taurustorus's review against another edition
emotional
funny
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
lorimichelekelley's review against another edition
2.0
Audible edition: I don't like movies about actors, and I'm tired of books about authors. I figured if anyone could pull me in, it would be Paul Murray, but nope. The characters, while they came to life, never really entered reality, so it was kind of almost like a comedy character sketch, but it wasn't funny at all. The story itself was boring - a writer who doesn't write, a banker who has money but no life, a stripper who isn't happy with her slacker husband, an annoying kid, and a weird misogynist-thug Russian guy are all there to tell the story of how the banks have ruined the world. But it isn't anything we haven't heard a million times before, and in a more succinct way. And then there's the author's plight of not being able to think of a good story to write. I remember reading that this book might be a bit of an autobiography, or at least the author character is Murray, as the author character's name is Paul, and it's been 5 years since Skippy Dies. Whatever the case, it was boring to hear all the dumb ideas they threw around for the book. It was frustrating to hear the banker trying to help the writer, as I never really understood why either of them remained in the other's life. And it induced sighs of "yeah, blah, blah, blah" in hearing about the IMF and the CEO bonuses because we've heard it all before and it just doesn't matter as we are clearly not going to do anything about it. Murray touches on that, talking about an author's role in the 21st century and an apathetic public and how no matter what happens, we just whistle and walk away, and maybe this book is his effort to show us how ignorant we're being, how ludicrous we are, and how we could be so much better. In that case, I guess he succeeded. Liking a book isn't a measure of its success. How long it lives in you and how it just keeps informing parts of conversations and thoughts, that's where it's at. So who knows, this might be more enduring than I am currently aware, but for now, god I'm glad I'm done with that 16+ hours! Narrator was fabulous!
joel_buck's review against another edition
1.0
I don't even know where to start with what a drag this book was. I don't know that I could name a single thing I liked about it or even that will stick with me from it, other than how lackluster the characters, style, and conceit were. This is especially disappointing because of how much I enjoyed Murray's first two novels. I finished it sitting in the DMV and the prospect of waiting for my number to be called in peace actually felt preferable to having to continue reading it.
shogins's review against another edition
3.0
Thinking of giving this another star, because I do love me some metafiction.
runkefer's review against another edition
4.0
A comic novel of bankers and global economic collapse. Bear with me. Paul Murray's send-up of the financial markets by way of a banker in Dublin gives a "nothing behind the curtain" view of the invisible hand that pulls the levers of our modern world. Along the way it skewers modern art, the publishing industry, and the bloodless calculus of the E.U.'s handling of sovereign debt. And it's hilarious--the darkest kind of comedy that is about the truth.
unicornsinshangrila's review against another edition
2.0
The ending made this book just better than ok but still not enough to say I truly liked this book.
I enjoyed the whole book in a book setup and had a d'oh moment when I realised that the authors name is Paul Murray and the main character's name is Paul.
Other than that though, the book felt too long. Whenever Paul wasn't in the book, it was boring and the while I appreciate that it's supposed be funny, the stupidity of nearly all the characters was just annoying. It didn't have the oomph to make you chuckle, more like roll your eyes.
All the shade thrown at the banking world got pretty laborious. It kind of felt like Murray was going for American Psycho vibes but just didn't deliver it as well.
Here I am turning in to Mary Cutlass, sorry Murray. Too much Void, not enough Mark.
I enjoyed the whole book in a book setup and had a d'oh moment when I realised that the authors name is Paul Murray and the main character's name is Paul.
Other than that though, the book felt too long. Whenever Paul wasn't in the book, it was boring and the while I appreciate that it's supposed be funny, the stupidity of nearly all the characters was just annoying. It didn't have the oomph to make you chuckle, more like roll your eyes.
All the shade thrown at the banking world got pretty laborious. It kind of felt like Murray was going for American Psycho vibes but just didn't deliver it as well.
Here I am turning in to Mary Cutlass, sorry Murray. Too much Void, not enough Mark.
cheekypearson's review against another edition
5.0
This book is brilliant. If you weren't baffled by the incredulous way modern finance works, you'd be angry. This book is awesome! It's funny and very true, every statement, every chapter, just really, real.
bjr2022's review against another edition
3.0
A man in black—a writer named Paul—declares his intention to write a book about a French banker named Claude working in Dublin.
So begins Paul Murray’s new novel.
The tale—twisting through the world of banking, the implosion of the economy, the sale of stuff that has no substance (derivatives of nothing, valued inequity, monetized failure), and the purpose or non-purpose of art, plus a love story—is at times hard to follow for somebody (moi) who does not have a finance or business vocabulary. Sometimes the tale twists feel like dead ends; I wanted to be laughing, but the action felt contrived. Sometimes the characters’ concerns (i.e., Claude’s for con man Paul’s decision to stop writing books) felt unfounded.
And yet, the writing is glorious and sometimes (particularly in the earlier part of the book) hilarious.
I read Murray’s Skippy Dies, loved it, but was bothered by some forced vocabulary particularly in the narrative parts. There are none of those problems in this new book. The nuts and bolts of the writing (vocabulary, sentence structure, exquisite narrative descriptions) is mature and honed. However the almost serial quality from chapter to chapter that worked so well in Skippy Dies here feels scattered. I don’t know if it’s the venue of finance with so many players, or if it’s my own limitations, but it was hard to remember who everybody was.
Both Skippy and The Mark and the Void display virtuoso dialogue; Murray has a gift for accents. But in this new book, voices’ accents come and go, and Claude, the French protagonist, does not sound French. In fact, in a short chapter about corporations, with discussions about cameras and images and defeating death (265–268), he suddenly loses any sound semblance of a character. Or maybe this is simply what it sounds like—Murray expounding history and philosophy in an essay.
An author’s essay splat in the middle of Claude’s narrative? Where was the editor? The text designer? (Since the book opens with an author’s note, a case could be made for this being a second one—if only they were delineated with some design element.) Where was Murray? Did he insist on this? Did everyone involved assume we readers are “just looking at [our] phones . . . being somewhere else” so we won’t notice? Was Murray considered “too big to fail” after Skippy Dies success so that he was allowed to make a mess? He could have cleaned up the whole thing by writing the book in the third person—so he could drop in the author’s omniscient voice whenever he wanted, give Claude an authentic French character’s sound, and make him into a true naïve who would make the decisions he makes, and leave the analytical philosophizing to the omniscient author. The voice/tone change during and following this essay is so radical that it makes it dubious that this articulate new person would have participated in some of the screwball action that preceded it as well as what follows.
When I start thinking like this, I’m in my “professional editor’s head” and this is when I usually abandon a book. However, it was page 270 by the time this happened, and since I have such respect for Murray’s ineffable spark—it is a brilliant and scintillating talent—and his ideas are so compelling and clarifying to what is currently going on in the world, I kept reading just to watch him exercise his sparkle. (Fun fantasy: a panel discussion on the nature of our existence with Paul Murray and Haruki Murakami.)
I recommend this book to people who are interested in Paul Murray’s work. But it’s like watching a very rough workout.
‘So you want to write a book that has no meaning,’ I [Claude] say.
‘I want to write a book that isn’t full of things that only ever happen in books,’ he says. ‘I want to write something that genuinely reflects how we live today. Real, actual life, not some ivory-tower palaver, not a whole load of literature. What’s it like to be alive in the twenty-first century? Look at this place, for example.’ He sweeps an arm at the window, the glass anonymity of the International Financial Services Centre. . . . There are all these people, but nobody’s speaking to each other, everyone’s just looking at their phones. And that’s what this place is for. It’s a place for being somewhere else. Being here means not being here. And that’s modern life.’ (15)
So begins Paul Murray’s new novel.
The tale—twisting through the world of banking, the implosion of the economy, the sale of stuff that has no substance (derivatives of nothing, valued inequity, monetized failure), and the purpose or non-purpose of art, plus a love story—is at times hard to follow for somebody (moi) who does not have a finance or business vocabulary. Sometimes the tale twists feel like dead ends; I wanted to be laughing, but the action felt contrived. Sometimes the characters’ concerns (i.e., Claude’s for con man Paul’s decision to stop writing books) felt unfounded.
And yet, the writing is glorious and sometimes (particularly in the earlier part of the book) hilarious.
I read Murray’s Skippy Dies, loved it, but was bothered by some forced vocabulary particularly in the narrative parts. There are none of those problems in this new book. The nuts and bolts of the writing (vocabulary, sentence structure, exquisite narrative descriptions) is mature and honed. However the almost serial quality from chapter to chapter that worked so well in Skippy Dies here feels scattered. I don’t know if it’s the venue of finance with so many players, or if it’s my own limitations, but it was hard to remember who everybody was.
Both Skippy and The Mark and the Void display virtuoso dialogue; Murray has a gift for accents. But in this new book, voices’ accents come and go, and Claude, the French protagonist, does not sound French. In fact, in a short chapter about corporations, with discussions about cameras and images and defeating death (265–268), he suddenly loses any sound semblance of a character. Or maybe this is simply what it sounds like—Murray expounding history and philosophy in an essay.
An author’s essay splat in the middle of Claude’s narrative? Where was the editor? The text designer? (Since the book opens with an author’s note, a case could be made for this being a second one—if only they were delineated with some design element.) Where was Murray? Did he insist on this? Did everyone involved assume we readers are “just looking at [our] phones . . . being somewhere else” so we won’t notice? Was Murray considered “too big to fail” after Skippy Dies success so that he was allowed to make a mess? He could have cleaned up the whole thing by writing the book in the third person—so he could drop in the author’s omniscient voice whenever he wanted, give Claude an authentic French character’s sound, and make him into a true naïve who would make the decisions he makes, and leave the analytical philosophizing to the omniscient author. The voice/tone change during and following this essay is so radical that it makes it dubious that this articulate new person would have participated in some of the screwball action that preceded it as well as what follows.
When I start thinking like this, I’m in my “professional editor’s head” and this is when I usually abandon a book. However, it was page 270 by the time this happened, and since I have such respect for Murray’s ineffable spark—it is a brilliant and scintillating talent—and his ideas are so compelling and clarifying to what is currently going on in the world, I kept reading just to watch him exercise his sparkle. (Fun fantasy: a panel discussion on the nature of our existence with Paul Murray and Haruki Murakami.)
I recommend this book to people who are interested in Paul Murray’s work. But it’s like watching a very rough workout.
justinm's review against another edition
funny
lighthearted
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0