- Hardcover: 528 pages
- Publisher: Picador; First Printing edition (24 Mar 2000)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0330392662
- ISBN-13: 978-0330392662
- Product Dimensions: 21.6 x 14 x 4.6 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,313,986 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
"High summer in a sweltering London club, and I'm getting into my drunken stride after midnight, rubbing sweat with the shoulders that pass by, and thinking vaguely about another drink, or about cruising the pissoirs"The opening lines of Paul Golding's first novel, The Abomination, set the scene and tone of this provocative, and intimate, story. Dedicated to a "haunting, unspeakable variant of love", Santiago Moore Zamora begins, and ends, his sexual chronicle in the clubs and dungeons of the "outcast children of Sodom and Gormorrah": the boys and men, lovers and prostitutes, who, in this version of the contemporary sexual metropolis, work "like buggery for their treacherous futures" and live on the edge of "the troubles" that haunt Zamora's narrative. The Abomination revels in sex and language, the texture and depth of bodies and words. Two relatively brief sections on the contemporary London scene frame the bulk of a narrative that takes its readers back into Zamora's childhood and youth: his privileged early years in Spain; the loneliness, and lusts, of life at an English boarding school (the analogy with the pleasures of the sexual dungeon is an overt theme of the book). Isolated, Zamora seeks redemption in the figure of Mr Wolfe: "I choose to lose my way back to the dormitory and find myself, instead, at his door. I'm nine years old. Don't look so shocked." In this way, Golding lets his readers know that he knows that his subject is controversial: childhood sexuality, love and sex between adult and child, its impact on sexual life in adulthood. Controversy may not be enough to sustain The Abomination throughout its 500-odd pages, but Golding offers a tour de force for those with the stamina to make it through to the end. --Vicky Lebeau
Product Description
Chronicles the life of Santiago Moore Zamora. Adrift in a world of nameless one-night stands, living in a London of suffocating hedonism, Zamora remembers his early years in Spain and sudden exile to boarding school in England, where two proscribed love affairs set him on a course apart.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
The opening section of this book is quite superb, London's gay scene stripped of bright lights and shown in all its raw desperation. The protagonist is entranced and repulsed simulaneously, mirroring his ambivalent response to his own sexuality. The rest of the book isn't quite as good: I skipped a lot of the stuff in Spain. But it's worth buying for the first section alone.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
One question kept running through my mind as I read this book - 'How much of an autobiography is this?'. The details of boarding school life and its horrors are too finely drawn, surely, to be second-hand information? The memories of golden childhood that are slowly eroded and tarnished seem too vibrant to have been invented. Not that it matters much whether the story is 'real' or not - I found it to be a very enjoyable read, great for a long journey - a whole world to lose yourself in. Ultimately, it is a story of alienation and revenge - but of revenge gained at huge loss; Iago's struggle to find an emotional language that will mirror his bilingual upbringing is depressing and fascinating at the same time. An amazing achievement for a first novel.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
"The Abomination" is a startling book and enthralls with its brilliant, sparkling prose and the depth of its vision. No need here to relate or sketch the plot but enough to say that its the language that reminds the reader of a Bacon painting with shocking imagery and colours that boggle the mind. The prose is the star of the novel and like a gigantic tidal wave it carries the reader aloft into a swirling experience of expressive depths and exhilirating heights.Betrayal,obsession and desire are the major themes but it is betrayal which is the main strand of the book's weaving loom and it insinuates itself into every chapter. Dark colours abound but gloom and self-loathing are assuaged by the glorious comic pieces and descriptions which rival Waugh for its descriptive ironies and Peake for the vaulting imaginative leaps. Just read it and be impressed and salute a major talent.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Very disappointing
After reading the comments awarded to this book I looked forward to reading it. However, I found this book did not live up to the "hype" it has been given. Read more
Published on 16 Nov 2007 by sportsman
Long, self-pitying prattle
I'm a bit baffled by all of the praise heaped upon this novel. After struggling through this work, I failed to see anything really memorable or resonant rising out of the cliches... Read more
Published on 15 Dec 2000 by Marc Kloszewski
Extraordinary
This debut novel is quite extraordinary. Rich, dense, scented prose, whether the narrator is describing scenes of sexual degradation, or remembering his privileged childhood in... Read more
Published on 29 Oct 2000 by G. Coupe
Interesting 'biography' that grips....
Don't be put off by the size of Golding's novel. The story is one that grips, the writing is beautiful, and the book leaves a really satisfying glow inside you once the last page... Read more
Published on 18 May 2000
A new Proust?
In sheer epic range Paul Golding has excelled himself. With prose that has the range and elasticity of Proust The Abomination has to be one of the most important books to be... Read more
Published on 17 April 2000
a novel that is fuel for the nature vs. nurture debate
A highly engrossing novel that zeroes in on the workings of the mind of the main character--throughout the work, the reader can't help but ask the politically incorrect question as... Read more
Published on 28 Mar 2000
a major new voice, exteraordinarily powerful fiction
In corruscatingly brilliant prose, Golding has written a fearless and fantastic novel which delves deep into the childhood and traumas of a thirty something homosexual but which is... Read more
Published on 23 Mar 2000
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