- Paperback: 336 pages
- Publisher: Vintage (4 Jan 2007)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0099466724
- ISBN-13: 978-0099466727
- Product Dimensions: 13 x 1.9 x 19.7 cm
- Average Customer Review: 1.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,049,951 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
| ||||||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Plus, get an extra £5 Gift Certificate when you trade in books worth £10 or more before June 30, 2012. Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. |
Product details |
More About the Author
Product Description
Good Book Guide
Won the Prix du Premier Roman in France
Book Description
A strikingly original, acidly funny and surreal French first novel, a cross between Michel Houellebecq, Alan Warner and Lord of the Flies. The stuff of which cults are made.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organise and find favourite items. |
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
It's a remarkably smart story: ironic, self-deprecating, bleak and funny. The point of the book is not the plot per se, but rather the selfish, remote and alienated viewpoints of both the main character and his charges.
Yes, the book is filled with reflexive and amusingly supercillious French philosophy - sometimes it's just so silly you laugh out loud. At other times, one isn't quite so certain how frivolous the book is being: there are some disturbing descriptions and commentary in it, particularly related to adolescent alienation and loss. Dufosse is superb at describing the ambiguity of youth: a time when people are strong-willed and idealistic, but willing, too, to lose their own identity to further belief. And it's that confusion, that great philsophical muddle which make the book so complicated. Just how far should one be taken in? And just how possible is it for such terrible events to occur?
If you're looking for a book with a whizz-bang thriller plot, you'll be bitterly disappointed. But if you're looking for a very intriguing and somewhat strange read, you'll be more than satisfied. Fans of Houellebecq will probably love this book. Fans of thriller fiction and beach reading will be bored.
Yes, the book is filled with reflexive and amusingly supercillious French philosophy - sometimes it's just so silly you laugh out loud. At other times, one isn't quite so certain how frivolous the book is being: there are some disturbing descriptions and commentary in it, particularly related to adolescent alienation and loss. Dufosse is superb at describing the ambiguity of youth: a time when people are strong-willed and idealistic, but willing, too, to lose their own identity to further belief. And it's that confusion, that great philsophical muddle which make the book so complicated. Just how far should one be taken in? And just how possible is it for such terrible events to occur?
If you're looking for a book with a whizz-bang thriller plot, you'll be bitterly disappointed. But if you're looking for a very intriguing and somewhat strange read, you'll be more than satisfied. Fans of Houellebecq will probably love this book. Fans of thriller fiction and beach reading will be bored.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
In a contemporary French school a young teacher jumps out of his classroom window and dies. Pierre, his replacement, finds that none of the other teachers are prepared to take over his class and, indeed, warn him to have nothing to do with them. Taking on 9F, he finds them strangely regimented and well-behaved, doing everything as a group rather than as a collection of individuals. And two of the pupils who try to break away, are brought menacingly back to the collective.
The cover blurb claims this book recalls Tart's The Secret History but, for me, it was far closer to The Midwich Cuckoos, with shades of Lord of the Flies and even The Turn of the Screw. Unfortunately, despite these literary allegiances, the novel fails to live up to its own premise. Rambling and discursive, it spends too long focusing on the life of Pierre when all the tension and menace of the book is imbued in the children of class 9F.
Ultimately this could have been a remarkable novel - ambitious, ambiguous, open-ended - but everything fascinating and menacing at its centre seemed to have got bogged down and also covered over by the rambling musings of the first person teacher narrator. So huge potential, but ultimately dissatisfying.
The cover blurb claims this book recalls Tart's The Secret History but, for me, it was far closer to The Midwich Cuckoos, with shades of Lord of the Flies and even The Turn of the Screw. Unfortunately, despite these literary allegiances, the novel fails to live up to its own premise. Rambling and discursive, it spends too long focusing on the life of Pierre when all the tension and menace of the book is imbued in the children of class 9F.
Ultimately this could have been a remarkable novel - ambitious, ambiguous, open-ended - but everything fascinating and menacing at its centre seemed to have got bogged down and also covered over by the rambling musings of the first person teacher narrator. So huge potential, but ultimately dissatisfying.
8 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Life is too short! What a waste of good reading time. Boring. Bad translation. I only finished it as I hoped the end would make it all worth while....wrong!
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Weak conclusion
Like the others I bought this book expecting a tense thriller but it did not live up to expectations at all. Read more
Published on 19 Mar 2009 by F. Redmond
Over hyped!
I struggled to get through too, determined that I must have missed something, given to cover blurb and the fact it won a prize. Read more
Published on 6 Sep 2007 by L. Lefevre
Tedious
I had to force myself to finish this book, because reading has been incredibly boring. The amount of details, that sometimes are interesting, is useless and slows down the reading. Read more
Published on 30 Aug 2007 by titta
School's Out - A Review
I agree with all comments left by reviewers who awarded just the one star for this book, especially the one regretting there being no minus stars available. Read more
Published on 26 Aug 2007 by Mrs. T. Woodin
Terrible
I wish I could give it minus stars. This book sounded so promising but disappointed hugely. It was long and tedious and didnt seem to have apoint to it. Read more
Published on 3 July 2007 by Tracy Young
Disappointing
I bought this book after seeing it in a bookshop and being captivated by the alluring cover and teasing lines about a tense thriller, with a teacher tormented by his students. Read more
Published on 6 May 2007 by MadamJMo
One star? I'd give it less if I could...
The novel starts with the apparent suicide of a young teacher who jumped from the window of his classroom. Read more
Published on 6 April 2007 by Sarah Durston
Boring and pointless
Like other reviewers, I bought this book because of the complimentary comments adorning the front and back covers. Read more
Published on 6 April 2007 by M. G. Gilbert
don't read it
This was one of the worst books I've read in recent times. It's getting one star because it's not possible to give less. Read more
Published on 27 Mar 2007 by JLINDSAY
A real let down.
The cover synopsis lead me to believe that this was a dark and disturbing thriller, I often wondered if I was reading a different book. Read more
Published on 20 Mar 2007 by Some Woman
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
