Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Unique, at least, to me..., 25 Jul 2008
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Programme (What's this?)
Now then.
I'm not a particular fan of magic realism, but this book, despite going there, still kept me turning the pages.
Without providing a synopsis, between being rooted amongst very real events and flights of fancy (don't get me started on Emmy and the AI of the fitzbot), this book frustrates and intoxicates in equal measure. It's very well written, includes visceral sexual language, but never quite shakes off the feeling of being an intellectual exercise rather than a story that's aching to be told. But then magic realism can do that.
Problem providing a coherent narrative link? Or willfully don't want to? Then shove in an oblique explanation to make the reader scratch their head and wonder where coherence went. It's not truly as blatant at that, but the read starts as a chore and only later draws you in.
The characters are strong and individual, but the lack of a (true) omniscient narrator renders you helpless to the whims and wiles of whoever the author/s really are - at least in terms of finding out the usual building blocks of age, gender, background etc. But then it's not the Lacuna Cabal for nothing, and the nature of the unfurling of the narrative is a vital component in keeping you page-turning.
Our story-tellers more or less admit to being unreliable, admitting vagueness, errata etc. with footnotes and references as they go, which, oddly, serves to keeps the wheels on the narrative rather then stalling it.
There's a breakneck ending which leaves the reader exhilerated after all the build-up (leave them wanting more!), and I would definitely check out Shaun Dixon again based on this.
It's elitist, sure (at one point I felt relieved that I knew the song 'Suzanne' by Leonard Cohen (though only 'cos Peter Gabriel covered it!)), but I didn't feel cheated by not knowing the Gilgamesh legend.
Interesting, and not in an exclusive way, I hope.
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15 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Surreal but Serious, 16 Jul 2008
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Programme (What's this?)
It is generally acknowledged there is only a limited number of basic plots supporting the whole of fiction writing. The Last Days of the Lacuna Cabal builds overtly on one of the most ancient of literary works - the Mesopotamian heroic narrative poem: The Epic of Gilgamesh. This source of myth making, valiant deeds and search for immortality is deeply rooted in Sean Dixon's novel.
The Last Days of the Lacuna Cabal spans just a couple of months and it gives an account, ostensibly by two members of a book club, of how another member is in possession of ten tablets inscribed with The Epic of Gilgamesh. The club sets out to re-enact the story of the stones and in doing so surges rapidly through a disordered series of exploits and escapades.
The tablets are incomplete - hence lacuna as a gap or missing element; with cabal or secret group being the Montreal Young Women's Book Club. Nothing is quite as it seems and the club manages to encompass a transvestite, a young boy and two young men as well as original female members and a fleeting female recruit, and within this fictional group is a further fictional individual! On which side of a generation gap the reader exists will determine the level of credence achieved in illusions versus reality. However the bizarre collection of characters is skillfully evoked as believable with displays of consistency and being in tune with a compatible plot.
Set at the time of the invasion of Iraq in 2003 there are sensitive and serious sides to what is a surreal action-packed tale moving from Canada to the Middle East and searching for reason and life as it deals with issues of betrayal and support, defensiveness and aggression, guilt and innocence, and war and peace. Overlaying these there is much humour, especially in the extensive use of footnotes, though the language choice is often similar to internet blogsites - no doubt intentional in view of the inclusion of a Baghdad blogger, but sometimes the author may be trying too hard to be modern. Also the approach is often deliberately shocking, and like the reaction of one of the book's characters, Dumuzi, there can be unease over sexual connotations when these have little consequence on the overall storyline. A further criticism could be how the author's reliance on literary associations suggests a degree of pretentiousness bordering on pomposity - but agian this is tempered by humour, exampled in a comparison of Harry Potter and "some book about a girl and a bear and atheism".
The book's characters learn from themselves and one another, and the reader learns from their living out the story of the tablets. The Last Days of the Lacuna Cabal is entertaining and intriguing, but a serious purpose lurks to raise expectations for answers to questions of existence and destiny. Limits to which the book will "blow your mind", as claimed by publicity, depend on individual ability to suspend logic and reason. Without spoiling the read it is sufficient to acknowledge the book reaches a fitting conclusion, but some readers may feel the need for an addional chapter.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Weird - Perhaps TOO Weird - but with some Redeeming Features , 22 Jul 2008
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Programme (What's this?)
Excluding a novel for young adults, `The Last Days of the Lacuna Cabal' is Sean Dixon's first novel and is actually being marketed as his debut. Published under the title `The Girls Who Saw Everything' in his native Canada last year, this re-titled version is very attractively produced and includes an award-winning cover design.
Not the usual kind of thing I'd read, but my rule whenever I venture into a new genre, subject matter or unknown author's works, is to avoid preconceptions and try to suspend judgement on a book's merits until I've finished reading it.
However, my good intentions began to desert me rapidly when reading this book, and I almost abandoned it within the first 50 or so pages. Let me tell you why:
Most importantly, it's the plot: It begins with someone called Anna and her boyfriend Dumuzi ('Du') stopping off for some `fun' (except she's going to charge him for the pleasure - or not so great pleasure as she appears to suffer from rampant BO) at the disused warehouse bequeathed to her by a relative.
Just as they're about to get down to business, a young woman called Runner Coghill falls on them from above, breaking her leg in the process. She's part of the Lacuna Cabal Montreal Young Women's Book Club and they have been holding their clandestine meetings in an upper floor of the abandoned warehouse for months.
The ensuing story is told by two of the book club members, Jennifer and Danielle, who piece things together from the viewpoint of various characters. They introduce us to the other members of the club, helpfully capitalising their names for easier later reference. Although it's ostensibly a women's-only club, one of the members is a young boy, another is a transsexual awaiting gender realignment, while one actual female refuses to give her permission to be used in the book so they produce a fictionalised version of her, giving her stripes like a zebra.
So far, so much gibberish. Throw in the fact that by page 50 we're already up to 18 entirely pointless footnotes and you can only begin to appreciate how tiresome I found this first section to be. I began to speculate on why so many new authors populate their debut novel with wacky characters. Is it because they're much easier to write than believable flesh and blood ones? It seems to me that too many writers these days confuse an idiosyncratic writing style and/or plain weirdness as being indicators of literary merit. They're not.
But then suddenly the book settled into a much more enjoyable, though still bizarre narrative, where, among other things, the book club act out episodes from the epic Gilgamesh fable (one character owns a sort of 'first edition' of this carved on ten stone tablets). One of the females (can't remember which) has her beautiful hair hacked off at her own request by two male characters (Coby and Du) who have become honorary members of the club, while Coby writes an essay comparing his girlfriend to a woodlouse. Oh, and the plot also involves a small robot, built by Coby for a science course, following them around. So take it as read that this is definitely NOT a normal narrative.
By the end I had to concede that it was very clever and well-written, but I still questioned what the point of this `post-modern' novel is.
If you like stuff that's out of the ordinary then you may like this. If you like realistic plots, characters and dialogue, you'll probably hate it. Don't say you weren't warned.
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