- Paperback: 192 pages
- Publisher: Harper Perennial; (Reissue) edition (15 Mar 2004)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0007110472
- ISBN-13: 978-0007110476
- Product Dimensions: 19.9 x 12.9 x 1.2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 433,818 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
Novella-like in form, Magnus Mills' Three to See the King is an uneasy read that transports the reader to a unique fictional setting where the familiar is strangely unfamiliar. Known for his Kafka-esque nightmares, Mills tells the abstract fable of an unnamed man, living in isolation in a tin house, who must choose between a solitary existence and joining the mass exodus of his neighbours. Through simple, deadpan prose, a keen eye for human nature and abrasive wit, Mills not only captures the dull emptiness of the unimagined life but comments allegorically on solitude and society, religion and civilisation, labour and capital. Mills, whose other books include Booker-shortlisted The Restraint of Beasts and All Quiet on the Orient Express, is an absorbing, disturbing writer who is refining his observations with each new book. --Nicola Perry
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
'Mills's particularly rural comedy – in which only locals are allowed to order the interesting biscuits in the village shop – shares its anthropological glee with The League of Gentlemen…. Three To See The King is even stranger, sparser and more daring; as Mills steps back from fables of alienated labour to Beckettian first principles, his closed system closes in… It shouldn't be a speedy page-turner, but it is; light reading with real depth, this is philosophy for fiction-lovers.' Justine Jordan, Guardian
'Magnus Mills is a genius… an extraordinary individual with a completely unique view of the world, who makes sense of it in totally unexpected and inexplicable ways. It's rare that you finish a book feeling so richly satisfied.' Big Issue
'A spare but absorbing tale in which Mills handles weighty issues of charismatic leadership, blind faith, and the interdependence of human beings, with a light, dextrous touch.' Charlotte Mosley, Daily Mail
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I just read this book and was immediately pulled into the story and the questions of 'what on earth is happening here?'. The book is so easy to read and is more like a short story really - you'll read it in an afternoon. It's written in very simple English but somehow this adds to the atmosphere and you can't help wondering what strange place they are living in and what has led to them living here in whis way.
The questions continue to rise and you are compelled to read on to find out more. However at the end I didn't really feel that I 'got' the story. I wasn't sure what really happened and certainly couldn't figure out why. I really enjoyed reading the book but feel that somewhere along the way I missed something important.
The questions continue to rise and you are compelled to read on to find out more. However at the end I didn't really feel that I 'got' the story. I wasn't sure what really happened and certainly couldn't figure out why. I really enjoyed reading the book but feel that somewhere along the way I missed something important.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
'Three To See The King' is the third novel by Magnus Mills, and confirms his status as one of the most original voices writing prose in Britain today. His previous novels, 'The Restraint of Beasts' and 'All Quiet On The Orient Express' hinted at the direction that his future work would take, and it is pleasing to see that direction now followed so confidently and magnificently. 'Three To See The King' is a pure allegory for the way we function as individuals in societies. Mills builds a world free from references to the everyday world, references that always seemed unnecessary in 'All Quiet On The Orient Express', and instead shows us a distorted microcosm of our world. His narrator, lives on a plain in a house made of tin, he lives alone, his neighbours, all of them beyond the horizon, also live alone. All this changes however when Mary Petrie moves into his house and when his neighbours start to move away, drawn by the mysterious and enigmatic Michael Hawkins. The strange fable that ensues examines what happens to the free will of the individual when confronted with a totalitarian society, and what happens to such a regime when doctrine stirs dissent. It draws on many biblical references, but the main references seem to be to the parable of the man who builds his house on sand. In this parable the man is shown to be foolish in his actions for not building firmer foundations. Mills's treatment of this is complex. Was the man such a fool after all? His style in writing seems unique in Britain today, but it compares favourably to the allegorical style of Russian and former soviet writers such as Victor Pelevin. The use of fable and allegory to obliquely examine society's ills is highly reminiscent of Pelevin's short story collection 'The Blue Lantern'. A voice alone in British fiction, Magnus Mills is a novelist to be celebrated.
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I won't bury my head in the crevice of literary hyperbole that could make stories of Rosie and Jim seem like a metaphor, but ...
What a great read! I don't think i've ever read a book that had the effect on me that this did. It encapsulated Envy for me, imagined and real. The workings of the protagonists mind, and his thought processes seemed so similar to those that i have experienced, that i couldn't help but relate to the character and story.
The framework is brilliant, fantastic. I had a permenant smile on as i read this, and certain plot twists left me astounded both in simplicity and duplicity. If you were to ask me this book would come highly recommended, but i would suggest you have an afternoon free to read, because you won't want to put it down.
This is the first Magnus Mills book i have read, so i look forward to catching up with some of his previous work. Only six more sins to cover, Magnus ...
Most Recent Customer Reviews
A Great Read
I first read this book about six years ago and loved it. I recommend it to my husband but it was deleted from our library stock and then went out of print, so I was really pleased... Read more
Published 3 months ago by KarniF
strange and wonderful
Magnus Mills' most obviously surreal tale, but still rooted in the petty foibles of human nature. A darkly comic fable, full of deadpan wit.
Published 21 months ago by Tom White
Magnificent Mills
This book grips you from the very first page and doesn't release you until you've finished it. Magnus Mills tells his story in clear language without any of the trimmings used by... Read more
Published on 18 May 2009 by Mark Dene
Unique and brilliant
What can you say about Magnus Mills?? Well, I know the word "unique" is banded around fairly liberally these days but there is no-one like him. Read more
Published on 16 Mar 2009 by John Fraser
Deap-pan and loving it
Like Mills' other novels, it's better to not `over-analyse' what's going on and just go with the flow. Read more
Published on 14 July 2008 by Farah Yousif
People who need people....
Magnus Mills has constructed a wonderful little fable about human relationships. This book is proof that he can say as much with simple prose and 167 pages as others can with a... Read more
Published on 9 April 2003 by Lendrick
A Modern Day Swift?
For the uninitiated Magnus Mills is that London bus driver who won every literary prize going with his debut novel, The Restraint Of Beasts. Read more
Published on 27 Jun 2002 by "graemewright4"
What's his point?
...Mills can certainly construct tight prose without the need for unnecessary description, but then this book seems to be a comment on society/religion, who knows, I certainly... Read more
Published on 20 May 2002
A work of briliance
This is a deceptively simple story about a guy who lives in a tin house in the middle of a vast plain of sand, and his interractions with other people. Read more
Published on 23 Mar 2002
Spare, bleached out and fabulous.
Mills`deceptively spareing touch commits the story to neither time or real place. This is an unusual read and I wont be persueing more of Mills`work if they are all like this. Read more
Published on 3 Dec 2001 by andybrim@ukonline.co.uk
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