I am not sure yet what I think of this book and this author. The ending kind of dumbfounded me. I may change my mind on the rating of this book after I have a little more time to assimilate iThe author starts with a "news article" about a man found in a car suffering from hypothermia in Scotland. Then he goes to Max on his last day in Australia visiting his father and follows him on his return to England. He gets an upgrade to Premium Economy. He decides he needs to begin communicating with other people - he has always been extremely quiet and unwilling to talk to others. So, he decides he will talk to the guy next to him on the plane bak to England. While he is talking, the man gets very quiet, but he goes on talking. The stewardess has to stop him and tell him the man is dead - apparently of a heart attack. The dead man is replaced by a young woman who was on standby, and she tells him of her Uncle Clive who is very dear to her. As an example she talks of an exhibit that Clive wants her to go with him to see. There is a picture of a shop the 'Teignton Electron' that was involved in an around-the-world race. The seaman, Donald Crowhurst, realizes shortly after starting that he cannot finish the voyage, not an survive, but he apparently feels he is in too deep to quit. So, he decides to sail off the cost and come in about 5th, after the others are back, so he won't be questioned too deeply. He won't win any price and hopefully no attention. But things go wrong with some of the other ships, a couple of people withdraw, and he is stuck in the limelight. He cannot handle the pressure of what has happened, and takes his face logbook and steps off the boat into the ocean. This story profoundly affects Max as he decides to change jobs (he has been suffering from clinical depression and his wife left him 6 months easrlier taking their teenage daughter). He accepts a new job with a small toothbrush company for a publicity stunt that has four salesmen driving to each of the far corners of the Britain with toothbrushes to give away and take orders. But during his drive to the Shetland Islands, he stops to visit people and goes by his father's old apartment and picks up a notebook his father wanted. Max has never been close to his father. He finds his father's notebook and reads a story in it of an encounter his father had with a man, Roger, who still sends him postcards from all over the world. Max realizes his father was homosexual and Max himself is the result of a confused encounter with a woman his father worked with. His father married her when she discovered she was pregnant. In dealing with all this, trying to process and understand discoveries he has made in his encounters with old friends, Max has a breakdown and identifies with Donald Crowhurst. He has begun talking to his NavSat, he calls her Emma, and they being having conversations - or at least he thinks they do. He does not follow through to his destination, but is found in the car, trapped in the snow - the man in the article. After he recovers, his life begins to improve and he finds the Roger that wrote his father and arranges a meeting for his father with Roger. *******CRITICAL SPOILER*************Now, here is the really strange part.At the end of the book, when Max has come to terms with himself, his father, and life is looking up - he meets a man on the beach who claims to know him. He is an author that Max had seen at the airport. Max asks him where he gets his ideas from. The man being to point out episodes from Max's life which makes Max uneasy. When Max tries to leave, the man blocks his path and tells him it's over. He'll never know what happens next, because he has finished the book - right now. He snaps his fingers and the book ends. I find this ending a little disturbing.I don't know if this is derived from the Thursday Next series where the characters in a book go on with their own lives after the book is over or not. I guess Coe is saying that characters have no lives outside of their books. I don't believe I agree with this. Some authors talk about characters just turning up in a book and not knowing where they came from. Others talk about characters that refuse to be written as they had planned them. This had the promise of being a really good book but I felt like it never really got here with it's writing. The plot is interesting enough and at moments he really hits his stride with this observations but most of the time I felt it was just trying too hard to be funny. A few laugh out loud moments though and the main character's distress was well done. An okay book but not one I'd really recommend.
Do You like book La Vie Très Privée De Mr Sim (2010)?
On s'amuse bien même si les ficelles sont visibles.
—ivan
