- Hardcover: 320 pages
- Publisher: Picador; First Edition edition (2 Mar 2007)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0330445626
- ISBN-13: 978-0330445627
- Product Dimensions: 21.6 x 13.4 x 3.6 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 659,975 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
The Pesthouse
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle .
Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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
Review
A "GLOBE & MAIL" BEST BOOK OF 2007
"The Pesthouse exudes a kind of eerie charm." --"Time Out"
"A book that I read hungrily for what it might have to say about the fix we are all in on this planet. . . . Crace's distinctive marked rhythms, just one draft away from blank verse, are at odds with satire. He can't quite extinguish the joy that percolates through all his writing, and The Pesthouse ends up being a lovely literary cipher in the way that Crace's work always is." --Joan Thomas, "The Globe and Mail"
"Crace brings his unsentimental but unflagging imagination to the ruined landscape and battered scavenger societies of this new America. . . . He is especially good at documenting the bodily toll that unrelenting life on the road exacts. . . . Franklin's and Margaret's journey, as brutal and hopeless as it often seems, transforms into a kind of allegory for the human capacity for loyalty, love, humour and imagination." --"Toronto Star"
"[Crace] takes us straight to the heart of what it means to be human. . . . He has always exhibited an uncanny gift for tapping into the horrors that wake us, heart pounding, in the middle of the night. . . . It's a tribute to Crace's skills that we so rapidly get our bearings in a radically altered landscape." --Francine Prose, "The New York Times" Book Review
"Crace has built a loyal following for the old-fashioned reason that he produces consistently dazzling work, matching sublime language with conceptual daring and an insistence on tackling the big themes head-on." --"The Gazette"
"AS Byatt has described [Crace] as the most significant writer in English fiction of the past 10 years and in The Pesthouse he continues to buildhis self-contained worlds that, in mirroring our own in crucial, though subtle ways, offer up universal insights." --"Scotland on Sunday
""Entirely compelling. The story is a gripping, harrowing adventure tale and Crace's language is extraordinary: he has immersed himself in his own kind of variant American idiom . . . which is simple, often beautiful, as touch and workable as leather. . . . The Pesthouse resonates like an unresolved chord." --"New Statesman
""While the plots and settings vary, Crace's unerringly stunning style doesn't. Even the most mundane of his characters beguile readers with their emotional authenticity and detailed psychologies. His prose carries the contours of a Donatello sculpture as Crace chisels gracefully flowing sentences with eloquence, precision and the occasional cheeky hint of the impish." "The San Francisco Chronicle
""At its heart, The Pesthouse is a meditation on deep questions about America: the costs of relentless expansion, the fate of a wasteful industrial society." --"Los Angeles Times"
"Crace's America lies not in the future but in our uneasy consciences. What's remarkable is the fortitude, grace and patience he grants to the wary people who must make a life there, must remember and love, against all odds." --"Washington Post"
"A writer of hallucinatory skill."
--John Updike
"[Crace] has an almost uncanny ability to nail down a dramatic situation, and the characters to enact it, in one or two sentences. . .one of the best writers around."
--"Toronto Star"
"The Pesthouse exudes a kind of eerie charm." --"Time Out"
"A book that I read hungrily for what it might have to say about the fix we are all in on this planet. . . . Crace's distinctive marked rhythms, just one draft away from blank verse, are at odds with satire. He can't quite extinguish the joy that percolates through all his writing, and The Pesthouse ends up being a lovely literary cipher in the way that Crace's work always is." --Joan Thomas, "The Globe and Mail"
"Crace brings his unsentimental but unflagging imagination to the ruined landscape and battered scavenger societies of this new America. . . . He is especially good at documenting the bodily toll that unrelenting life on the road exacts. . . . Franklin's and Margaret's journey, as brutal and hopeless as it often seems, transforms into a kind of allegory for the human capacity for loyalty, love, humour and imagination." --"Toronto Star"
"[Crace] takes us straight to the heart of what it means to be human. . . . He has always exhibited an uncanny gift for tapping into the horrors that wake us, heart pounding, in the middle of the night. . . . It's a tribute to Crace's skills that we so rapidly get our bearings in a radically altered landscape." --Francine Prose, "The New York Times" Book Review
"Crace has built a loyal following for the old-fashioned reason that he produces consistently dazzling work, matching sublime language with conceptual daring and an insistence on tackling the big themes head-on." --"The Gazette"
"AS Byatt has described [Crace] as the most significant writer in English fiction of the past 10 years and in The Pesthouse he continues to buildhis self-contained worlds that, in mirroring our own in crucial, though subtle ways, offer up universal insights." --"Scotland on Sunday
""Entirely compelling. The story is a gripping, harrowing adventure tale and Crace's language is extraordinary: he has immersed himself in his own kind of variant American idiom . . . which is simple, often beautiful, as touch and workable as leather. . . . The Pesthouse resonates like an unresolved chord." --"New Statesman
""While the plots and settings vary, Crace's unerringly stunning style doesn't. Even the most mundane of his characters beguile readers with their emotional authenticity and detailed psychologies. His prose carries the contours of a Donatello sculpture as Crace chisels gracefully flowing sentences with eloquence, precision and the occasional cheeky hint of the impish." "The San Francisco Chronicle
""At its heart, The Pesthouse is a meditation on deep questions about America: the costs of relentless expansion, the fate of a wasteful industrial society." --"Los Angeles Times"
"Crace's America lies not in the future but in our uneasy consciences. What's remarkable is the fortitude, grace and patience he grants to the wary people who must make a life there, must remember and love, against all odds." --"Washington Post"
"A writer of hallucinatory skill."
--John Updike
"[Crace] has an almost uncanny ability to nail down a dramatic situation, and the characters to enact it, in one or two sentences. . .one of the best writers around."
--"Toronto Star"
"From the Hardcover edition."
Arena
'perfect prose.'
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
'The Pesthouse' is packed with all the rich trace elements you would expect from a work by Jim Crace. Few writers have the courage let alone the ability to effortlessly surf the waves of time, reality and imagination with such grace as this writer does. Pesthouse sees the creation of yet another dreamed up world, eerily familiar, astonishingly real but surprisingly different. We do not need to know how the once great America has plunged into medieval torpor. We need only savour the sublime narrative that describes this uncertain and often cruel future, punctuated by two of Crace's most vibrant characters to date - the indomitable 'Red' Margaret and lumbering, bashful Franklin Lopez. Throughout their struggle for survival and a better tomorrow, theirs becomes a love that proves to be remarkably tender, enduring and real. With Pesthouse, Crace has created his most fascinating vista yet and, as always, he invites you in to fill the tantalizing gaps he leaves behind.
21 of 23 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This is a well-written novel with a lot of interesting ideas, scenes, and well-drawn characters. I read it avidly, enjoyed it, but without genuinely caring for the fortunes of the two main characters as they searched for a better life elsewhere. It has been compared with Cormac McCarthy's "The Road" as both deal with a pair of characters, bound together by love, travelling through post-apocalyptic lands in search of better fortune. Having read "The Road" immediately before this, I feel this is by far the lesser work and, in particular, it fails on two levels. The first is that the setting is unconvincing. This is supposed to be a post-technological future version of America, descended from some undisclosed apocalyptic catastrophe. However, there is nothing to convince the reader that things are actually all that wrong with the world. There's plenty to eat, animal and plant life abounds, and there are plenty of people around. So why no government, technology, education or information, etc? Seems things are OK on one side of a river and a lawless jungle on the other. The reader is at a loss to work out why and it's hard to accept it. Put simply the world of the Pesthouse is not a convincing one. The second problem is that there is something in the writing that makes you feel that the dangers faced by the protagonists are superficial and there is little doubt cast in the reader's mind that they will prevail. Compare this to "The Road": that novel's unrelenting bleakness, its horrificly godless world of death is totally convincing; and its ability to conjure an absolute dread of reading on - made even worse by the father's desperate and primal drive to simply keep his beloved son alive (to "carry the fire") in a dying world where the handful of surviving men and women are reduced to starving lunatics, killing and eating each other - is stunning. In comparison, this doesn't really hit the spot.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
One thing that's key to understand going into this book is that it's all about tone and feeling, and not about details or logic. To a certain extent, the reader just has to accept the world that Crace has presented, and not try to figure it out. This was a big struggle for me as I started it, since most stories (be they books or films) set in a post-apocalyptic world either explain how the world got that way, or use the mystery of the "why/how" as a major plot device. Here, Crace simply posits a greatly depopulated America some two-hundred years in the future (according to an interview I read) which has been thrust back into a kind of early 19th-century existence, only with almost no technology and no written language. There are intimations of a widespread plague, and some kind of permanent crop failures, but just hints, nothing concrete. Elements of this make no sense at all -- especially the loss of technology and writing -- but you just have to go with it.
The book follows two people through this landscape where there is no government or rule of law beyond rudimentary local customs and practices. Franklin is a young man from somewhere out West, who has left the homestead to make his way to the East Coast, where there are apparently ships that take people to a better life in Europe. Margaret is a 30ish spinster whose family, according to custom, kicks her out of their fairly prosperous town when she manifests symptoms of the plague. The two are thrust together by fate, and embark on a perilous quest eastward for a better life. Their journey is filled with the expected trials and tribulations (bandits, betrayal, slavers, separation, physical hardship, etc.), but the story is told in such a way that it is clear the two will end up back together by the end. One flaw in the book is that Franklin is left far too underdeveloped to really engage the reader as a co-protagonist, especially in comparison with Margaret, who is fully realized.
In that sense, the story might be considered too gentle. Yes, bad things happen to Franklin and Margaret, but this version of America isn't quite menacing enough to invest the story with any real suspense over the outcome. Indeed, at times, it's hard to really understand why people want to leave and head for the ships. Large swathes of the country they pass through seem perfectly fine, with farming and animal husbandry. And indeed, this greatly undermines the story's conclusion, which I won't give away, but is not exactly surprising. Ultimately, Crace seems to have written this book as a way of expressing optimism. it's definitely worth reading for his beautiful command of language and unexpected turns of phrase, especially when it comes to physical description, just don't expect it to hold together as a dystopian vision of the future.
The book follows two people through this landscape where there is no government or rule of law beyond rudimentary local customs and practices. Franklin is a young man from somewhere out West, who has left the homestead to make his way to the East Coast, where there are apparently ships that take people to a better life in Europe. Margaret is a 30ish spinster whose family, according to custom, kicks her out of their fairly prosperous town when she manifests symptoms of the plague. The two are thrust together by fate, and embark on a perilous quest eastward for a better life. Their journey is filled with the expected trials and tribulations (bandits, betrayal, slavers, separation, physical hardship, etc.), but the story is told in such a way that it is clear the two will end up back together by the end. One flaw in the book is that Franklin is left far too underdeveloped to really engage the reader as a co-protagonist, especially in comparison with Margaret, who is fully realized.
In that sense, the story might be considered too gentle. Yes, bad things happen to Franklin and Margaret, but this version of America isn't quite menacing enough to invest the story with any real suspense over the outcome. Indeed, at times, it's hard to really understand why people want to leave and head for the ships. Large swathes of the country they pass through seem perfectly fine, with farming and animal husbandry. And indeed, this greatly undermines the story's conclusion, which I won't give away, but is not exactly surprising. Ultimately, Crace seems to have written this book as a way of expressing optimism. it's definitely worth reading for his beautiful command of language and unexpected turns of phrase, especially when it comes to physical description, just don't expect it to hold together as a dystopian vision of the future.
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Most Recent Customer Reviews
'Dreamers do not want advice.'
Jim Crace takes more risks in his stories than most authors writing today. In THE PESTHOUSE he manages to create a love story with seeds in disease, death, futuristic... Read more
Published on 3 Mar 2010 by Grady Harp
Brilliantly compelling
The time is the far future in an America which has broken down into something resembling its incarnation. Read more
Published on 2 Oct 2009 by Eileen Shaw
Future vision
I have just read The Pesthouse and find myself thinking about it a great deal. Similar to other reviewers, I had difficulty determining what had caused the "apocalyptic" conditions... Read more
Published on 27 Feb 2009 by Pam
moving
This is a book that is lyrical and imaginative. It is an adventure and a story of interdependance. It has been compared to the Cormac McCarthy's "the Road"- somwhat unfairly. Read more
Published on 14 Nov 2008 by Jess
Not A Gratuitous Shot
What has always drawn me to the work of Mr. Crace is that whether the subject matter is new or very well trod upon this author supplies perspective that is unique. Read more
Published on 22 April 2008 by taking a rest
Poetic Writer
Crace is a poetic writer. He cares about words and crafts them into stories. The Pesthouse is imaginative, empathetic and lifting. Read more
Published on 9 April 2008 by Michael J. Salt
Contractual obligation?
It's very hard to work out why Jim Crace would have allowed such a poor book to be published. The combination of weak characters, unbelievable settings and frankly awful plot... Read more
Published on 17 Feb 2008 by Gordon Dent
Bit of a Damp Squib
I bought The Pesthouse having thoroughly enjoyed Quarantine and Being Dead by the same author - but unfortunately I found this a big disappointment. Read more
Published on 2 May 2007 by J. Hamston
Half cooked. Not entirely convincing
Deeply dissapointed at Crace's new novel. Lot of people are comparing it to Mc Carthy's latest which i haven't read yet, unfavorably. Read more
Published on 8 April 2007 by Luis Chin
Apocalypse Wow
Jim Crace is an orderly, methodical writer (his friend Will Self said: "I wouldn't dream of saying that Jim's study demonstrates anal retention, but his marker pens are... Read more
Published on 7 Mar 2007 by John Self
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.
