- Paperback: 576 pages
- Publisher: Flambard Press; illustrated edition edition (30 May 2002)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 1873226535
- ISBN-13: 978-1873226537
- Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 2,004,054 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Whitbread judges Joanna Trollope, Bonnie Greer & James Daunt
'A tour de force. Funny, challenging, provocative, harrowing. Above all else, angry.'
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Independent on Sunday
'A work of daunting ambition and massive imagination.Often bizarre, gleefully irreverent, grotesque or delightful.'
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I loved this book. I was moved to review it after reading the other review (sorry, whoever!), who just didn't "get" it. But my thought is that it is 2003, years after Ulysses, Jackson Pollock and the Rite of Spring; surely the Twentieth Century had enough in it to make "not getting" something an absolute cop-out? I'm not sure I got all of it, but I got enough for it to be vastly enjoyable.
The timeframe moves continually; often you don't always know quite where you are in time or place; but if you keep going, there is enough repetition of circumstance to fix (however approximately) time and place. There are enough characters with 1-dimensional needs and urges to fix them easily enough as types. The baddies have STDs; the goodies have love. Not that difficult, really. If you "get" Carry On films, you should get this book. You have to go with charcters being inserted in Vanity Fair, and Thackeray turning up to complain, for instance, a dislocation that Spike Milligan would have been proud of. Throw in some good healthy Fat-Cat bashing, and some excellent sneering at Politicians (always good fun), and you get some idea of the sense of the book. If you hanker after a linear narrative, and always holding the threads, forget it. Who needs threads?
Anyway, it is always good to be reminded in an intelligent and realistic way of how badly we treat animals and nature. It won't do any good, of course, but hopefully anyone reading the baddies in this and seeing themselves will feel a bit rough, even for a short time.
The timeframe moves continually; often you don't always know quite where you are in time or place; but if you keep going, there is enough repetition of circumstance to fix (however approximately) time and place. There are enough characters with 1-dimensional needs and urges to fix them easily enough as types. The baddies have STDs; the goodies have love. Not that difficult, really. If you "get" Carry On films, you should get this book. You have to go with charcters being inserted in Vanity Fair, and Thackeray turning up to complain, for instance, a dislocation that Spike Milligan would have been proud of. Throw in some good healthy Fat-Cat bashing, and some excellent sneering at Politicians (always good fun), and you get some idea of the sense of the book. If you hanker after a linear narrative, and always holding the threads, forget it. Who needs threads?
Anyway, it is always good to be reminded in an intelligent and realistic way of how badly we treat animals and nature. It won't do any good, of course, but hopefully anyone reading the baddies in this and seeing themselves will feel a bit rough, even for a short time.
If you haven't, read it. Its only eight quid!
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Several years back I read this wonderful novel, about infernal supermarkets, black dogs, metamorphosis and a fine detective, but the book wasn't mine, I gave it back and forgot the title.
The book tweaked away at me and I wanted to read it again, but try searching on the content of this magical realist and rather eccentric story...It took me several odd searches including 'mad cows' and 'barguests' before I used 'novel BSE detective magic' to find it which may give you an idea of what to expect. It is what I would have liked from Neil Gaiman's 'American God's' but didn't get. Probably a little more 'The Minotaur Takes a Cigarette Break' or 'Dance, Dance, Dance'. I'm buying my own copy now.
The book tweaked away at me and I wanted to read it again, but try searching on the content of this magical realist and rather eccentric story...It took me several odd searches including 'mad cows' and 'barguests' before I used 'novel BSE detective magic' to find it which may give you an idea of what to expect. It is what I would have liked from Neil Gaiman's 'American God's' but didn't get. Probably a little more 'The Minotaur Takes a Cigarette Break' or 'Dance, Dance, Dance'. I'm buying my own copy now.
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Inspetor Kernan is an unusual kind of policeman, listening to gods, witches and animals as much as human informans. His sidekick, DC Diana Hunter is herself possessed of strange insights. Arrayed against them are the forces of capitalism, industrial agriculture and the sinister figure of Superintendant Nicholas Goodman as they investegate a string of BSE related murders. At least thats how it starts, with Kernan acting like a spiritual Wexford, solid, dependable and very, very english, but steadily becomes something older and stranger and with it the focus of the book becomes less predictable and more involved. Deeper even. It's hard to know where to stop in writing about a book like this - there is so much worth discovering that it seems churish to give away details, like Herne waiting in the woodlands, forever linked to Kernan through the slaughter of Flanders, even if dropping these asides in might help give a feel for the majestic scope of the book.
The book could have been sold as Fantasy, but it wasn't. Wasn't even flagged as crime. Publishers seem keen on avoiding genre ghettos these days.
Is it worth reading? Undoubtedly. The writing is light and remains witty as the philosophy comes to the fore. The shallow part of me would have enjoyed the supernatural cop book I started continuing, becoming a series even, but Astley has more to say than that. I will certainly watch out for his next book.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
It wants to be Flann O' Brien... it isn't.
The disadvantage of criticising any work of magic realism (as Astley describes his novel) is that the reviewer appears open to accusations of not having 'got it'; of having too... Read more
Published on 3 Feb 2004 by Christopher Pittard
'steer' clear.....
Lost in it's own cleverness, this book beguiles at the outset drawing the reader along in the belief that some coherence will eventually start to knit this... Read more
Published on 8 Nov 2003 by "vulcha"
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