- Hardcover: 240 pages
- Publisher: Picador (15 Sep 2006)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0330413384
- ISBN-13: 978-0330413381
- Product Dimensions: 21.8 x 13.8 x 3.4 cm
- Average Customer Review: 2.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 384,700 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Toby Litt, Guardian
'nothing else would come as close to distilling the particular
attitudes and anxieties of our time as Surveillance.'
attitudes and anxieties of our time as Surveillance.'
James Urquhart, Independent
`Surveillance fairly hums with both mundane and more sinister
espionage'
espionage'
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
9 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
It's perhaps asking for trouble to submit a sober-faced assessment of a book in which an Amazon reviewer appears as part of the plot. To cut a long story short, my only reason for sending these words down the ether is to tell you how damned good Surveillance is.
Among other delights, Surveillance offers a couple of pages of witty observations on the different styles of reviewers on amazon.co.uk versus those on amazon.com. These make you think, yes, here's a writer who's unashamedly plugged into the modern world.
I don't mean by this that Surveillance sets out to be trendy. Not at all - but Mr Raban is definitely a writer open to the experience of the new in a refreshingly fluid and open-minded sort of a way. There is an absence of dogma. Nothing is fusty.
In this novel Lucy Bengstrom makes for an engaging female protagonist - a freelance journalist in Seattle who picks up an assignment to interview the author of a memoir about experiences during and immediately after the Second World War. She then has to pick her way through a jumble of received wisdom, half-truths and distorted fictions in an effort to grasp the truth.
Surveillance has characters in common with Mr Raban's earlier Waxwings but you don't need to have read the earlier book to enjoy the new one. The broad theme of surveillance inspires anxiety and even neurosis, but I found this to be an optimistic and uplifting book.
In summary, Surveillance was one of my favourite couple of novels from 2006. Highly recommended (as, indeed, is Waxwings).
Among other delights, Surveillance offers a couple of pages of witty observations on the different styles of reviewers on amazon.co.uk versus those on amazon.com. These make you think, yes, here's a writer who's unashamedly plugged into the modern world.
I don't mean by this that Surveillance sets out to be trendy. Not at all - but Mr Raban is definitely a writer open to the experience of the new in a refreshingly fluid and open-minded sort of a way. There is an absence of dogma. Nothing is fusty.
In this novel Lucy Bengstrom makes for an engaging female protagonist - a freelance journalist in Seattle who picks up an assignment to interview the author of a memoir about experiences during and immediately after the Second World War. She then has to pick her way through a jumble of received wisdom, half-truths and distorted fictions in an effort to grasp the truth.
Surveillance has characters in common with Mr Raban's earlier Waxwings but you don't need to have read the earlier book to enjoy the new one. The broad theme of surveillance inspires anxiety and even neurosis, but I found this to be an optimistic and uplifting book.
In summary, Surveillance was one of my favourite couple of novels from 2006. Highly recommended (as, indeed, is Waxwings).
Format:Hardcover
Living with a teenage daughter in Seattle has produced a seismic shift in Jonathan Raban's oeuvre; there is a ferry and some canoes but gone are the ships, descriptions of the sea and accounts of life aboard a small boat. We are given at times just a little too much information about the teenager's growing up process, black heads and bogeys. For me the book really got going when I could see the beginnings of a pattern emerging via Google, I expected a twist, an outcome, a fraud exposed, a false identity revealed but instead nature destroys the evidence. Having just read Foreign Land, Raban;s first book I realize just how good it is. This is not Raban at his best, I am simply not that interested in teenage girls and lonely actors; August Vanags and Lucy, yes fascinating but unresolved.
Format:Paperback
At two in the morning I read the final chapter of Surveillance... and like other reviewers was shocked at the end. But surely this is what we were meant to feel! It adds to the feeling of unease that the whole book engenders... and clever Mr Raban... if you're an optimist then imagine the characters you like surviving and the characters you don't like getting their come-uppance. If you're not an optimist then drown the whole darn lot. If all the ends had been tied up for us, then I guess either the optimists or the pessimists would have been disappointed.
I still love Jonathan Raban
I still love Jonathan Raban
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
What Larry Said
'Don't get sucked in by the (numerous) positive quotes on the cover/back/inside of this book as I don't think any of the reviewers actually read the novel to the end (if you can... Read more
Published 20 days ago by Woody
no plot resolution
being from seattle, i enjoyed this book and read it in 2 days. i could totally relate to tad's late night newsreading (but that's all). Read more
Published on 15 April 2009 by J. Cohen
One chaper too few
I've read and enjoyed all of Jonathan Raban's books. He is excellent at putting words onto paper in such a way that you cannot fail to want to read them. Read more
Published on 3 April 2008 by Martin A. Chambers
Brilliant book - don't read the other reviews - they will ruin your...
Another fantastic totally absorbing book from Raban, it follows on from Waxwings his previous book about Seattle. Read more
Published on 27 Jan 2008 by Mrs. S. P. Theodosiou
Now, where did I put that ending?
Don't get sucked in by the (numerous) positive quotes on the cover/back/inside of this book as I don't think any of the reviewers actually read the novel to the end (if you can... Read more
Published on 22 Jan 2008 by Larry Gaymaker
Don't bother
The conceit here is that the author endeavours to build up various interwoven plotlines so as - I imagine - to instill a sense of paranoia in the reader, and then to bring it all... Read more
Published on 29 Dec 2007 by S. ALLMAN
Lazy author cheats his readers.
Just when it starts to get interesting, the author kills the story stone dead with an earthquake - end of story - end of review.
Published on 23 Nov 2007 by Old Johnnie Walker
A good book that failed
This is not a book I would normally read, but my wife bought me this and she has a habit of buying me great books I would never otherwise of looked at. Read more
Published on 7 Nov 2007 by J. Fraser
Skip this one
I was influenced by the hyperbole on the cover and Raban's track record, but on reading this novel I found the story lacking and unresolved. Read more
Published on 3 Nov 2007 by Mr. Chris Pearson
The book that even the author couldn't finish...
I've never written a review before, but felt so cheated as I finished reading Surveillance that I was compelled to share my views. Read more
Published on 1 Oct 2007 by JJS
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