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A review by brannigan
Burial by Neil Cross
2.0
This isn't normally my kind of reading material, but my uncle leant it to me so I read it out of politness. Truth be told, I enjoyed it for the most part, albeit in the disgusting way you enjoy ten chicken mcnuggets at 1am but feel terrible about yourself immediately afterwards.
It's horribly written. Cross affects a terse, short-sentence style, in an attempt to manufacture some cock-swinging tension. This bothered me at first, until I learned to ignore it - occasionally, though, Cross takes the whole minimalist thing a tad too far and throws out some sentences so badly formed they would shame a six-year-old, e.g. "He called Bob. Who said, 'how are you?'" And "he started the engine and spun the wheels up to 60 miles an hour". I'm not even sure the latter one makes sense.
The redeeming feature is the decent plot, though it does take a bit of a nosedive with the last fifty-odd pages, culminating in an ultimately unconvincing ending. Still, the highlight is Cross' portrayal of a guilt-racked man, sleeping with the light on, getting pissed and being driven to the end of his tether. It is this which gives the book such great atmosphere, and I was reminded a bit of Raskolnikov's spiral into madness in Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment.
In all, it's a bit of a let-down, but an OK diversion for a day or two.
It's horribly written. Cross affects a terse, short-sentence style, in an attempt to manufacture some cock-swinging tension. This bothered me at first, until I learned to ignore it - occasionally, though, Cross takes the whole minimalist thing a tad too far and throws out some sentences so badly formed they would shame a six-year-old, e.g. "He called Bob. Who said, 'how are you?'" And "he started the engine and spun the wheels up to 60 miles an hour". I'm not even sure the latter one makes sense.
The redeeming feature is the decent plot, though it does take a bit of a nosedive with the last fifty-odd pages, culminating in an ultimately unconvincing ending. Still, the highlight is Cross' portrayal of a guilt-racked man, sleeping with the light on, getting pissed and being driven to the end of his tether. It is this which gives the book such great atmosphere, and I was reminded a bit of Raskolnikov's spiral into madness in Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment.
In all, it's a bit of a let-down, but an OK diversion for a day or two.