- Paperback: 256 pages
- Publisher: Faber and Faber; New edition edition (3 April 2000)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0571201164
- ISBN-13: 978-0571201167
- Product Dimensions: 19.2 x 12.6 x 1.6 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 437,149 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Underground
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More About the Author
Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
Already lauded for his vivid collections of poetry and short stories, Tobias Hill makes the move to full-length novel with Underground and instantly establishes himself as one of Britain's most exciting young novelists. London Underground worker Casimir is jolted out of his somnambulant routine when he realises, from the evidence on his monitor, that a young woman's supposed accident or suicide attempt is in fact attempted murder. At the same time he becomes particularly obsessed by fleeting glimpses of Walkmaned tube dweller Alice, whose otherworldly beauty haunts the tunnels. Like Neil Bartlett, Hill uses London's hidden history to explore London's hidden present and like Bartlett he does it through the eyes of an outsider. The story unfolds in counterpoint to the childlike telling of Casimir's troubled childhood in Poland, his own underground life, with which he's slowly forced to come to terms. Hill may stuff his book with tubespotter detail about London's fascinating subterranean network--its hidden passages, makeshift dwellings, locked and forgotten stations--but, far from being just another feelgood novel for city commuters and Time Out addicts, Underground is a rich, multi-layered novel that reaches far beyond the end of the Northern line. --Alan Stewart
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Product Description
Among the rush hour crowds and abandoned levels of the LondonUnderground, someone is pushing women under trains. Hunting the killer, Casimir the Tube worker goes ever deeper into the subterranean world, and into himself. The tunnel walls are riveted plates of iron, crusted with grime. Their raised edges arch overhead, like ribs, and the grime itself is creased and ridged, layer on layer ofcoaldust, exhaust and limestone glittering black. Cables run along the walls at shoulder height, thick as Casimir's arms. On his belt the cellular coughs and mutters on its open line. Garbledsnatches of conversation. Interference from other lines and works.
Underground is the story of a city under a city, and the people who inhabit it. Below the bright crowds and tunnel musicians of the London Underground, three people search for one another in a labyrinth of deep shelters, ruins and derelict Victorian stations. Two of them are guided by love and a desire for redemption - the third by obsession and the need to destroy. From the deep forests of Silesia to the seething markets of Camden Town and Astrakhan, Underground follows the life of Casimir, descending into the depths of the Tube and the terriblesecrets of his Polish childhood. In subterranean London, Casimir has gone to ground. But in his desperate search for a killer, he discovers a chance for forgiveness and the emergence of a new life.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is what British fiction should be about. Set in the present day, written about what matters; real subjects and real people. Casimir is an imigrant worker on the London Underground, cut off from his own country and family. He gets drawn into the life of a homeless girl who lives on abandoned Underground stations, and discovers a world which is even darker than his own. This is really good writing, the real thing. Yes there are flaws, but better big, dark and flawed than small, pale and perfect; the fate of so much British fiction today. Hill shows that there is still much to write about here - and the writers to do it.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Tobias Hill has a great writing style and had I been in the mood for a tale that did indeed have a sort of mystery in the tunnels of the London Underground but was much more about a young mans childhood in Poland then this would have been a great read, I wanted a thriller, I wanted crime and sadly I didn't really get it. In Hill's favour I have to say that the suspense of the climax of the whole book was brilliant, sadly it just came 200 pages late. This is not a bad book, but thanks to its publishers it's a misleading book.
There is not a string of murders, there are two pushes and that's that. Casimir is a worker on the underground who randomly falls for a girl who he sees on the tube and then finds lives in a disused station and just happens to like him back and want top have sex with him after meeting him for 50 minutes or so. Riiiiiiiiiggggghhhtttt. How is she connected to the killings is she the killer? I think these were the questions I was meant to ask however I just thought `what?' and then got very bored with her and him. The alternating chapters were the tale of Casimir's childhood in Poland, this was more interesting but not what I wanted from a book, if I had this would have been the redeeming factor of the book.
This book is the perfect book to point out the issue I have with some books blurbs, especially when they lie. This is another case of the blurb mot telling the truth, its not the books fault, its not the authors fault and yet it makes me annoyed and puts me off both, why don't publishers tell the truth? For example this blurb was "On the London Underground, someone is pushing women under trains. In his search for the killer, Casimir, a Tube worker, is led even deeper into a labyrinth of long-forgotten passages and deep shelters - and into the terrible secrets of his own childhood."
I will highlight in italics what they should have added "On the London Underground, someone is pushing women under trains (well someone seems to have been pushed and then someone else does it's a bit vague). In his search for the killer (well in accidentally hearing and seeing things he shouldn't and then becoming slightly obsessed), Casimir, a Tube worker, is led (well once or twice) even deeper into a labyrinth of long-forgotten passages and deep shelters (and also becomes obsessed with a girl he randomly sees on a tube and then finds coincidentally lives in a disused station where she is only too happy to sleep with him after very few introductions)- and into the terrible secrets of his own childhood (which dominates the book and should actually be the main theme of the blurb."
A shame, the right blurb which would have lead to the right timing and right mid set I think I could have really liked this book.
There is not a string of murders, there are two pushes and that's that. Casimir is a worker on the underground who randomly falls for a girl who he sees on the tube and then finds lives in a disused station and just happens to like him back and want top have sex with him after meeting him for 50 minutes or so. Riiiiiiiiiggggghhhtttt. How is she connected to the killings is she the killer? I think these were the questions I was meant to ask however I just thought `what?' and then got very bored with her and him. The alternating chapters were the tale of Casimir's childhood in Poland, this was more interesting but not what I wanted from a book, if I had this would have been the redeeming factor of the book.
This book is the perfect book to point out the issue I have with some books blurbs, especially when they lie. This is another case of the blurb mot telling the truth, its not the books fault, its not the authors fault and yet it makes me annoyed and puts me off both, why don't publishers tell the truth? For example this blurb was "On the London Underground, someone is pushing women under trains. In his search for the killer, Casimir, a Tube worker, is led even deeper into a labyrinth of long-forgotten passages and deep shelters - and into the terrible secrets of his own childhood."
I will highlight in italics what they should have added "On the London Underground, someone is pushing women under trains (well someone seems to have been pushed and then someone else does it's a bit vague). In his search for the killer (well in accidentally hearing and seeing things he shouldn't and then becoming slightly obsessed), Casimir, a Tube worker, is led (well once or twice) even deeper into a labyrinth of long-forgotten passages and deep shelters (and also becomes obsessed with a girl he randomly sees on a tube and then finds coincidentally lives in a disused station where she is only too happy to sleep with him after very few introductions)- and into the terrible secrets of his own childhood (which dominates the book and should actually be the main theme of the blurb."
A shame, the right blurb which would have lead to the right timing and right mid set I think I could have really liked this book.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I was really transported by this novel - backwards and forwards between Poland in the past and an unknown world beneath the London underground in the present. I have never been to Poland and I live in London but oddly enough the London scenes felt the most strange. I now feel thrilled everytime I go down into the tube imagining the life going on around and below me. I highly recommend it - I really couldn't put it down and have given copies to all my friends.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Marvellous!
I loved this book. It was one of the ones you both yearn to finish and at the same time long for it to keep going! Read more
Published on 27 Sep 2008 by Penny Waugh
"Quiet waters break the river's banks"
"An engrossing, fast-paced thriller," according to an excerpt from a review in The Times reproduced on the front jacket of this book. I have to disagree. Read more
Published on 4 Aug 2002
Very cool gothic depiction of the London Underground, but...
I dunno. Perhaps I'm not properly educated in the field of English literature, but I have to agree with the other reviewers who said they only really enjoyed every other chapter of... Read more
Published on 30 Jun 2002 by Danforth
Not quite as good as I'd hoped
A serial killer on the London Underground had the potential to be a great novel. In part, Tobias Hill manages to conjure up interesting descriptions of forgotten stations and the... Read more
Published on 14 Sep 2000
Painfully turbid tale
Hill somehow manages to turn a potentially fascinating subject, murder on the underground, into a cloudy mess of a novel. Read more
Published on 24 July 2000 by A. Turner
Disappointing, Depressing and Dark!
I was looking forward to this book, but was left highly disappointed with the whole affair.
The story was interesting enough but I found the narrative depressing and often... Read more
Published on 1 July 2000
Dazzled in Aberystwyth 20th Feb 2000 - Damned fine stuff
Understated gripping prose - This is a fine novel written with a poet's eye and ear for the language. Read more
Published on 20 Feb 2000
Dissapointing
Despite the fact that Mr Tobias is a darling of the review columns, this book does not pull it off. While the London Underground elements are interesting, they loose their... Read more
Published on 3 Sep 1999
Atmospheric and gripping, but rather esoteric in places.
The story of a tube worker on the trail of a grisly murderer who pushes his victims in front of trains, is juxtaposed rather stubbornly with that of the protagonist's youth in... Read more
Published on 5 May 1999
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