Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
More than short stories, 13 Dec 2006
While it hasn't been lauded like Swing Hammer Swing, The Devil's Carousel becomes more absorbing the further into it you delve. I am no lit-crit, but this seems to be the point of the whole exercise. Life, including the life of a factory, community, or labelled 'work force' isn't monolithic but varied, often predictable, but full of wild variations. How can a committed Christian work in a factory full of bawdy humourists and blatant pornography? Well, by being a Christian. How can the 'heroes' of each sketch be so unheroic, or even unlikable? Well, by being themselves. This isn't quite Rashomon, with the mutiple perspectives of one seminal event, but more the ragged tapestry, where by following one thread you end up at one end of the thing, having seen quite a few colours and patterns on the way. Then another thread.
The running jokes about characters, the scams, fables and mysteries, these are the real fodder of company life, and they provide the realistic feel. There is humour and tragedy, but it never feels forced. The initial character's introduction as a drunk on the stairs is sympathetic, but so is the partner's rage, and that tells us that this isn't the 1990s clone love-the-drunk and have-a-laugh chance to exercise expletives. The language is, if anything, all a little restrained for a shop floor.
Well written, well characterized, and so close to the bone that anyone who lived through the 1970s and 1980s (Hillman, Chrysler, BL etc.) will be able to see the cars and smell the factory. And some of the men who built them.
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2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
i can see what torrington was ATTEMPTING to do in this book, 17 Nov 2000
By A Customer
well, after reading "swing, hammer swing," i must admit i am a wee bit disappointed with "the devil's carousel". essentially, it is a novel of short stories that take place in car manufactuing plant in glasgow, and, one presumes that torrington is attempting to do what seems to be quite fashionable for authors to do these days, especially scots authors: he tries to render the banal, well, interesting. these tales are not offensive and perhaps that is their problem. they are as banal as everyday life working on a production line. one presumes that torrington would find diamonds in the rough with his charcters, so to speak, but they are uninteresting, and, just when we seem to be getting to know a character a little better, and get a feel for them, the tale invariable ends. it is quite frustrating. torrington, however, in my opinion, is a genius with words. the care he puts into every line is there for all to see. it's just a shame that the texture his words yield do not rub off on the actual action or characters within the book...i may need to re-read this book; try and do it one night. see if becomes less arduous. a disappointment. edward joseph canning
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4.0 out of 5 stars
The Martians Are Coming !, 22 Aug 2008
"The Devil's Carousel" was first published in 1996 and is a collection of short stories based around the Centaur Car Company's plant in Glasgow . Each story follows a different lead character, from the shopfloor right up to senior management - though one story's lead character does, occasionally, play a bit part in another story. The plant is not presented as a pleasant place to work - industrial injuries are clearly common enough, while the number of heart attacks and strokes has led to the local hospital naming a ward in the company's honour. There's even the occasional nervous breakdown...
Things in the plant run far from smoothly, and there is a slightly antagonistic relationship between the management and the workforce. The working conditions clearly don't take the workforce's best interests into account, though the grievances are probably nurtured by the shop stewards. (KIKBAK, a very unofficial and clued-in newssheet probably doesn't help either, and several articles also appear in the book). However, the management don't do themselves any favours : they keep themselves so far above the shopfloor, they are widely known as the Martians. (Only one Martian, Mal Kibbley, earns a starring role in one of the stories. The Martians are keen to build a top-of-the-range car, though they want it built without the workforce kept in the dark about it...accordingly, when the workforce find out what the Marians are trying to pull, they'll do everything the can to sabotage this perfect car's production). Unsurprisingly, the plant is rumoured to be in some trouble with the company's head office believed to be considering job cuts. Having said that, there are suggestions - as the book progresses - that the Bilbao plant is in a little more danger.
Most of the stories are about the ordinary workers - not the big picture - with each story having a different character taking the lead. (However, one story's lead character may, occasionally, pop up as another ctory's supporting character from time to time). There are a few stories that see characters die or suffer from breakdowns, which isn't too surprising given the health problems widely suffered by the workforce. One of the book's more memorable survivors, however, is Curley Brogan - such an effective shop steward that the Martians are actually afraid of him. However, since his personal hygiene leaves a lot to be desired, his colleagues aren't overly fond of him either. Curley isn't one of the characters who die - however, he decides to have a little fun for a day or two by 'faking' his own death...a plan that, naturally, causes him a little bother.
However, nobody can find anything good to say aboutTwitcher Haskins - another string character. Twitcher - the nickname comes from the fact he's a keen birdwatcher - is a very petty individual and the plant's Security Chief. (The plant's security officers are known, colloquially, as the snipes - as the Security Chief, Twitcher is also known as the Supersnipe). Naturally, he has an arch-nemesis - the Magpie - who is responsible for all major acts of pilfering in the plant...and there's nothing Twitcher would like better than to cap his retirement with the Magpie's capture...
A very enjoyable book overall, and very easily read.
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by Jeff Torrington
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