Six (Paperback)

You sense where I'm going. If you've yet to treat yourself to Crace's work, do so at the first opportunity. He deserves it. Six is the most accomplished place to start.

It's almost a shame then that the marketing of this book centres on the first line. The trite sensationalist, " Every woman he dares to sleep with bears his child", for this is not what this remarkable book is all about. Lix, the main character, is not some super fertile, unfaithful, philandering womaniser, that such a line may suggest.

This is a book about life and love and the unerring difference of the sexes. It is a book about the trials of attraction, how love is, what love becomes and how men and women are intrinsically different in their determination of each. Yes Lix knows the moves and leaves his mark, yet it is the women who have the strong control and leave with the upper hand. He cannot bridge the gap between lust and love, between observing life and living it, between hunting and settling.

Throughout Crace introduces the backdrop of a fictitious city, the underlay of its inhabitants' emotional battle. The river bursting its banks and flooding the streets is a beautiful, symbolic and poetic chapter signalling the inevitability of the power of nature. There's the man-made, all powerful, old Eastern European style of political repression that dominates the early part of the book, that can be, or at least attempted to be, undone by the youthful exuberance of students uprising to riot. To a point. Either way the natural order and the way we are, wins. But these are just touches in a story that is bound in such a way to allow the reader to take their own magical city, town, village, home, or life, to assess their life with their loves.

Six is an incredibly readable, enjoyable, intelligent book. The insight and skill with which Crace delivers several one liners on life and love should be compiled into a compendium.

If you've lost loves, are in love, married, had children, or divorced; if you've wondered what it's all about, read this book. It's deeply thought provoking. You'll recognise and take so much away from this book.

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When passages such as these are used for a moment of meditation, then SIX has a lot to say about how we are functioning in this discombobulated world.. And if Jim Crace does only that - makes us stop for a moment and observe the Human Comedy - then reading this book has its rewards. Let's see where he goes next.

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'Six' opens by stating that "every woman he dares to sleep with bears his child". Despite accurately relating protagonist Felix Dern's sexual history, this opening may mislead as to the overall content and tenor of this work as Dern is not the Don Juan that he sometimes plays on stage, and indeed even curtails his sexual activity on account of his celebrity. Instead, 'Six' can be viewed as telling the stories of Felix Dern and his female partners by visiting their lives at junctures leading up to these six conceptions. Within the constraints of a fairly short novel, there is some development of the female characters, particularly bolshy, sexy lecturer Freda. Crace unfailingly sticks to structure as he provides interesting snapshots of these intersecting lives. Ultimately, I wanted to know more about these lives - and the lives of the offspring - although this would have called for a longer novel, and admittedly the sacrificing of the tight structure may have made a longer novel less satisfying.

Weaved into the narrative of 'Six' are numerous interesting and thought-provoking comments on issues bound up with life and love - including desire; lust; gender-based differences and the frailties of relationships. Although Dern's sexual liaisons are unswervingly heterosexual (perhaps surprisingly given the consequences of his fertility), Crace's observations still resonate with sexual expression and relationships outside these parameters.

Finally, an added joy of 'Six' is spending time with Felix and friends in Crace's imaginary European city - described variously as 'City of Kisses', 'City of Balconies' and 'City of Mathematical Truth' - and trying to place this seemingly familiar city on the map of Europe!

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