Contemporary Literature

  1. Home
  2. Entertainment
  3. Contemporary Literature
photo of Mark Flanagan

Mark's Contemporary Literature Blog

By Mark Flanagan, About.com Guide to Contemporary Literature since 2003

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.

Review of Jonathan Barnes' The Somnambulist

Comments

No comments yet. Leave a Comment

Leave a Comment

Line and paragraph breaks are automatic. Some HTML allowed: <a href="" title="">, <b>, <i>, <strike>

Discuss

Community Forum

Explore Contemporary Literature

About.com Special Features

Movie Comedies in 2009

Find out what belly laughs are in store at the 2009 box office. More >

Scrapbook Technique Gallery

Use these ideas to inspire your own uniquely beautiful pages. More >

Contemporary Literature

  1. Home
  2. Entertainment
  3. Contemporary Literature

©2009 About.com, a part of The New York Times Company.

All rights reserved.