obsession, but also his bizarre domestic arrangements. He further complicates the latter, embarking on an affair with a younger woman, doomed to end-in-tears - the only question is whose? (Should Ireland also seek a third suitor? The USA? Or would it also realise it had mistaken depth of feeling for depth of thought?)
The writing is subtle, poetic. Analogies and reflections abound. Those between Schrodinger's life and the "uncertain electron" are elegantly observed, prompting favourable comparison with McEwan's "Saturday" where irrelevant medical facts are thrust upon us. An atmosphere of edginess and unease is well maintained. The cold dreariness of civilian life in war-time, the problems of "fitting-in", and the subtle oppression of a judical Catholicism hanging over the city like one of its morning mists. But there is menace as well. Minor events and utterances carry veiled threats. The reader is never at ease. These resolve, to my mind, in a slightly disappointing fashion, completing satisfactory circles of irony, but lacking punch. But then, that's real life.
So what is it actually about? Well, the author may not agree, but I think it's ultimately...no, not a love story. It's about getting old. Not the falling apart/legs don't work/girls won't fancy me (though there is a bit of that) getting old, but the worries of an ageing intellectual. Signs of physical decay are portents that one day your brain will be dead. And what have you left behind?
One more analogy. My problem with a fictional story with real people. I could convince myself yes, this is Schrodinger, he's talking to De Valera; yes, they might talk like that - but I didn't care. Or I could get into the story, as if this was all really happening to the hero, feel it, worry about him...but it was no longer Schrodinger. I couldn't do both at once.
Bit like an electron...
Banjanx
The premise I already find tricky; an entirely fictional tale about people that really existed. Thus we follow the world-renowned physicist E Schrodinger - he of the Cat fame (you know the one. It's in a box and you do something that has a 50% chance of killing it and until you open the box is the cat dead? Or alive? Or both?) - as he flees pre-war Europe, disgusted by Fascism and his own attempts at appeasement.
"Neutral" Dublin is his destination, a city of political ambiguities as the infant state picks a precarious path between its long-term "associates" the UK, and a feared suitor that dare-not-speak-its-name, but which might answer some problems. These uncertainties reflect not only the electron of Schrodinger's work-obsession, but also his bizarre domestic arrangements. He further complicates the latter, embarking on an affair with a younger woman, doomed to end-in-tears - the only question is whose? (Should Ireland also seek a third suitor? The USA? Or would it also realise it had mistaken depth of feeling for depth of thought?)
The writing is subtle, poetic. Analogies and reflections abound. Those between Schrodinger's life and the "uncertain electron" are elegantly observed, prompting favourable comparison with McEwan's "Saturday" where irrelevant medical facts are thrust upon us. An atmosphere of edginess and unease is well maintained. The cold dreariness of civilian life in war-time, the problems of "fitting-in", and the subtle oppression of a judical Catholicism hanging over the city like one of its morning mists. But there is menace as well. Minor events and utterances carry veiled threats. The reader is never at ease. These resolve, to my mind, in a slightly disappointing fashion, completing satisfactory circles of irony, but lacking punch. But then, that's real life.
So what is it actually about? Well, the author may not agree, but I think it's ultimately...no, not a love story. It's about getting old. Not the falling apart/legs don't work/girls won't fancy me (though there is a bit of that) getting old, but the worries of an ageing intellectual. Signs of physical decay are portents that one day your brain will be dead. And what have you left behind?
One more analogy. My problem with a fictional story with real people. I could convince myself yes, this is Schrodinger, he's talking to De Valera; yes, they might talk like that - but I didn't care. Or I could get into the story, as if this was all really happening to the hero, feel it, worry about him...but it was no longer Schrodinger. I couldn't do both at once.
Bit like an electron...
Banjanx
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Al the things the previous reviewer said are true, but unfortunately this book, for all that it's very well written, doesn't half take some getting through. There is very little to make you keep turning the pages - little happens and its hard to care about the characters.
0 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
'Historical novel, tragic romance, war fiction, epic of ideas, [it] is full of such menace... worth reading and re-reading.'
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