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The Gone Away World - Nick Harkaway

Honey-ec · 2009-03-20 15:30:15

Anyone read this? I'm really enjoyed it, he has a very quirky style of prose, it's very conversational, almost lapsing into stream-of-consciousness at times, yet he never loses his point. Here's an excerpt: "When I was studying with Master Wu, I learned that his grandmother believed in a truly enormous collection of hells.…

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20-03-2009 4:30pm

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Honey-ec

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Anyone read this? I'm really enjoyed it, he has a very quirky style of prose, it's very conversational, almost lapsing into stream-of-consciousness at times, yet he never loses his point. Here's an excerpt:

"When I was studying with Master Wu, I learned that his grandmother believed in a truly enormous collection of hells. In her mind the netherworld was like a great vizier's palace or hall of government, and every floor was given over to a different aspect of suffering. There was a Hell of Crawling Flies and a Hell of Scratchy Undergarments and a Hell of Lukewarm Soup and just about every hell, however vile or trivial, that you could imagine. There was a Hell of Standing in Line and and Hell of Chattering Neighbours and a Hell of Silent Grief, all the way to a Hell of Boiling Pitch and a Hell of Smashed fingers and other hells she declined to detail but delineated with significant noddings and rolling of eyes. These hells were arranged in no apparent order (except for a sequence of hells defined by their orderliness), presided over by guards of utmost probity and administered by sadists and reformers and all manner of intransigent folk, who absolutely would not be deterred from hauling or or heaving or leading or shoving you into your appointed hell. There was even a Hell of Uncertain Anticipation where you simply sat around waiting to find out which hell you were eventually going to. For ever."

He's currently working on his second novel, which I'm very much looking forward to. Oh, and he's John Le Carré's son!

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