- Paperback: 256 pages
- Publisher: Harper Perennial; New Ed edition (15 Mar 2004)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0007151322
- ISBN-13: 978-0007151325
- Product Dimensions: 19.4 x 13 x 2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (28 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 237,282 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Review
'A British writer to be treasured' Independent on Sunday
'Mills's odd but wonderful books combine the language of a children's story and the strange dry humour of Harold Pinter… This is a writer [whose] apparent simplicity sends your imagination flying in a way that is magical and unique.' Daily Express
'A unique talent… Mills's novels are among the best and most original in recent English fiction.' Literary Review
'Magnus Mills is a genius…an extraordinary individual with a completely unique view of the world, who makes sense of it in totally unexpected and inexplicable ways. It's rare that you finish a book feeling so richly satisfied.' Big Issue
Daily Express
'Mills's odd but wonderful books combine the language of a children's story and the strange dry humour of Harold Pinter….'
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
...parting with the pennies (or exercising your local library card) for this one.
It is an excellent examination of the human condition of never being satisfied with what you have and in trying to improve and abuse a rather idyllic situation, realising it can all come to an unforeseen end (or foreseen for the reader).
Having now read a few more of Mills' books, I seek comfort in identifying with his dry look at behaviour in society through his prose. His novels are written in the first person and the reader is never given the name or gender of the character whose point of view his novels are written from, which immediately transports you into that situation.
I definitely recommend this, and other novels by the same author, to those who enjoy people-watching and human idiosyncrasies.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Readers happily familiar with Magnus Mills’ output to date will find The Scheme for Full Employment a joy for it’s more of the same – more sparse landscapes, more spare dialogue and more characters rounded only just enough to permit all manner of allegorical possibilities. Fans of Magnus Mills’ output, however, may be slightly disappointed for exactly the same reasons – it’s very similar to what we’ve grown to love, but we’re used to it now, can maybe even predict some of the twists, and may find that The Scheme for Full Employment doesn’t add anything particularly new.
The narrator—unnamed, as ever—is one cog in the machine that makes up the eponymous Scheme, driving a Univan from one depot to another delivering an unspecified product for an unspecified purpose and an unspecified wage. The scene is beautifully Mills-ian, unquestioning men at work in the company of other unquestioning men, never dwelling long enough with each other for characters to develop above a single identifiable trait; George delivers cakes as a sideline, Jonathan is in his first week, Arthur is the grumpy guardian of keys. The narrator—again typically—is also slightly marginalized: he feels uncomfortable in the communal canteen and in the early stages of the book is taken off of his regular run to make solitary timing journeys to Eden Lacey depot, prior to possible expansion of the scheme. Thus, when there is something of an uprising in his home depot (a clash of ethics between early swervers and flat-dayers) he misses it and, as ever, ‘plot’ is something that happens elsewhere.
This technique may be unique to Mills but its effects have been tried and tested in all his novels to date. Despite (or possibly because of) our narrator’s obedient reluctance to question or embellish, our imaginations run riot, trying to fill in so many gaps that we create a fiction all of our own. Then, when Mills casually drops in answers to some of our questions, we can find ourselves bowled over by nothing more than effortless simplicity. Just like we can never be sure who are the Hall Brothers in The Restraint of Beasts or why does Bryan Webb wear a cardboard crown in All Quiet on the Orient Express, it’s a long time before we figure out exactly what The Scheme is all about. Or, at least, that’s the idea.
And this is my main criticism of The Scheme for Full Employment: I never considered Mills to be running a mile ahead of me this time out; it’s all a bit obvious, and I guessed the twists. None of the characters are as bafflingly enigmatic as Michael Painter in Three to See The King, or Hodge in All Quiet, for example. None of the settings are as instantly eerie as any of the pubs in Mills’ first two novels and the parable at the heart of the story is not so provocatively told as it is in his third. What we get is almost a Mills novel by numbers: all the ingredients are there but some of the magic and mystery has evaporated, mainly through over exposure. This is still a book well worth reading; you’ll fly through it and enjoy every page, but though the breath of air Mills blows through the stuffy contemporary literature scene is not yet stale, neither is it as icy-fresh as it once was.
The narrator—unnamed, as ever—is one cog in the machine that makes up the eponymous Scheme, driving a Univan from one depot to another delivering an unspecified product for an unspecified purpose and an unspecified wage. The scene is beautifully Mills-ian, unquestioning men at work in the company of other unquestioning men, never dwelling long enough with each other for characters to develop above a single identifiable trait; George delivers cakes as a sideline, Jonathan is in his first week, Arthur is the grumpy guardian of keys. The narrator—again typically—is also slightly marginalized: he feels uncomfortable in the communal canteen and in the early stages of the book is taken off of his regular run to make solitary timing journeys to Eden Lacey depot, prior to possible expansion of the scheme. Thus, when there is something of an uprising in his home depot (a clash of ethics between early swervers and flat-dayers) he misses it and, as ever, ‘plot’ is something that happens elsewhere.
This technique may be unique to Mills but its effects have been tried and tested in all his novels to date. Despite (or possibly because of) our narrator’s obedient reluctance to question or embellish, our imaginations run riot, trying to fill in so many gaps that we create a fiction all of our own. Then, when Mills casually drops in answers to some of our questions, we can find ourselves bowled over by nothing more than effortless simplicity. Just like we can never be sure who are the Hall Brothers in The Restraint of Beasts or why does Bryan Webb wear a cardboard crown in All Quiet on the Orient Express, it’s a long time before we figure out exactly what The Scheme is all about. Or, at least, that’s the idea.
And this is my main criticism of The Scheme for Full Employment: I never considered Mills to be running a mile ahead of me this time out; it’s all a bit obvious, and I guessed the twists. None of the characters are as bafflingly enigmatic as Michael Painter in Three to See The King, or Hodge in All Quiet, for example. None of the settings are as instantly eerie as any of the pubs in Mills’ first two novels and the parable at the heart of the story is not so provocatively told as it is in his third. What we get is almost a Mills novel by numbers: all the ingredients are there but some of the magic and mystery has evaporated, mainly through over exposure. This is still a book well worth reading; you’ll fly through it and enjoy every page, but though the breath of air Mills blows through the stuffy contemporary literature scene is not yet stale, neither is it as icy-fresh as it once was.
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Magnus Mills must surely be one of the finest contemporary British novelists. His style is without parallel - dead-pan, some people call it, anti-hero I call it, it doesn't matter: whichever way you try to label it, it doesn't fit into the tusual novel/fable models.
"The Scheme for Full Employment" is a grand program that, well, guarantees full employment. Eight hours' worth of work for eight hours' pay. Grand days await those who join the scheme, what with an easy job that pays extremely well and has lots of benefits and perks attached to it.
The Scheme relies on a network of depots/distribution centres, with all that goes with it: a mechanical, almost flawless organisation, workers for every kind of task (from key keepers to gate guards), and, obviously, van - pardon, UniVan - drivers wheeling some kind of materials to and fro, in an never ending merry-go-round of transportation.
As the book progresses we find out that nothing happens to the merchandise being carried... it simply gets carried around from depot to depot on and off UniVans. And, most strangely and comically, that the goods are, well, UniVan parts. Now how stranger can the book get?
I won't go into more detail about the plot, but I can't resists making a couple of remarks about the book and the style. Firslty, Mills uses many symbols but is sufficiently smart and unpretentious so he doesn't leave it up to the reader to find out what those symbols are; everything is cleverly explained leaving no room for doubt. Then, there are hardly any references to the outside world; whilst the reader knows for a fact that such people do exist, the fact is that the narrator only narrates about The Scheme. As a result, we are in a kind of 1984/Brave New World age of social transformation mixed in with a lot of human talent - or lack of it.
Whilst the ending could have been a little more creative it was such a... well, dead pan ending that it is quite in keeping with the rest. I loved this book so much that now I can't wait until the next Mills' novels!
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
My Favourite Book
I worked as a postman many years ago and this book reminds me of those days even if it's about widget distribution (which, funnily enough, is how I earn a living now). Read more
Published 7 months ago by A Music Lover
Perfectly slight
A gossamer treat. Every word lovingly chosen, not a syllable wasted. It's a prose poem, rather than a short story. Read more
Published 10 months ago by tiredoldtimer
Ouch! Barely hidden truths within these wonderful words.
This is my first exposure to a Magnus Mills book and I devoured it in 3 short, glorious readings. As I write this review, besides me is today's copy of the Western Morning News... Read more
Published 19 months ago by Paul Handover
Ever so slightly odd
An odd story, in which nothing seems to happen, but with an air of menace and absurdity and a nice line in deadpan humour.
Published 21 months ago by Tom White
A Very Curious parable about the "British Disease" - postmen take...
That Mills was a bus driver informs the reader of the possibly autobiographical nature of this book. Read more
Published on 8 Nov 2009 by M. J. Jacobs
I make a cup of tea
I make a cup of tea. I pick up the book. I read it. Well, some of it. There were a lot of pages. I read every word of each page, then put the book down for a bit. Read more
Published on 20 Mar 2009 by P. Bilzon
Mmmm...
I think the reading world is divided into two camps where Mills is concerned: those who 'get' him, and those who don't. I'm still trying to work out where I belong. Read more
Published on 4 Jan 2009 by F. M. M. Stott
Creating jobs for white van man
A superb satire on crackpot government schemes, trade unions and workplace practices.
'The Scheme' is a self-perpetuating plan to keep people in work - people drive vans and... Read more
'The Scheme' is a self-perpetuating plan to keep people in work - people drive vans and... Read more
Published on 18 Aug 2008 by Annabel Gaskell
Dark chocolate isn't for everyone
Magnus Mills' style isn't for everyone, the same way dark chocolate isn't for everyone.
I think he's one of the best current British novelists. Read more
I think he's one of the best current British novelists. Read more
Published on 14 July 2008 by Farah Yousif
flatter than a dead pan
I started with Magnus M in predictable fashion: as sure as red-faced frustration follows a request for a resident's parking permit, I followed Restraint of Beasts from Booker prize... Read more
Published on 29 Jun 2007 by D. S. Hickson
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