Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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18 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Pitch perfect, 30 Aug 2006
I loved Carry Me Down. Admittedly, in being set in Ireland, having a strong story line and being narrated in simple language it pressed the right buttons for me.
The simple language - the novel is narrated by a 12 year old - should not detract from the complexity of the characters or the story line. It becomes clear from the start that John Egan, an only child, is not quite right. Whilst not being bad, he clearly has some arrogance, hypocrisy and delusions of grandeur. He has a pious and sanctimonious attitude towards others lies, whilst not seeing the need to be truthful himself. But he is still pitiable and, in some ways, quite likable.
Meanwhile, his mother, father and grandmother clearly have an uneasy relationship, both with one another and with John. The beauty of the novel is that this, viewed through the eyes of a 12 year old - looks uncomfortable without ever being clearly defined. John resents his family's failings whilst unwittingly doing his best to widen the cracks.
As the family is forced to leave Gorey and ends up in Ballymun, events start to spiral out of control - and perhaps this happens rather too quickly. John's mother might have become more desparate before John attacks her. Nevertheless, the attack is shocking and unexpected - it has huge impact. The aftereffects clearly don't sink in for John, and this translates to the reader - I never felt the bleakness facing John from which he is ultimately rescued.
With more room, the novel could have explored a number of relationships in more detail. In particular, the teacher felt like an underused device and his motives seemed a little sinister but were never pursued. But more room might have let John outstay his welcome. A balance had to be struck somewhere.
The pitch was beautiful, and painted an uncomfortably convincing portrait of an eccentric and unhappy child.
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22 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Best of the 2006 booker bunch, 3 Sep 2006
This novel is long-listed for the 2006 Booker and is the best of the bunch that I've read so far. The prose is clean and sharp and the suspense and atmosphere that builds up is awful (meaning great).
Comparisons t other child narrators like that in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time or David Mitchell's latest rather miss the point; this is a book about the consequences of a kind of extreme puritanism and perfectionism - the desire to make the world in the way you want it and the inabiity to fully realise that other people have lives that are outside your ken.
However, like the best child narrators, John Egan (the 12 year old central character) does evoke strong felings of sympathy (despite him being a little creepy)and sees the world with an off-kilter vision that has not yet been dulled by adulthood.
A great read.; highly recommended.
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19 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Of the highest order..., 3 Oct 2006
"This is writing of the highest order." This is how JM Coetzee describes Carry Me Down. So, it is with high expectations that I started reading M.J. Hyland's latest offering - and at the end of the book I emerged astonished, puzzled, bewildered, and deeply disturbed.
Few pages into the book, and you wonder if this is another coming-of-age offering similar to David Mitchell's latest offering; the somewhat simple, yet brilliantly devious prose reminded me of Ali Smith's brilliant novel, the Accidental. However, continue reading, and you realise that this is no ordinary tale. It is meant to haunt the reader long after he or she finishes reading it.
Narrated by the almost 12-year old boy, John Egan, Carry Me Down offers little but the complicated lad's view of the story. He, his beautiful mother and his jobless father all live with John's paternal grandmother at her place in Gorey, Ireland. Much of the second half of the book takes place in Dublin, where the family moves after a nasty spat between John's father and his grandmother.
However, the theme of the story lies in what the boy claims is his extraordinary ability to "detect lies." The lazy reader who likes to have an informed opinion by just reading the jacket of the book might assume that the boy indeed does have a gift. But, Hyland offers little in the way, despite the "apparent" (and I stress the word apparent) experimental successes John demonstrates - particularly, when it comes to revealing his father's extramarital affair, although I'm not convinced, if indeed that is the case.
In any event, while Hyland delicately entagles John's complicated personality, several more disturbing events ensue, and the reader can be forgiven for sympathising with the disturbed, unusually tall adolescent with homosexual feelings (although this, thankfully, was paid only the attention that was due, without providing channels for the tabloids to exploit the angle). Although I would be surprised if a reader emerged sympathising with John at the end.
This is an intensely emotional psychological drama, which when given the benefit of imaginative interpretations, can be as real as your eyes reading this review, or as unreal as a graphic dream in which you dream of reading this review. Either way, you'd have a remarkable book by a remarkably talented writer.
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