|
Oct 2014
9:50am, 1 Oct 2014
10,763 posts
|
mulbs
I quite liked that he hadn't been "humanised" enough by that point not to know that blurting out his action would be unacceptable and unwelcome . . .
Overall for me the bits I liked I really rather liked and the rest of it was good enough to get me through. It was an interesting slant on things and a good book for folk to discuss.
I'm going to have to try and think a bit more about author intent/success from now on
I've read books with inconsistencies that have annoyed me far more, I find it intriguing that what might be mildly irritating at most to one person infuriates another and that it's different for everybody - I know there are things that royally piss me off that would make anyone else roll their eyes if anything (have we got an eye roll emoji yet?)
|
|
Oct 2014
9:51am, 1 Oct 2014
10,764 posts
|
mulbs
I don't like being top of the page though - makes me feel all "look at me, look at me!"
|
|
Oct 2014
9:54am, 1 Oct 2014
4,038 posts
|
BaronessBL
I have to say I tend to read books, as Pesto says, thinking about what the writer has done and not what they have tried to do. It's probably why I've never joined an actual book group. I fear I would sit there and say 'I just read it' while everyone else has taken pages of notes and deeply analysed it.
This group may make me think more about what I am reading though - and even do more than 'just read it' and I guess that is what it's all about 
|
|
Oct 2014
9:59am, 1 Oct 2014
5,761 posts
|
Pestomum
I do think about what I read but I don't want it to get between me and what the writer's actually written - as opposed to what I think they might have been meaning to write. Like BBL I much prefer doing this online as it gives me time to go away and think about what other people have got from the same book, even when it's diametrically opposed to what I've got from it. One reader's success being another reader's bargain bin fodder and all that
|
|
Oct 2014
11:29am, 1 Oct 2014
1,248 posts
|
Longwayround (LWR)
Having no idea of what to expect from the book before I started to read it, having seen no hype about it nor any reviews, I like to think I came to it with a neutral perspective. From fairly early on I began to suspect the narrator was unreliable: his "night cubed" error being quite glaring.
Some of the witticisms turn out to be fatuous. Moments after “night cubed”, we are informed that “a motorway is the most advanced type of road there is, which… essentially meant accidental death was considerably more probable.” This sounded unlikely to me and a little {{Cn}} appeared in my Kindle notes which prompted me this morning to do that little bit of research which reveals that there were 1.2 fatalities per billion vehicle kilometres on Britain’s motorways in 2009. The road network as a whole saw 4.3 fatalities per billion. When trying to describe one’s character as supremely intelligent, it helps to get the facts right.
I was willing to forgive Martin’s “26 letters in the human alphabet” error as having been culturally influenced but, as others have mentioned, wouldn’t this alien culture have done a little more research before parking their man on the M11?
The definition of a prime number (in the chapter “Primes”) is wrong in one small but significant manner: “They knew a prime was a whole number that could only be divided by one or itself.” This would allow 1 to be a prime. It isn’t. Again, our narrator is supposed to be a tremendously competent mathematician. He would know that a prime can only be divided by one //and// itself.
Similarly, considering the “one in quadrillion chance multiplied by another quadrillion for every generation” of Isobel Martin’s existence, our genius mathematician tells us “therefore, mathematically, rounding things up, there was no chance at all that Isobel Martin could have existed.” No, sir, you’ve just rounded down. That’s the other direction.
Where the book succeeded for me was in those sections where the author appeared to be writing a love poem for the human race but even then sometimes the author’s awkwardness got in the way and burst the bubble: “Injuries could always be healed. Death meant death. A zero squared was still a zero.”
At a push I can forgive the idea of being able to heal oneself purely through wishing: who am I to say that a vastly more intelligent race may not have succeeded here? But then we get the logical nonsense:
“There was no such thing as impossible. I knew that, because I also knew that everything was impossible, and so the only possibilities in life were impossibilities.”
I finally laughed almost two thirds of the way through the book as Andrew and Gulliver are discussing dominoes, swimming and, “ ‘You need some more tablets.’
“ ‘Yes. Maybe. You ate all mine.’ ”
I was actually disappointed when the reference to magic realism and an unreliable narrator was made since to me this suggested that the author wanted to assert his narrator’s own reliability.
I liked the modelling of the solar system with fruit and, having previously used this when teaching year 7 science, was willing to overlook the fact that, with the sun as a grapefruit, the Earth ought really to be the size of a grape seed and the table ought really to be ten metres long. It’s an illustration and by this point in the book not-Andrew Martin appears to have learnt enough of human nature to accept that a little simplification is not always a bad idea.
The List has clearly divided opinion. I actually rather liked it but that may be because I could finally see the light at the end of the tunnel.
The most truthful line in the book? “Indeed, never has a story I have written needed an editor more…”
|
|
Oct 2014
11:31am, 1 Oct 2014
15,300 posts
|
flanker
with you on this Pesto.
I don't go into a micro brewery to try a new ale and then think "that was hideous, but I can see what the brewer was trying to achieve but even though he failed dismally I still quite like it".
I'd think "this is undrinkable shit and the brewer is obviously a fool if he thinks he can sell this product" and then go to a brewery where the brewer was competent and had good come up with a good product.
As a consumer I'm interested in the final product, not a lot of great intentions that come to nothing. Maybe I'm just shallow and self-centered
|
|
Oct 2014
11:36am, 1 Oct 2014
7,483 posts
|
Diogenes
Spot on LWR, except perhaps it needed a better editor.
|
|
Oct 2014
11:44am, 1 Oct 2014
4,039 posts
|
BaronessBL
Flanker that is a brilliant analogy and exactly the reason why however many beers *a particular small brewery in Suffolk* produces I will never touch a single one of them again.... 
|
|
Oct 2014
12:41pm, 1 Oct 2014
14,966 posts
|
fetcheveryone
For me, the line about the motorway was less about being statistically accurate, but more a tongue-in-cheek suggestion that the things we call advancements often come with consequences (the bomb, television, microwave dinners).
I think it's common for "alien visits earth" stories to be a vehicle (pardon the pun) to get us to take a fresh look at things we take for granted.
|
|
Oct 2014
12:52pm, 1 Oct 2014
202 posts
|
westmoors
Interesting opinions. Agree about the editing both the need for and a better editor!
The more I think about this book, the more I am realising I didn't really like it.
|
