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kindleandilluminate's review against another edition
5.0
Nabokovian, macabre, witty; the reviewer who called this a "labyrinthine pastiche" was spot on. Wickedly clever - too clever by half, as one character's book is called - and tangled in a gloriously elaborate tangle of murder, deceit, storytelling, and, of course, betrayals. I was completely fascinated by this book and kept flipping back pages to return to clues and foreshadowing moments sprinkled through earlier chapters, or just to giggle knowingly over sly callbacks and connections. A deviously brilliant eyebrow-raise at the range of genres and ways we tell stories.
cbizzle's review against another edition
challenging
dark
funny
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
I oscillated from thinking Palliser was over ambitious and confused, to thinking him a genius while reading this, but ultimately settled on the latter. Worth sticking with it even when it parts feel impenetrable; it is all the richer for those bits!
spygrl1's review
4.0
Did you enjoy House of Leaves? How about A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters? Do you like puzzles? Murder mysteries?
Betrayals is a collection of seemingly disparate narratives: an obituary for a scientist written by a colleague who seems to delight in his rival's passing; the tale of four passengers stranded on a snowbound train, seemingly told by two very different people, with the stories the passengers tell one another to stave off cold and fear embedded within in it Canterbury-style; a somewhat unfavorable report on a manuscript that blends romance, horror, and references to Jack the Ripper; an account of a creepy academic cult of personality involving deconstruction, semiotics, psychology, buggery, and murder (also including references to both a Kipling story in which a boy's tongue is cut out and an Arab tale of revenge); a tale of a sultan's vengeance, translated from Arabic; a story, told to hotel guests by an old judge, that includes the perfect murder and how a parson's regret over the death of a boy leads to his suicide; the diary of a bookshop clerk who is obsessed with Jack the Ripper and the Armytage death, has difficulty telling fact from fiction, and befriends a professor/writer who is spins outlandish theories about the soap that comes on before his favorite detective show, which is currently embroiled in the investigation of a string of serial killings that appear connected to a stage play dealing with a number of historical figured, including Oscar Wilde, Sherlock Holmes, Gladstone, and Jack the Ripper; a series of letters from the author of successful potboilers to the less successful author of war novels who is seeking feedback on his new work, a story of sex, violence, and corruption in old Hollywood; an account of a once-successful author who met his downfall when he attempted to appropriate the work of another man in a complex scenario involving a book in which a once-successful author meets his downfall by attempting to appropriate the work of another man in a complex scenario involving a book in which a once-successful author meets his downfall by attempting to appropriate the work of another man (yes, seriously); a review of the book Down on Whores, published soon after the death of its author, a professor/writer who is believed to have been behind a series of murders and attacks; a summary of a controversial thinker's interpretation of a Kipling tale in which a boy's tongue is cut out; a goddman Index of Names that might have been helpful to know about from the very beginning.
Are you with me? Probably not. I have a burning desire to read this book again, with other people. I need a book club, or a class, or at the very least a partner.
Do you like crimes? Do you like puzzles? Are you feeling post-modern?
"To exist is to be betrayed, since we exist for others only by virtue of what we betray of ourselves to them."
Betrayals is a collection of seemingly disparate narratives: an obituary for a scientist written by a colleague who seems to delight in his rival's passing; the tale of four passengers stranded on a snowbound train, seemingly told by two very different people, with the stories the passengers tell one another to stave off cold and fear embedded within in it Canterbury-style; a somewhat unfavorable report on a manuscript that blends romance, horror, and references to Jack the Ripper; an account of a creepy academic cult of personality involving deconstruction, semiotics, psychology, buggery, and murder (also including references to both a Kipling story in which a boy's tongue is cut out and an Arab tale of revenge); a tale of a sultan's vengeance, translated from Arabic; a story, told to hotel guests by an old judge, that includes the perfect murder and how a parson's regret over the death of a boy leads to his suicide; the diary of a bookshop clerk who is obsessed with Jack the Ripper and the Armytage death, has difficulty telling fact from fiction, and befriends a professor/writer who is spins outlandish theories about the soap that comes on before his favorite detective show, which is currently embroiled in the investigation of a string of serial killings that appear connected to a stage play dealing with a number of historical figured, including Oscar Wilde, Sherlock Holmes, Gladstone, and Jack the Ripper; a series of letters from the author of successful potboilers to the less successful author of war novels who is seeking feedback on his new work, a story of sex, violence, and corruption in old Hollywood; an account of a once-successful author who met his downfall when he attempted to appropriate the work of another man in a complex scenario involving a book in which a once-successful author meets his downfall by attempting to appropriate the work of another man in a complex scenario involving a book in which a once-successful author meets his downfall by attempting to appropriate the work of another man (yes, seriously); a review of the book Down on Whores, published soon after the death of its author, a professor/writer who is believed to have been behind a series of murders and attacks; a summary of a controversial thinker's interpretation of a Kipling tale in which a boy's tongue is cut out; a goddman Index of Names that might have been helpful to know about from the very beginning.
Are you with me? Probably not. I have a burning desire to read this book again, with other people. I need a book club, or a class, or at the very least a partner.
Do you like crimes? Do you like puzzles? Are you feeling post-modern?
"To exist is to be betrayed, since we exist for others only by virtue of what we betray of ourselves to them."
nigellicus's review
5.0
So, Father's Day - also Bloomsday, it turns out - what's a doting Dad to do? Me, I spent most of it on the porch enjoying the low clouds, the cool breeze, the distant cries of unicyclists on the Square and read Betrayals by Charles Palliser. Eventually I went inside and read it some more, because the grey clouds did what grey clouds do and chased even the unicyclists away.
Betrayals was an unalloyed pleasure from first to last, and a reread at that. Since at least two of the disparate ten chapters are devoted in part to abstruse literary theory where the pleasure of reading is likened to an orgasm and reader and text can be, in assorted variations, phallic or emasculated, and in demanding answers from this book I'm being authoritatively phallic and in concealing these answers the book is being deceitfully phallic or silent and phallic or wordless and emasculated and, yes it's wall to wall phalluses at times, wrestling with phalluses, worshipping phalluses and occasionally lopping the unfortunate phalluses off. Let us ponder for a moment the similarity of phallus and fallacy. I bet Derrida liked that one.
So much for the literary theory sections, which also, it should be stated, incorporates poisonous academic rivalry, half-mad, half-depraved philosophers, murder, suicide, attempted murder and even a spot of plagiarism. This isn't even the start, that would be the obituary with the little sting in the tail, something of a theme with this book, then there's the Christie-esque story of travellers caught in a snowstorm and some tales within tales. Mysteries, murders, betrayals, lies, confessions and a parade of the least reliable narrators this side of Pinnochio's nose, constantly betraying themselves and each other with slip-ups, omissions and general cluelessness. In fact, the only narrator prone to telling the truth is the diarist in the longest, arguably central, chapter, and he has some difficulty telling fact from fiction, and befriends someone with a tendency to blend fiction with fact.
This is a reread from me, and fortunately I remembered that you will not end this book with the mysteries solved. Some, yes, some, no, some you're not too sure of. Perhaps the text supplies you with everything you need, perhaps not, I certainly haven't worked it out yet if it does. What it is is immensely clever and fun, pastiching a variety of modern genres, satirising the worlds of academia and publishing, interrogating the divide between true crime and fictional crime as well as high art and entertainment. You'll either run a mile from this or find it the most fun you can have on a rainy Father's Bloomsday when the unicyclists are out, but if you work out who lured the old lady to her doom and why, please let me know.
Betrayals was an unalloyed pleasure from first to last, and a reread at that. Since at least two of the disparate ten chapters are devoted in part to abstruse literary theory where the pleasure of reading is likened to an orgasm and reader and text can be, in assorted variations, phallic or emasculated, and in demanding answers from this book I'm being authoritatively phallic and in concealing these answers the book is being deceitfully phallic or silent and phallic or wordless and emasculated and, yes it's wall to wall phalluses at times, wrestling with phalluses, worshipping phalluses and occasionally lopping the unfortunate phalluses off. Let us ponder for a moment the similarity of phallus and fallacy. I bet Derrida liked that one.
So much for the literary theory sections, which also, it should be stated, incorporates poisonous academic rivalry, half-mad, half-depraved philosophers, murder, suicide, attempted murder and even a spot of plagiarism. This isn't even the start, that would be the obituary with the little sting in the tail, something of a theme with this book, then there's the Christie-esque story of travellers caught in a snowstorm and some tales within tales. Mysteries, murders, betrayals, lies, confessions and a parade of the least reliable narrators this side of Pinnochio's nose, constantly betraying themselves and each other with slip-ups, omissions and general cluelessness. In fact, the only narrator prone to telling the truth is the diarist in the longest, arguably central, chapter, and he has some difficulty telling fact from fiction, and befriends someone with a tendency to blend fiction with fact.
This is a reread from me, and fortunately I remembered that you will not end this book with the mysteries solved. Some, yes, some, no, some you're not too sure of. Perhaps the text supplies you with everything you need, perhaps not, I certainly haven't worked it out yet if it does. What it is is immensely clever and fun, pastiching a variety of modern genres, satirising the worlds of academia and publishing, interrogating the divide between true crime and fictional crime as well as high art and entertainment. You'll either run a mile from this or find it the most fun you can have on a rainy Father's Bloomsday when the unicyclists are out, but if you work out who lured the old lady to her doom and why, please let me know.
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