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Like Thomas' PopCo, I found this both fascinating and frustrating. Thomas definitely achieves something really special with her ability to make her writing intensely cerebral (some of my favorite parts of Mr. Y were the digressions into quantum physics and other brain-stretching topics) while at the same time creating very human, flawed characters. Still, there's a quality of...coldness that prevents me from becoming emotionally involved. Perhaps the whole thing seems too clever, too orchestrat
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I know we're not supposed to judge books by their covers, but this cover was just so fantastic that I had to buy the book. I didn't know anything about the book going into it, just that the back said that it was about sex, death, and time travel. So I thought, why not?
I think this book was much smarter than I am. It talked about quantum physics and post-modernism. But despite that, the story was still entertaining and understandable. It didn't make me feel dumb by showing off its intelligence. ...more
I think this book was much smarter than I am. It talked about quantum physics and post-modernism. But despite that, the story was still entertaining and understandable. It didn't make me feel dumb by showing off its intelligence. ...more
You know how you sometimes have one idea of what a book's going to be like, and then you start reading it, and it turns out to be totally different? Yeah, that was me and this book. Not that that was a bad thing at all, it just took me completely by surprise. I had expected a fun fantasy - not an almost scientific account of though experiments.
In writing style (not genre or plot, just style) it reminded me a lot of Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder - a fictional story interspersed with a lot of ...more
In writing style (not genre or plot, just style) it reminded me a lot of Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder - a fictional story interspersed with a lot of ...more
Ariel, a graduate student studying the work of 19th century novelist Thomas Lumas, stumbles across an extraordinarily rare copy of his novel The End of Mr. Y, which is believed to be cursed. The story leads her to explore, via a homeopathic tincture, the alternate universe known as the Troposhpere, in which she and its other denizens can enter the minds of others, including other sentient creatures. The problem: Ariel's knowledge of the Troposphere threatens a secret government project in mind c
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Amazing. I cannot believe it took me this long to find Miss Scarlett Thomas, but I am hereby a devout follower. The quote from author Jonathan Coe on the cover precisely sums it up: "Not only will you have a great time reading this book, but you will finish it a cleverer person than when you started." I am in complete awe of any novelist who can converse about physics, religion and philosophy in such an incredibly compelling yet oddly understandable fashion. This book begs to be discussed at len
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Weirdly tech-savvy in an everyday-normal way you don't normally see in books, and lots of pop-science quantum mechanics married to, like, Derrida 101 and theology and stuff. And it's written in the present tense. .... but it's actually about telepathy. Sort of. Dragged in a few places, but is mostly really engrossing. (If you liked The Matrix you'd probably really like this, and I'm not just saying that because there's a Baudrillard epigraph. But not liking The Matrix shouldn't keep you away fro
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Great concept, botched ending.
Reread - Still broadly agree with my impression from last time. I can see that the author is more interested in philosophy than in the story which is a shame. There is something about the introduction of Mr Y to the source of his secret that makes me think the course of the story could potentially be reversed and re-written better.
Reread - Still broadly agree with my impression from last time. I can see that the author is more interested in philosophy than in the story which is a shame. There is something about the introduction of Mr Y to the source of his secret that makes me think the course of the story could potentially be reversed and re-written better.
Recommended to me (and loaned to me) by Lisa. Kind of a "House of Leaves" lite. More interested with philosophical quandary and less interested in creeping the shit out of you. Ultimately v. satisfying in a lit-nerd kind of way. Deconstructionist and playful.
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Aug 16, 2007
Laura
rated it
it was amazing
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review of another edition
Shelves:
old-reads,
mt-bookpile-pre-2010
Wow. I'm not sure what to say about this book. It's like Sophie's World, but with quantum physics and metaphors and the meaning of prayer and... just read it.
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Unexpected ending but good unexpected
Nov 14, 2015
Anna Gaffey
marked it as to-read
Jan 08, 2018
Kate
marked it as to-read
Aug 29, 2018
Soren
marked it as to-read
