Gods Without Men
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Product Description
Review
Riveting stuff, beautifully written... Superb. --The Times
One of the most talented writers of his generation. --Image
Impassioned, intelligent and profoundly serious... We need more books like this. --Scotland on Sunday
One of the most talented writers of his generation. --Image
Impassioned, intelligent and profoundly serious... We need more books like this. --Scotland on Sunday
Review
Extraordinary ... smart and innovative ... Kunzru is conspicuously clever and talented ... a revelation ... interesting and exhilarating ... a virtuoso performance ... funny and ingenious ... This clever and extremely enjoyable novel deserves to be popular not just with hippies, students and other questing types, but also with more sceptical audiences Guardian The literary skills of Hari Kunzru are evident throughout this complex and disturbing novel ... beautifully constructed sentences ... A brilliant crossover literary feat ... Careful readers will find Kunzru himself is something of a trickster Annie Proulx Consistently atmospheric ... Richly detailed ... For all the wit, this is a dark portrait of modern morals ... Kunzru tenderly teases out the humanity, to powerful emotional effect GQ Psychological acuity, a wonderful linguistic precision and the ability to make beautiful accordance between form and content via thoughtful narrative experiment. Gods without Men is a step further along the road towards the full realisation of Kunzru's early promise. It makes undeniable the claim that he is one of our most important novelists ... As large and cruel and real as life ... Never less than entertaining Independent on Sunday With each novel, Hari Kunzru is proving himself a subtler and more ingenious writer ... his most ambitious work yet Scotland on Sunday Gods Without Men is a dazed, erudite and unforgettable novel -- David Mitchell Kunzru's gift for satire remains undimmed ... Kunzru has already established himself as one of the most socially observant and skilful novelists around. In Gods Without Men, he has raised his game still further, creating a mature, intricately balanced fiction that is consistently gripping and entertaining Literary Review A funny, beautifully observed novel that raises big questions about how far events and people, past and present, are connected. But for all the big ideas, it is also surprisingly moving Psychologies Dizzying scope ... It is a testament to Kunzru's ability as a writer that Gods Without Men presents so many characters sketched so vividly New Statesman Kunzru's gift for the plain craft of prose, [and the wilful idiosyncrasy that] has shaped this sprawling, multi-stranded novel Metro Involving, thoughtful and thoroughly entertaining Daily Mail Hugely entertaining ... A warm and well-travelled intelligence ... Heartwarming Sunday Express His biggest, most ambitious and most engaging novel to date The Times Psychological acuity, a wonderful linguistic precision and the ability to make beautiful accordance between form and content via thoughtful narrative experiment. Gods without Men is a step further along the road towards the full realisation of Kunzru's early promise. It makes undeniable the claim that he is one of our most important novelists ... As large and cruel and real as life Independent on Sunday Ambitiously eclectic ... smartly sharp social detail, high-fidelity dialogue, vivid evocation of place ... ironic wit and exuberant guyings of paranormal gobbledegook The Sunday Times Fuelled by an energetic intelligence. Along with a love of big ideas came narrative zest, verbal and comic flair, and an acute eye for contemporary mores both East and West ... Gods with Men marks another new and bold departure ... This really is Kunru's great American novel ... Compulsively readable, skilfully orchestrated, Kunzru's American odyssey brings a new note into his underlying preoccupation with human identity' Independent Being able to create a vivid sense of place is one of the hallmarks of a quality literary writer, but few could have done so as brilliantly as Hari Kunzru in his latest novel Gods without Men Big Issue Intensely involving ... Gods Without Men is one of the best novels of the year Daily Telegraph
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Vine™ Review
(What's this?)
Gods Without Men was both compelling and frustrating. Hari Kunzru's descriptive writing is emotive and effective, as is his characterisation. My frustration stemmed from the various plotlines and timelines failing to be tied together to a coherent degree. In that respect, the book could be compared to a literary X-Files, as it leaves the reader to fill in substantial gaps with his/her imagination.
The main characters are Raj Matharu (a four-year-old autistic boy) and his parents, Jaz (an American-born Indian) and Lisa (raised in the Jewish faith). Jaz doesn't embrace the religion and culture of his parents, yet it still manages to become a barrier between him and his wife. His parents' superstitious ideas - especially with regards to why their grandson is the way he is - grate on Lisa, causing resentment bordering on hatred. When Raj vanishes into the Californian desert, the clash of ideologies between Lisa and Jaz becomes more evident than ever. Lisa opens herself to the idea that spiritual intervention could help find her lost child. Jaz, however, remains firmly rooted in the material world. Believing that his son has been abducted, Jaz thinks that only physical evidence can lead the path to finding the child.
Raj's disappearance happens near The Pinnacles, a rock formation which has for centuries attracted those who believe the stones to have miraculous metaphysical properties. Some chapters are set in the 1800s, when local Native Americans thought The Pinnacles marked the boundary between the lands of the living and the dead. Other chapters, set in the mid-1900s, tell the tale of people flocking to the area to commune with higher intelligences, the Ascended Masters, using The Pinnacles to transmit and receive 'light energy'. The rest of the chapters, set in the present day, focus on Raj's disappearance and subsequent return to the world a changed boy. The present-day occurrences at The Pinnacles echo events from the past, and hint at their significance. Kunzru's descriptions of the area's relevance to various people and eras are eloquent and extremely readable. He doesn't spoon-feed the reader, leaving him/her to draw conclusions and fill in myriad blanks, some of which are perhaps too vast.
My only criticism is that some of the story's strands are left flapping as loose ends, hinting that they were superfluous padding rather than integral parts of the plot. The myriad storylines and timelines lack a unified sense of interconnectedness, which wouldn't happen in, for example, a Salman Rushdie novel. That said, 'Gods Without Men' is a well-written book which demonstrates Kunzru's incisive understanding of human nature and behaviour.
The main characters are Raj Matharu (a four-year-old autistic boy) and his parents, Jaz (an American-born Indian) and Lisa (raised in the Jewish faith). Jaz doesn't embrace the religion and culture of his parents, yet it still manages to become a barrier between him and his wife. His parents' superstitious ideas - especially with regards to why their grandson is the way he is - grate on Lisa, causing resentment bordering on hatred. When Raj vanishes into the Californian desert, the clash of ideologies between Lisa and Jaz becomes more evident than ever. Lisa opens herself to the idea that spiritual intervention could help find her lost child. Jaz, however, remains firmly rooted in the material world. Believing that his son has been abducted, Jaz thinks that only physical evidence can lead the path to finding the child.
Raj's disappearance happens near The Pinnacles, a rock formation which has for centuries attracted those who believe the stones to have miraculous metaphysical properties. Some chapters are set in the 1800s, when local Native Americans thought The Pinnacles marked the boundary between the lands of the living and the dead. Other chapters, set in the mid-1900s, tell the tale of people flocking to the area to commune with higher intelligences, the Ascended Masters, using The Pinnacles to transmit and receive 'light energy'. The rest of the chapters, set in the present day, focus on Raj's disappearance and subsequent return to the world a changed boy. The present-day occurrences at The Pinnacles echo events from the past, and hint at their significance. Kunzru's descriptions of the area's relevance to various people and eras are eloquent and extremely readable. He doesn't spoon-feed the reader, leaving him/her to draw conclusions and fill in myriad blanks, some of which are perhaps too vast.
My only criticism is that some of the story's strands are left flapping as loose ends, hinting that they were superfluous padding rather than integral parts of the plot. The myriad storylines and timelines lack a unified sense of interconnectedness, which wouldn't happen in, for example, a Salman Rushdie novel. That said, 'Gods Without Men' is a well-written book which demonstrates Kunzru's incisive understanding of human nature and behaviour.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Vine™ Review
(What's this?)
This could have been so much better. Kunzru's book is all set around a mystical part of the US desert - and covers a number of time periods.
Beautifully written it may be, but the book as a whole failed to grab me. I found the 'hippy' mystic sections totally unengaging and dull - consequently, wanting to flick through entire sections of a book doesn't make for a great read.
The modern tale of the lost autistic boy in the desert is the most interesting, but it only makes up a mere 1/5 of the entire novel. The remainder felt flat in my eyes.
Average :(
Beautifully written it may be, but the book as a whole failed to grab me. I found the 'hippy' mystic sections totally unengaging and dull - consequently, wanting to flick through entire sections of a book doesn't make for a great read.
The modern tale of the lost autistic boy in the desert is the most interesting, but it only makes up a mere 1/5 of the entire novel. The remainder felt flat in my eyes.
Average :(
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Vine™ Review
(What's this?)
Hari Kunzru has three other novels and after reading this I can't wait to get to the rest. This is a multi layered work of extraordinary complexity that comes across as effortlessly engaging, by the sheer beauty of the writing.
It is hard to give a synopsis since there are just so many different story lines. It starts in 2008 where an Iraqi immigrant is playing a simulation of an Iraqi villager training marines for the war. She falls for a black Marine - all a bit taboo, but their story is the key to unlock all the past converging stories that have surrounded this particular spot in the desert. It has a very distinguished landmark, that of three pinnacles which seem to reach to the starts like prehistoric antenna in a bid to connect to the rest of the universe. And that is exactly what some folk think they are. We are taken backwards and forward through time to all of the people who have been affected or witnessed the strange, other worldly pull of this place.
We have a family whose autistic son is swallowed by the desert, the waitress who gets pulled into the hippy commune for sex, drugs, excitement and something she can not quite fathom. The mining prospectors and a whole plethora of other characters. Kunzru treats all of his creations with equal care, giving them a vivid and visible believability, with their strengths foibles, insecurities and humour.
I found this utterly compelling, very accessible and brilliantly researched; it was also one of those that you just have to race through. I also found myself wanting to know more about nearly all of the characters, as their stories always seemed to end too soon. This a true tour de force of literature and I can only imagine At how long it must have taken to plan and execute such a tapestry of a tale. You may only be a beach/ holiday reader, but this is too good to leave till the next holiday season, so if you want a book that will take you a bit off the beaten track that is also beautifully written, then this will more than live up to your expectations.
It is hard to give a synopsis since there are just so many different story lines. It starts in 2008 where an Iraqi immigrant is playing a simulation of an Iraqi villager training marines for the war. She falls for a black Marine - all a bit taboo, but their story is the key to unlock all the past converging stories that have surrounded this particular spot in the desert. It has a very distinguished landmark, that of three pinnacles which seem to reach to the starts like prehistoric antenna in a bid to connect to the rest of the universe. And that is exactly what some folk think they are. We are taken backwards and forward through time to all of the people who have been affected or witnessed the strange, other worldly pull of this place.
We have a family whose autistic son is swallowed by the desert, the waitress who gets pulled into the hippy commune for sex, drugs, excitement and something she can not quite fathom. The mining prospectors and a whole plethora of other characters. Kunzru treats all of his creations with equal care, giving them a vivid and visible believability, with their strengths foibles, insecurities and humour.
I found this utterly compelling, very accessible and brilliantly researched; it was also one of those that you just have to race through. I also found myself wanting to know more about nearly all of the characters, as their stories always seemed to end too soon. This a true tour de force of literature and I can only imagine At how long it must have taken to plan and execute such a tapestry of a tale. You may only be a beach/ holiday reader, but this is too good to leave till the next holiday season, so if you want a book that will take you a bit off the beaten track that is also beautifully written, then this will more than live up to your expectations.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
`Every moment is a bardo, suspended between past and future. We are...
The novel begins with a short story about Coyote who dies, over and over again, as his desert meth lab explodes every time he tries to rebuild it. Read more
Published 1 month ago by J. Cameron-Smith
A powerful read
I do not do a story recap in my reviews as this can be a spoiler for future readers, I try to give an honest star rating and in this case I gave 4. Read more
Published 2 months ago by L. mckay
'...been through the desert on a horse with no name' ...
The song 'Horse with no name' immediately started to run through my head once I encountered the desert in this book. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Annabel Gaskell
Beautiful and poignant
This is a beautifully written novel. The prose is evocative and rich, and each individual section is lovely. Read more
Published 6 months ago by Catriona Reid
A Mosaic With Bits Missing
This book has lots of bits well chronicled in other reviews. Some bits come together to no great avail, other bits fizzle out or are non-starters. Read more
Published 6 months ago by Paul Pinn
Ambitious novel about the search for meaning
Gods Without Men has a quote from David Mitchell on the cover, and there is something of the Cloud Atlas about this mutli-layered and ambitious novel. Read more
Published 6 months ago by Victor Ward
Wall of text
Gods Without Men is to text what Phil Spector was to sound. This is rich, multi-layered and very, very glossy. Read more
Published 6 months ago by MisterHobgoblin
Multi-layered story that distracts from an excellent story at its...
Quite literally at the heart of Hari Kunzru's latest novel stands not a person, but strange geographical feature in the California desert - three large rocks known as "The... Read more
Published 7 months ago by Ripple
Loved it!
Another fine book from Hari Kunzru, I loved this story. There are so many characters and situations that somehow all manage to come together to make what can only be described as a... Read more
Published 7 months ago by Laura Smith
Disjointed & Odd
I found it incredibly hard to make myself read this book, other reviewers have described it as intense, and involved, but I had none of that, I just found it very hard to make... Read more
Published 7 months ago by J. Bond
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