meemawreads's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.0
Couldn’t get a good sense of time and place, it was vibes-only world building. Women in the story mainly serve as projections of the male characters’ insecurities. Bored by the endless monologing about “brave flowers” and other attempts at poetic scene-setting. The child/teen character is naive one minute and musing about leftover moonlight the next. Couldn’t connect. End was stupid.
currerbell's review against another edition
5.0
An average of 3.05? Did we read the same novel?!
I've taken a few days since finishing The Glister to think about it and come down from my excitable state, so that this review didn't read like an incomprehensible smattering of "oh wow!" and "brilliant!". This was only my second Burnside novel, but I feel confident in saying that he is one of my favourite contemporary authors. He writes with such mastery, and the way that he illustrates Innertown and its ghostly, menacing atmosphere is distinct and chilling. I adore how this is written, switching from third person to first and providing the reader with glimpses from different characters but propelling the tale through Leonard's narrative. In the same way that I got anxious as I neared the end of The Dumb House and nothing had been resolved, I was intensely curious when I got to the final 30 pages of The Glister and there was no resolution in sight. Just as the town is depicted as bleak, murky, and mysterious, we become implicated through our own confusion at what is going on. Burnside doesn't provide any conclusive answers. I thought that this novel was brilliant before I got to the ending, but once I read the final page, I was in absolute awe. If you're interested in an atmospheric, grey haze type of novel, a Holden Caulfield-type narrator, the familiarity of Lepidoptera in disturbing texts but with a distinctive and sacred twist, you will enjoy this.
I've taken a few days since finishing The Glister to think about it and come down from my excitable state, so that this review didn't read like an incomprehensible smattering of "oh wow!" and "brilliant!". This was only my second Burnside novel, but I feel confident in saying that he is one of my favourite contemporary authors. He writes with such mastery, and the way that he illustrates Innertown and its ghostly, menacing atmosphere is distinct and chilling. I adore how this is written, switching from third person to first and providing the reader with glimpses from different characters but propelling the tale through Leonard's narrative. In the same way that I got anxious as I neared the end of The Dumb House and nothing had been resolved, I was intensely curious when I got to the final 30 pages of The Glister and there was no resolution in sight. Just as the town is depicted as bleak, murky, and mysterious, we become implicated through our own confusion at what is going on. Burnside doesn't provide any conclusive answers. I thought that this novel was brilliant before I got to the ending, but once I read the final page, I was in absolute awe. If you're interested in an atmospheric, grey haze type of novel, a Holden Caulfield-type narrator, the familiarity of Lepidoptera in disturbing texts but with a distinctive and sacred twist, you will enjoy this.
fant_ine's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
manwithanagenda's review against another edition
dark
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
1.25
'The Glister' promises a great deal, but in the end it has little more to offer than that cheap trick of the modern "literary" novel: writing the last chapter in obfuscating prose to mask the fact that as an author you never had an end-game in mind.
Burnside's Innertown's post-industrial decay and dispirited inhabitants aren't too far off from reality, and the mystery of the missing children, the cover-up and the desperation add an urgency to the story. The whole novel suffers from overwriting, but that's something I'll always forgive - especially if the effect is as pleasing as 'The Glister' was - if the author can back up their fluff with something substantial.
Leonard, the teenage boy who we're led to believe is our protagonist, seems to be on the right track to figuring out the problem that is Innertown, or at the very least escaping it, until his journey fizzles. He doesn't learn anything. His character starts as being worldly wise and ambivalent and the novel leaves him that way. Am I naive to have wanted more? Am I hopelessly stuck with some modernist expectation for a novel to achieve something? Should I just shrug 'The Glister' off because even if it didn't amount to anything, at least it sounded good while it lasted? Maybe there's something to that, but if I'm going to redefine my expectations of what a novel should be, its going to be something damn better than this.
Burnside's Innertown's post-industrial decay and dispirited inhabitants aren't too far off from reality, and the mystery of the missing children, the cover-up and the desperation add an urgency to the story. The whole novel suffers from overwriting, but that's something I'll always forgive - especially if the effect is as pleasing as 'The Glister' was - if the author can back up their fluff with something substantial.
Leonard, the teenage boy who we're led to believe is our protagonist, seems to be on the right track to figuring out the problem that is Innertown, or at the very least escaping it, until his journey fizzles. He doesn't learn anything. His character starts as being worldly wise and ambivalent and the novel leaves him that way. Am I naive to have wanted more? Am I hopelessly stuck with some modernist expectation for a novel to achieve something? Should I just shrug 'The Glister' off because even if it didn't amount to anything, at least it sounded good while it lasted? Maybe there's something to that, but if I'm going to redefine my expectations of what a novel should be, its going to be something damn better than this.
abetterbradley's review
2.0
The book was so-so. It's a really good story (a dying town with an abandoned chemical plant on the outskirts and teen boys going missing) but, at the end, it really goes nowhere.
luftschlosseule's review against another edition
4.0
trigger warning
well, this was weird.
Spoiler
mutilation, torture, rape, suicide, mental illnesswell, this was weird.
medtechgirl19's review against another edition
Strangest book I've ever read. I wouldn't recommend it.
scottishclaire's review against another edition
4.0
I didn’t know what to expect when I picked up this read, as it was a spur of the moment gamble in the bookshop but it’s definitely paid off.
I can understand why there are a lot of middling reviews for this book, as plot-wise you’re not going to get a neatly concluded story with all the loose ends tied together. The blurb on the back of the book reads like a crime novel, but you’re getting something else completely.
Glister is unsettling, darkly atmospheric and dreamlike. This world is a horrible place you know and have passed through on the way to somewhere else, but it’s that horrible place on steroids, its nastiness heightened and elevated.
This book feels distinctly Scottish; it reminded of The Wasp Factory, mixed in with a dash of The Wicker Man, Lord of the Flies and a few other delightfully gruesome references. Would absolutely read more of this author’s work - not sure he will be able to top this one, though.
I can understand why there are a lot of middling reviews for this book, as plot-wise you’re not going to get a neatly concluded story with all the loose ends tied together. The blurb on the back of the book reads like a crime novel, but you’re getting something else completely.
Glister is unsettling, darkly atmospheric and dreamlike. This world is a horrible place you know and have passed through on the way to somewhere else, but it’s that horrible place on steroids, its nastiness heightened and elevated.
This book feels distinctly Scottish; it reminded of The Wasp Factory, mixed in with a dash of The Wicker Man, Lord of the Flies and a few other delightfully gruesome references. Would absolutely read more of this author’s work - not sure he will be able to top this one, though.