Film Review: Strangers on a Train

It may have come about as a result of an exhausting train journey I endured a few days ago or possibly because it’s Wimbledon fortnight – tennis being a daily headline at the moment. Maybe it happened because of both of these things or perhaps neither. However yesterday, Hitchcock’s 1951 thriller popped into my mind, vied for my attention and consequently prompted me to put pen to paper, so to speak.

Actually I’m surprised after looking back at the titles I’ve reviewed for this website over the past sixteen months that I’ve only reviewed one other Hitchcock film – North by Northwest. After all, I am a great admirer of his work. Maybe I’ve restrained myself on account of his films having been so extensively written about already but then, when one thinks of his best known films, Strangers on a Train often gets overlooked. And yet for me, it’s one of his finest efforts.

The plot is a simple one and I shall refrain from giving too much away for those who might not yet have seen it. It begins with a chance encounter between two men on a train. Guy Haines (Farley Granger) is a semi-famous tennis player (ergo the Wimbledon connection) with designs on a political career, a slut of a wife, Miriam (Laura Elliott) whom he’s hoping to divorce and a real dish of a girlfriend, Anne Morton (Ruth Roman) who just happens to be the daughter of a senator (Leo G. Carroll). The other man, Bruno Anthony (Robert Walker) is a smooth-talking weirdo with a worrying line in small talk. The two men chat over lunch in Bruno’s compartment and Bruno, who is aware of Guy’s private life via the gossip columns, explains his idea for the perfect murder. A simple criss-cross theory. Two complete strangers with nothing to connect them, swap the murders they would like to commit thereby absolving themselves of any motive and giving the police no clue as to the guilty parties. Bruno says that he’ll murder Guy’s unfaithful wife, leaving him free to marry Anne if Guy will murder Bruno’s overbearing father. Naturally enough, Guy makes a polite but hasty exit from the train compartment however, unfortunately for him, Bruno thinks a deal has been made.

Sometime later, Bruno follows Miriam and her two boyfriends to an amusement park and after a short boat ride, he strangles the life out of her in the darkness on the Isle of Love. Meanwhile Guy is on a train chatting to a drunk college professor who turns out to be an unreliable witness when, called by the police to corroborate Guy’s alibi claim, says he can’t remember their meeting. Guy is shocked and horrified that Bruno actually went ahead and murdered Miriam and is repeatedly harassed by Bruno and told that he now has no choice but to kill Bruno’s father. What ensues is a sublimely constructed thriller, perfectly paced, with just the right amount of humour (supplied in the main by Patricia Hitchcock who plays Anne’s younger sister Barbara) to make it still scary yet hugely entertaining.

Fade outs to black and swipes between scenes are replaced by a quick editing style and often cross-cutting between Guy and Bruno via their dialogue and movements, thereby seamlessly moving from scene to scene, the tempo never letting up. Strangers on a Train is a masterclass in how to build tension all the way to the finale and in true Hitchcock fashion, the climax takes place within a great visual location – this time aboard an out of control carousel spinning like a centrifuge. Implausible it may be with Guy’s legs flailing behind him like a sequence from The Simpsons but the skill behind the execution is evident in its greatness. With fighting and explosions and splintering wooden horses and screaming children it’s an incredible blend of close-ups, miniatures and background projections.

In my humble opinion, the film is worth watching for the Oscar nominated black and white cinematography alone. The gorgeous use of light and shadow is perhaps some of the finest of any Hitchcock film and it would see cinematographer Robert Burks begin a fourteen year run with the director and shooting every one of his remaining pictures with the exception of Psycho in 1960. The lighting is frequently dark and moody and choice camera angles and optical effects – so typical of Hitchcock’s style – add to the overall atmosphere of the film and keep the visuals interesting without ever going too far. There are several almost surreal shots from intriguing angles but perhaps the most famous shot of all (and one that is still studied in academic circles) is when Bruno strangles Miriam at the amusement park, the moment captured in the reflection of her glasses after they fall to the ground during her brief struggle. It’s simply cinematic perfection. Numerous other little blink-and-you’ll-miss-them gems are peppered throughout the film – Guy wiping lipstick off his face before meeting Anne’s father, Bruno’s shadow in the tunnel of love looming over his intended victim, Bruno again standing alone on the Jefferson Memorial, his dark figure an unwelcome stain on the white purity of the structure’s marble. It’s these subtleties, telling us the audience so much, that reveal the genius of the director.

The casting is spot on from the clean-cut figure of Guy Haines to Marion Lorne who plays Bruno’s befuddled mother (another character that adds a little comedy) but the performance of the movie and – one would argue – of his life, comes from Robert Walker. He’s just superb; charming, erudite, a bit of a dandy, but dark, deeply unbalanced, brooding. It was a role meant for him and I couldn’t imagine anyone else doing as good a job as he did. Sadly he died two months after the film’s release aged just 32 but his performance here will live on and be lauded for as long as people watch films.

Of course, all this visual brilliance starts with the written word and this came from a novel of the same name by Patricia Highsmith. In the end there would be numerous differences between novel and screenplay and Hitchcock had a bit of a hard time getting the script he wanted. Originally, he had hopes for a proven writer to lend the project some clout and was looking at people like John Steinbeck and Dashiell Hammett but they showed little interest. Raymond Chandler wrote a draft but fell foul of Hitchcock when the two couldn’t get along and so after a suggestion from Ben Hecht – who had already written Spellbound and Notorious for Hitchcock but was unavailable – he hired Hecht’s assistant Czenzi Ormonde. She was a fair haired beauty who had no formal screen credit but had recently published a collection of short stories which was well received by critics. At their first meeting, Hitchcock encouraged her to forget all about Highsmith’s book and proceeded to tell her the entire story himself. It clearly worked because the film has a crisp linearity from beginning to end and a leanness to every scene. There’s no wasted dialogue and not a single unnecessary frame.

Bottom line – a true classic.

 

Modern Book Review: Star of the Sea (2003)

In 2003, Irish author Joseph O’Connor released the historical novel Star of the Sea, combining fact and fiction in an innovative way to create a tale – a collective biography – depicting the harrowing journey undergone by Irish immigrants escaping the terrible famine ravaging the country. This period in history would come to be widely known as “the greatest social catastrophe of 19th century Europe”, as described in a review of the novel upon its release by Terry Eagleton. Such was the immense scale of human loss and sacrifice.

 The main event in the narrative – the Star of the Sea voyage – takes place in 1847, with the details of various passengers’ life stories continually emerging. These eventually combine to create a collage of human experience within the context of “History”, managing to be every bit as evocative, as if it were written –or compiled as the case seems to be – into a present-day diary. The voyage of the Star of the Sea to America became infamous as one of the most deadly of those many that attempted a similar path across the ocean, claiming lives relentlessly throughout the journey – with a cruel irony, some even before the journey had begun.

The “menace” of the impending journey is established early; the “viciously black water which could explode at the slightest provocation” already sets a dangerous and foreboding atmosphere. A dark figure – the Ghost, or the Monster, as he is described in the passage, whose real name is Pius Mulvey, stalks the decks, adding menace to an already apprehensive atmosphere. “He seemed to carry an indescribable burden” – that burden being the “mission” he was being coerced into undertaking at some point during the journey.

Then we meet the troubled couple, David and Laura Merrdith, and their nanny Mary Duane, all of whom are linked in more ways than what it appears to be on the surface. It transpires, unfortunately not surprisingly at the time, that David had been propositioning Mary, but simply to watch her undress and nothing more. It is not clear whether Laura realises what occurs between them but they become an almost normally squabbling couple; “Abusing each other had become a kind of pantomime”.

David soon comes to blows with the claiming-to-be enlightened and self-promoting American, Mr Dixon, who takes a fashionably liberal stance towards the plight of immigrants and the ongoing slavery which was rife in America at the time; ie., “Treat a man like a savage and he’ll behave like one”. This certainly contrasts heavily with the virulent extracts from the magazines, but even here there seems to be a scale of discrimination. However, soon even Mr Dixon veers slightly from his supposedly liberal agenda, to comment on the many troubles Ireland was facing at the time, saying simply that “its nom de guerre is Laissez Faire”.

Inevitably, the class system was going to infiltrate Irish society, if not in legal terms then certainly in attitude. Ships at the time would be holding these people together for great lengths of time, so many would revert back to the familiar class system in order to reassure the passengers that not all law and order was lost at sea; that this happens on a ship with primarily Irish people, most of whom are merely trying to survive, is in itself worthy of note.

It soon emerges that Mulvey, his brother and Mary Duane have a history; Mulvey, rebelling against taking the priesthood like his brother, got involved with Mary Duane, resulting in a sort of “love triangle”. When Mary ends up in “the family way”, Mulvey leaves abruptly, with Mary soon suffering a miscarriage. Shunned by the Mulvey brothers, and by society, she was forced into prostitution for some time before being adopted into the Merridith family as a nanny.

However, it is Pius Mulvey who perhaps has the darkest story to tell; after the “incident” with his brother and Mary Duane, he essentially goes “on the run”; he goes to the city, eventually ending up in London, and ending up in a life of crime, keeps going under new aliases to fit in. However, his past does not get left behind completely, as shady acquaintances blackmail him into carrying out another murder on the Star of the Sea – the intended victim being David Merridith – before reaching the shore.

Just as the ship was so unbearably close to shore at home, problems begin to arise as the ship draws tantalisingly close to the American shore. Immigration issues mean that the ship is not allowed to dock and allow its passengers to disembark, so technically, while the ship is so close to shore, it and everyone within is still subject to the laws of the old country. People continue to die, and others in desperation – just as before – leap off the ship and swim to shore.

Furthermore, Mulvey has been carrying the burden of his past and the task he’s been assigned for some time, continually “speaking at an angle”, prompting him to actually warn Merridith of the plot, saving his life initially and absolving himself of the responsibility, yet someone else ends up taking it upon themselves to kill Merridith, giving a tragic foreshadowing quality to someone saying not long before, “one of them would never set foot in Manhattan”.

The Star of the Sea had become a prison, and by the end of the journey, in the literal sense. A prison which, those who did survive, grew more determined to escape; when that day finally did come, the fates of the characters on board the Star of the Sea proved to be variable. After the death of her husband, Laura Merridith and her sons try to repair and restart their lives in the New World, while Mulvey ends up not being able to escape his past entirely, as he ends up being caught and murdered quite gruesomely, putting an abrupt end to his troubled life of crime. Meanwhile, there is the unexplained disappearance of Mary Duane – she embarked upon the New World never to be seen again. Hints of her whereabouts, and possible identity, crop up all over the country, but no-one can be sure that it is in fact Mary, because she disappears again just as quickly.

Even in the time since this novel’s release, there have been far more Irish authors approaching the subject of their nationality, and its troubled history. Joseph O’Connor has articulated this traumatic time in Ireland’s history, using fact and fiction in turn, where they are deemed necessary. Possibly the most “true-to-life” example, if not entirely anchored in fact, of life on board the “Star of the Sea” in the deadly winter crossing of 1847, as there is likely to be.

Book Review: Sea Of Glass

Barry Longyear’s Sea of Glass is one of those rare gems that you tear through, then habitually re-read, until the spine is more creases than cover and you know it inside out. Despite this, you are still unable to quantify precisely why you love it so much.

Published in 1987, and set in a dystopian future that is now the present day, the subjects of overpopulation and the consumption of natural resources are now old and familiar. Despite the age of the book and its themes, the narrative is as fresh today as it was in its infancy. Told from the perspective of Thomas Windom, first as a seven year old, then as an extremely troubled teen, the novel offers a peculiar perspective on the inner workings of a body and mind subjected to far too much, for too young.

On his seventh birthday, Thomas opens the window in his stuffy attic room and, for the first time in his life, sees Sky – a concept he had previously struggled to grasp, yet knew existed. Spotted by a neighbour, and reported to the dreaded ‘men in black’, Thomas is taken to an orphanage for illegal children while his parents are executed. As a ‘redbird’ at the orphanage, Thomas is immediately flung into a world of violence, oddly mixed with the sexual tensions surrounding any group of pre-teens and adolescents living in very close quarters. In his struggles against the ‘blackshit’, Thomas comes to learn more about the world and understand that, due to massive overpopulation, the planet’s inhabitants have essentially split into two, one half dedicated to preventing the destruction of mankind, by strictly limiting population growth, the other allowing nature to take its course. Running in the background is the ominous presence of MAC III, a supercomputer which, by a series of complicated projections and predictions regarding future events, influences the course of developments in an attempt to postpone the inevitable War between the two factions, which MAC III is certain will occur, when the opposing side run out of resources.

Longyear, however, has taken what could have been a simple, albeit engaging plot, and given it endless depth through considerations of psychology, morality, religion, determinism, and fate. Add to this truncated prose that mirror very well the workings of a fractured mind and he has created a narrative that is as timeless as the question at the heart of the novel itself: why?

TV Review: Hannibal

So are serial killers the new vampires?  Now that our favourite serial killer Dexter Morgan is going to be hanging up his plastic sheeting after one final, bloody outing in July, it looks like American network NBC is keen to fill the void with a reworking of the classic serial killer story, Hannibal.

In recent years viewers seem to have taken a bit of a shine to deadly creatures, first vampires, then zombies and now serial killers?  We’ve come a long way from the days of the original Teen Wolf.  The real difference with these new deadly creatures is that, of course, serial killers actually exist.  Maybe not in the same form as Dexter or Hannibal but they are real enough to give a truly sinister edge to the programme.

It is particularly strange how a character that in real life would be jailed and vilified can become much more accepted and understood when fictionalised.  We may only be a few episodes in to the gripping new Hannibal, played expertly by Mads Mikkelsen, but it is easy to see how by immersing himself into everyday life, even working closely with the FBI, he can remain hidden in plain sight.  He comes across as educated, well spoken, normal even.  Will Graham on the other hand, played by Hugh Dancy, is erratic, complicated and misunderstood.

It is a brave move by Mikkelsen to take on such an iconic role; hardcore Silence of the Lambs fans may find it hard to see anyone other than Anthony Hopkins playing the world’s most famous cannibal.  Having only watched the Hannibal films a couple of times I may be easily swayed, in fact only a few episodes in and I am already hooked by the psychiatrist’s calm, reserved and haunting manner.

I should also probably admit that I have never read the books, but after discussing the show with people who have, I learned that the TV show stays much closer to the story of the books than the films.  This might make a hard transition for the film lovers but I hope they stick with this new take.  Exploring human relationships, mental illness and murder might not make for comfortable viewing but it does make damn good TV.

Book Review: Sharp Objects, by Gillian Flynn

Due to the recent success of Flynn’s Gone Girl, many people are now coming to her earlier offerings – Sharp Objects, and Dark Places – having already read her runaway bestseller. As a result, this book is underrated by many, as they inevitably compare it to Gone Girl and find it lacking. To some extent, this is understandable, as there is no doubt that Flynn’s writing ability has naturally progressed since she wrote her first novel, and while Sharp Objects has an outstanding emotional plot of its own, the mystery is not on par with the brilliance of Gone Girl.

It is much like reading Her Fearful Symmetry after having fallen in love with The Time Traveller’s Wife; the style is there, but the plot is lacking that ineffable quality that made Niffenegger’s debut so utterly delectable.

Unlike Her Fearful Symmetry, which genuinely is a literary travesty when compared to its predecessor, Sharp Objects holds its own and should be afforded the credit it deserves. It does not have a plot line as riveting and unpredictable as Gone Girl, yet it is not the plot for which the book should be praised, but the characters who populate a small town in Missouri named Wind Gap. The are all utterly, and without exception, the one thing that fiction writers tend to shy away from as much as possible:

Ugly.

Yet they are not ugly in a physical sense, but in a psychological sense, and ugly to such an alarming degree that there is not a single redeeming feature, in any anyone from this town. It is a town of hostile, judgemental, hypocritical, shallow mind people.

It is to this town that Camille Parker, the novel’s narrator, must return, and in Camille herself, we find the ugliest character of all. Her damage however is not entirely her own doing, but a result of circumstance, as we begin to discover as she returns to her family home. With an adored sister who died when Camille was 13, an incomprehensibly abominable mother, a step-father who never acknowledges her, and a disturbing half-sister she does not know, it is no wonder Camille is reticent about her return. Her editor however insists upon it, and so she finds herself reporting on what he believes to be the beginnings of a serial killing spree, and the killer is targeting children.

This book is not an easy read. The prose is well written, although not quite yet developed to Flynn’s later flawless standard, and the pace is good, but the subject matter quite simply makes you squirm. That is, however, the intention. This book was not written to be enjoyed. It is about some deeply serious psychology, and the ways in which mental illness affects not only the people who suffer from a condition, but those around them. Camille, we discover early on, is a cutter (hence the title). Yet Flynn is not simply portraying this aspect of her character as it has so often been seen in the past – an almost childish cry for attention, or a result of extreme depression – she has truly explored the root causes of Camille’s condition and fully demonstrated just how destructive it is to every aspect of her life. Further, Camille not only cuts, but cuts words. She has literally covered almost every inch of herself with words gouged into her own flesh, by her own hand. This happens in people who suffer from psychotic decomposition, and have a level of intelligence that focuses their attention and energy on words and writing as a means of coping.

Flynn has certainly taken this condition, as well as aspects of the crimes Camille is investigating, to the absolute extremes. At times this makes the plot somewhat less than plausible, however she has done so for a reason. The violence is not gratuitous; the abhorrent behaviour of most of the characters is not there for ‘shock value’, or even for the sake of entertainment. Even Camille is purposefully described in the ugliest way possible, but again this is not done as a deliberate attempt to make the reader dislike her.

This is a book about damage. The damage mental illness does to a person, the damage the mentally ill can do to those around them if their conditions go untreated and they go without help, and the damage that normal, everyday people do to each other in the course of living their normal, everyday lives. This is the sort of book that shows you a few unpleasant home truths, as you see yourself reflected in the occasional action and realise how it looks to other people. This is the sort of story that lets you inside the head of a person who, due their outer ‘ugliness’ you would likely never befriend, would perhaps even defriend, but once you catch a glimpse of the reasons for Camille’s ugliness, you no longer see them as ugly, but simply different. You empathise. You want other characters to empathise too and like her, help her.

Camille’s childhood shaped her whole life: her personality, her flaws, her damage, can all be traced back to events she had no control over, and actions that were not her own. She is a product of damaged people, and as such cannot be blamed for her damage. To some extent, you even grow to forgive her for actions that would otherwise be incomprehensible. She is not without fault, but she is suddenly understandable.

She is also tragic, and by the end you are rooting for her in a way you wouldn’t have thought possible. You end up outraged on her behalf at what people have done, and continue to do to her, and ultimately at the fact that the one character you thought all along was one of the good ones, turns away from her when they see the ugliness she tries so hard to hide. You come away indignant that they couldn’t see past her physical flaws, empathise with her experiences, understand her as you have come to understand her, and find a way to help her. To love her.

The plot may not be scintillating, in places it is downright predictable, the prose might not be perfect, the characters may be inordinately unpleasant, and the topic may be brutal, but the story is brave. It is a subject that many skirt and most will baulk at; Flynn however has explored it to its outer reaches and reveals not only the ugly truth of it, but also the depth to which most people remain ignorant of that truth.

Book Review: Her Fearful Symmetry, by Audrey Niffenegger

Few novels have proven to be as disappointing as this one.

The Time Traveller’s Wife was a wonderful read; not perfect, but still very enjoyable, beautifully written, and with a very unique premise. Her Fearful Symmetry held the expectation of more. The title alone is evocative. William Blake wrote The Tyger about light, and dark, and how one cannot be without the other: good cannot exist without evil. The ‘fearful symmetry’ is a reference to this, while the central characters of the novel – Julia and Valentina – are ‘mirror twins’. Add to this the setting in the shadow of High Gate Cemetery and the possibilities were astonishing. The woman who wrote The Time Traveller’s Wife must surely do wonders with this concept.

Or not.

Billed as ‘a delicious and deadly ghost story about love, loss and identity’, Her Fearful Symmetry fails on every single count bar one – it involves a ghost. The central ‘romance’ in the novel is between Robert and Elspeth, who dies in the first line of the book, and it is her ghost who provides the majority of the rather ill-conceived plot. Robert grieves, as anyone would, however his grief is hindered by the revelation that Elspeth’s ghost is still present. He then forms a tentative relationship with one of the twins – Valentina, or ‘Mouse’ as her sister Julia calls her – although this is more due to her resemblance to Elspeth than anything else.

There is little true love in this book. The most resounding ‘love story’ in fact revolves around two minor characters living in the house next to the cemetery. Martin and Marijke are hopelessly in love, however Martin has some serious mental health issues, which have proven impossible for Marijke to live with any longer. She leaves him, not because she no longer loves him, but because she loves him enough to understand her absence is the only thing which might convince him to help himself, and get better. She issues an ultimatum: she will take him back, if he is able to leave the house, and follow her to Amsterdam. This element of the plot is genuinely interesting, and when Julia becomes friends with Martin, takes on an entirely different aspect which could have been truly spectacular. It is actually Julia’s attempts to help Martin, and her love for Valentina, which are the most touching elements of the story, while Julia’s pain over events ultimately prove to be the truest emotions in the whole novel.

The notion of identity is never explored in any depth. There is a poorly constructed plot line concerning Julia and Valentina, in which Julia is supposedly the dominant and bossy twin, and Valentina follows her lead, does as she’s told, and fiercely resents Julia for it. The old adage of ‘show don’t tell’ applies here, for while we are told a few times that Valentina feels smothered by her sister and desperate to get away from her, we never truly feel that is the case. While we can sympathise with the ‘Mouse’, she has ample opportunity to assert her independence and never takes advantage. Her attempts to display her own identity, and fight Julia, are limited and badly written, the result of which being that later plot developments, which hinge on Valentina’s supposed desire for independence, simply do not work; the reader never feels Valentina’s desperation, and so her extreme actions are unbelievable, since they lack motivation.

The other aspect to the plot concerning identity is the fully predictable, badly plotted, and confusingly explained history between Elspeth and her own twin sister, Edwina, mother of Julia and Valentina. The intention here is clear: Elspeth and Edwina, themselves twins, had their own issues when it came to finding their identities. This is then ‘mirrored’ in the ‘mirror twins’, who are supposed to be struggling with identity issues of their own . Again, had it been handled correctly and well written, it could have been an excellent subplot. As it stands, the explanation of it is so convoluted – despite what happened being obvious from the first chapter – that it borders on ridiculous. There is no logic behind the actions of any of the characters involved. They behave irrationally, believing the unbelievable, accepting the unacceptable, and spending lifetimes doing things without motivation. It is a poorly designed plot mechanism intended to draw the reader through the first three quarters of a very uneventful novel with the promise of a ‘big secret’ which, as it turn out, is neither big nor in any way a secret, either to the characters involved or the reader.

Elspeth’s ghost is another wasted element, doing nothing of interest until the very end of the book. In fact, everything of interest happens at the very end of the book, yet the ending is not only rushed, but redundant.

This novel has often been described as ‘Gothic’, yet there is nothing Gothic about it until one scene at the very end which is truly macabre; had the rest of the narrative had this feel to it, the novel would have been spectacular. There are a few random references thrown in as an attempt to create a ‘Gothic’ feel: the twins discuss Steampunk in two lines of dialogue, overheard by another character who doesn’t understand what they’re talking about; Valentina tries and fails to make a black velvet ‘Goth’ dress for herself; and one of the twins remark that Robert would be a ‘Goth’ if he were a teenager.

This does not a Gothic novel make.

There are only three truly Gothic aspects of this novel and all are totally wasted. The ghostly elements could have been turned into so much more. There is a beautiful scene early on, of children playing in the graveyard, and it is obvious even at that point that these children are ghosts. Yet they are not mentioned again until the very end. While Niffeneger clearly did her research on Highgate Cemetery, it is delivered in sections that feel more like lectures than quality fiction. The setting should have created an atmosphere, a feel of the dark, ghostly and ethereal elements the author clearly wanted to portray, yet it does not. It is clinical. Further to this, the Gothic genre is not just about cemeteries and ghosts; it’s about horror, and human nature, the gender roles that underpin society, and the evils that men (and women) do. Only one aspect of the whole novel achieves this, and it is dropped into the plot near the end, executed swiftly, and then rushed so much you could literally miss it.

The ‘twist’ at the end is poorly executed, unfounded, and ultimately unbelievable. Ironically it is not the fantastic elements of the plot that make it unconvincing, but the fact that the previous actions and responses of the characters do not substantiate such a turn of events; you simply cannot believe any of those involved in the final sequence would act the way they do. This undermines the entire novel, leaving you feeling cheated – the wonderful potential implied by the title and premise have been wasted. Had the dynamic between Julia and Valentina been fully realised, the plot unfolded from the very beginning instead of crammed into the end, and the dark aspects of the plot fully drawn, it could have worked. The truly interesting plot elements are rushed through in the last couple of (very short) chapters, while the majority of the book is filled with endless descriptions, almost none of which are relevant to the plot.

The one redeeming feature of the entire novel is that it is written by Niffenegger. That really is the extent of the praise that can be offered. Niffenegger has a way with descriptive prose which is truly unique and a pleasure to read. That is not nearly enough, however, to compensate for the absurdity of the plot developments and flaws in characterisation. Overall, the book reads like a first draft; raw, undeveloped, full of mistakes and plot holes. Had this book been honed, and truly explored to the extent of its potential, with the first half of it cut down to the barest minimum and the last quarter expanded extensively, it might have been good.

Never has a published book more thoroughly demonstrated the benefit of drafting and redrafting a novel, no matter how painful the process might be; never has a book been more in need of a good editor.