I wouldn't have bothered writing about this except that having spent years reading about this supposedly landmark and astonishing novel, I felt rather cheated. Rather cheated is an understatement. It's possible that this is the worst book I have ever read - and I've read some shocking books.
Even worse, despite the fact that it was so bad, I read the entire thing even when it was clear that I wasn't gaining anything except increasing annoyance. Absolutely everything about it was dreadful.
I loathed all the characters, who all had absolutely no redeeming qualities whatsoever. I wasn't remotely interested in what happened to any of them, as they were all (presumably unintentionally) completely one dimensional, despite efforts to craft them otherwise. All of them morphed into weird, exaggerated versions of themselves who may have been in the same room as or talking to others, but never interacted once, like a dozen talking heads made of lego all going WAAH WAAH WAAH.
I hated the way the book was littered with landmarks to guide you to the time and the place, so much so that you felt buried under the weight of it all.
I got a twitch every time Smith
wrote something the character was thinking or remembering or wanted you to notice in italics as it happened so often it looked like the printer was sloshed. I hated the ridiculous names and situations and constant attempt to ram everything with so much detail that it was like being force-fed. Nobody in the book, nothing in the book, could breathe.
Am I the only person who despised all the constant phonetic spelling out and slang-prose of non-estuary English speakers? The fucking horror. The endless horror.
Ludicrous plot twists, hysterical realism, God fucking help us. Absolute bollocks.
