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Post by zaffra on Apr 10, 2007 16:19:46 GMT
She has a new book out soon.
I just got a copy! it has a lovely cover and the pages are edged in black!!
It's called The End Of Mr Y.
Ariel Manto, a lonely PhD student, enters a second hand bookshop and stumbles upon an extremely rare novel, The End of Mr. Y, first published in 1893. The book is rumoured to be cursed, and anyone who has ever read it has been found dead not long afterwards.
The novel tells how to enter the Troposphere – a place where all consciousness is connected, and you can surf other people’s thoughts. But surely the whole idea is just fiction? It is in a novel, after all.
Ariel would rather have fiction than reality – which is just poverty and bad sex – anyway. And she wants to know everything, including everything about the Troposphere, and whether or not such a thing could exist. But soon she’s running for her life, surfing both fiction and reality as she tries to escape from the people who want her secrets. So what has the French Philosopher Derrida got to do with all this? And who is the mouse god, Apollo Smintheus?
The End of Mr. Y is a thought experiment wrapped in a contemporary adventure novel that asks questions about thought, language, destiny and the very limits of being and time.
Ooooh!
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Post by Deleted on May 6, 2007 12:01:50 GMT
Ooh, I read this last year because I am a mad fan and got the American edition. It is rather good, a definite move on from her last two novels. A bit weird in places - it does the Iris Murdoch thing of having characters sitting around having long discussions about the universe and Derrida because she can't quite think of how else to put the book's themes across - but enjoyable nonetheless. The first 150 pages are only kind of okay but then suddenly it gets REALLY REALLY GOOD and REALLY EXCITING, really quickly.
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Post by zaffra on May 6, 2007 15:14:58 GMT
Oh dear, I had trouble with this novel - it's just a bit too way out for me - I reached a point when however the ideas were justified they were just a bit too silly. I actually prefered the begining of the book before it got out of hand, and I really didn't like the ending.
PopCo was in my opinion much better, ST has a really nice slightly simple slightly naive writting style that I enjoy and was better suited to it's subject in PopCo.
Saying all that it was a real page turner, I did actually enjoy it.
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Post by Deleted on May 7, 2007 10:50:19 GMT
Interesting. I nearly put it down and never picked it up again after the first half.
PopCo did lays its ideas out better and tie them into the story with more success; The End of Mr Y has a certain "PhD student/lecturer putting her thesis ideas into a story" feel to it - but I still really enjoyed the second half a lot more, once it turned into a sort of action story choose-your-own-adventure bit.
Although I was absolutely not sure why people suddenly kept going "But Ariel, you're the next great philosophical thinker, you could change the world" when Ariel really seemed to just read a lot and not have too many ideas of her own.
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Post by audrey notwhatsheusedtobe on Apr 3, 2008 9:57:51 GMT
I've just read PopCo as it seemed like a good starting point. I really enjoyed it for the most part, and found it clever and interesting, even if there was a bit much maths-chat. But when I finished it I felt a bit pissed off. The "message" was rather condescending. I have read NoLogo missus! I was hoping for so much more from the 'conspiracy' given the great build up, but was so disappointed when it was revealled who was sending the notes etc. I still think she is a good writer though and she seems like a cool lady. I read some short stories on her website that I really liked and I will investigate Going Out perhaps.
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