The Somnambulist by Jonathan Barnes
Monday April 21, 2008
In the first paragraph of Jonathan Barnes' The Somnambulist the omniscient narrator suggests that nothing is as it seems, that perhaps this is a phantasmagoric imagination, a conceit of illusion, "a book with no literary merit whatsoever. It is a lurid piece of nonsense, convoluted, implausible, people by unconvincing characters, written in drearily pedestrian prose, frequently ridiculous and willfully bizarre." The narrator is exactly right.
Comments
I actually found it to be quite an enjoyable read. Reminded me more of some of Kafka’s work rather than Dickens, actually, most of which was made famous for the very sensationalism and complicated plot you seem to complain about. This book was quite a bit more refreshing for me than some of the other novels which have been released recently. Don’t you ever get tired of clean-cut plots and hospital corners in story arcs? When it gets to the point where I know what is coming next in a book, I get tired of it, and it happens often. It is not that I am some phenomenal genius, they are just all frightfully similar, and to be honest it is the widespread germ of “thou shalt write this way” which I hold to blame for that. Barnes doesn’t let himself fall into the chasm of mediocre, predictable writing which so many find comfy, and I for one think of that as a good thing.