Remarkable

My lack of spare time in the last couple of months hasn’t just affected the number of postings on here but also the amount of reading I’ve done. A few weeks back though I did finish ‘If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things’ by Jon McGregor.

There are two strands to the book – the run-up to a tragic but, for most of the book, unspecified incident, and jumping forward a few months the only named character from that time frame coping with an unplanned pregnancy and a slightly strange relationship with the brother of one of her former neighbours.

The whole book is riddled with unease. McGregor partly accomplishes that by not divulging details of the tragedy (which springs from one of the remarkable things of the title) until the book’s climax. But the expectant mother’s relationship with the brother is also unsettling – the text is littered with suggestions that the brother is not all that he seems.

As a portrait of a neighbourhood in a city in which no-one really knows each other, this works tremendously well. McGregor uses the device of not naming most of his characters which makes things a little difficult to keep up with when you’re only reading a few pages at a time. But it’s a device that illustrates the different lives of these characters particularly the impact that some of the remarkable things which affect otherwise apparently normal lives.

It’s not the easiest of reads (particularly in small chunks) but it is an interesting and well written novel which has a lot to say about how little people relate to each other in urban environments.

Buy the book here.

There’s no real musical links within the book nor have I been able to find out if the author’s tastes in any way overlap with MPT, so here’s a track which has something of an urban grime feel to it..

Arab Strap – Come Round and Love Me (from ‘The Last Romance’) [Buy it]

~ by manicpopthrills on November 6, 2007.