The Raw Shark Texts

by Steven Hall (Goodreads author)

book data

1,759 ratings, 3.73 average rating, 534 reviews (more data...)

rating	frequency	%
5		27%
4		35%
3		24%
2		8%
1		4%

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published

April 10th 2007 by Canongate U.S.

binding

Hardcover, 448 pages

url

http://forums.steven-hall.org

literary awards

Borders Original Voices Award, Sommerset Maugham Award

isbn

1841959111 (isbn13: 9781841959115)

description

Eric Sanderson wakes up in a house one day with no idea who or where he is. A note instructs him to see a Dr. Randle immediately, who informs him that...more

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Best books of 2007

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other reviews (showing 1-20 of 2,719)

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05/16/08

Rick Monkey rated it:

Read in May, 2008

You know what I like?

This whole genre of stuffy British dudes who find themselves unwillingly going on adventures and discovering that there's more to them than just being pasty and flustered.

And, yeah, it's a genre. There's TONS of books with that same damn plot. Thing is, they're often very entertaining.

They're also usually played for laughs. Which is not the case in The Raw Shark Texts. Yes, the protagonist eventually finds himself drawn into a world wh...more

Like this review? yes (4 people liked it)

1 comment

08/20/07

Michael rated it:

bookshelves: slipstream

recommends it for: Invisibles fans, postmodern nerds, free thinkers

Mix _A Clockwork Orange_, _VALIS_, and _House of Leaves_ in a blender, and you would get something like this book. It combines a number of my favorite things, not the least of which is the unreliable narrator - and as an aside to some reviewers, if you think 'Memento' did it first, you really ought to read more and do some research. I was a little wary of the kind of 'fontplay' such as in Danielewski's book, but when Hall used it, he used it purposefully and to good effect.

Note to se...more

Like this review? yes (3 people liked it)

10 comments

09/29/08

Ryan rated it:

bookshelves: fiction

Read in September, 2008

I'd pair this with Remainder by Tom McCarthy: debut novels from the UK by men taking on conceptual literary frameworks. Their work isn't influenced by film so much as engaged by the medium itself. It's certainly not for everyone. In fact, I hated Remainder for the first few months after reading. But I recognize the book--and by extension this one as well--for what is: an avant-garde novel in the 21st century.

This book isn't as finely balanced as it could be, and many of the romant...more

Like this review? yes (2 people liked it)

1 comment

07/05/08

Donald rated it:

bookshelves: 2008

Read in July, 2008

recommended to Donald by: Henrik

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

First, I'd like to say that the only thing tying this to 'House of Leaves' is that they can be termed concept novels, books that use words to further the texture of the story. Steven Hall has a great ability to tell a story and didn't need the high concept texturizing, but it was a cool deal anyway.

I noticed the similarity of 'Raw Shark' to 'Rorschach' right away. I'm not sure if that was intentional or not, it probably was. And like the relatively famous ink blot tests I'm not sure ...more

Like this review? yes (2 people liked it)

1 comment

06/13/08

Brad rated it:

(review of isbn 0002006979)

bookshelves: speculative, to-read-again, weird

For sheer ballsy creativity The Raw Shark Texts is an incendiary word bomb of conceptual fish, a mad world hungry pseudo immortal, movie geekdom, Greek tragedy and cats with mundane names.

To say there is something lacking in Steven Hall's first novel seems unfair and trite, but I can't shake the feeling that something in Eric Sanderson's relationship with Clio/Scout felt too forced and way too indoctrinated by current gender attitudes. If that was by design I can't imagine what the d...more

Like this review? yes (3 people liked it)

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06/06/08

Gray rated it:

Read in June, 2008

recommends it for: No one.

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

I'm in the middle, wanted to like this book a lot... the start was fantastic, an intriguing look at madness and memory but once we got to the meta physical self indulgence and then in my words "celestine prophecy adventure proving the crazy are really really deep - blah

Still reading but blah blah
Here's a poem I wrote about this book
Lashing out at people who try to justify their craziness as actually mattering to the rest of us.

So, you show me the madness...more

Like this review? yes (3 people liked it)

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05/16/08

Jason rated it:

bookshelves: all-time-favorites

Read in June, 2008

i was walking through barnes and noble, i have no idea what i was doing there HA!, and i saw this book...
the title grabbed my attention and i remembered having heard about it at one point or another in connection to danielewski's 'house of leaves'...i picked it up and started reading and haven't stopped...
it's not precisely the exhilarating thrill ride the reviews on the cover would have you believe, but it is extremely gripping and interesting...i can see how it would be compared to...more

Like this review? yes (2 people liked it)

3 comments

04/01/08

Henrik rated it:

(review of isbn 1847671748)

bookshelves: magic-realism, philosophy, science-fiction, thriller

Read in June, 2008

recommended to Henrik by: Amazon.com newsletter
recommends it for: people who are interested in "literary" experiments with a story

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

Like this review? yes (1 person liked it)

4 comments

03/27/08

Janet rated it:

(review of isbn 1847671748)

bookshelves: currently-on-loan, highest-recommendations, read-in-2008

Read in April, 2008

Holy. Crap.

I picked up The Raw Shark Texts this past weekend - not sure if I wanted to tackle something this long since I'm still trying to catch up to a good "38 in '08" pace - and I swear it was like disappearing off the face of the earth for two days. I can't remember the last time I was so absorbed in a book that I opted to postpone plans to stay home and do nothing but read, and despite my copy's 448 pages, I devoured the book in less than 24 hours - pun intended.
...more Holy. Crap.

I picked up The Raw Shark Texts this past weekend - not sure if I wanted to tackle something this long since I'm still trying to catch up to a good "38 in '08" pace - and I swear it was like disappearing off the face of the earth for two days. I can't remember the last time I was so absorbed in a book that I opted to postpone plans to stay home and do nothing but read, and despite my copy's 448 pages, I devoured the book in less than 24 hours - pun intended.

Without giving away more than what you would find in a description on Amazon, or on the back of the book - basically this story is about Eric Sanderson, who gasps awake one day to discover that he remembers nothing - literally nothing - about who he is. In a house that feels familiar yet sits completely devoid of personal information, all he finds is a letter from "The First Eric Sanderson," who "with regret and also hope" directs him to a psychologist, Dr. Randle. Randle explains that Eric has a dissociative condition, stemming from the loss of a loved one three years prior, and that for the past several years, Eric has been experiencing episodes that leave him remembering less, and less and less. Yet things may not be as clear as just a mental condition, because soon Eric begins receiving letters and packages from "The First Eric Sanderson." Letters he chooses to ignore until one night he is attacked by something bizarre and nearly inexplicable, something he quickly learns is a Ludovician, a conceptual shark that "feeds on human memories and the intrinsic sense of self." A shark that is stalking him.

If that doesn't make your toes curl with intellectual delight, The Raw Shark Texts is probably not for you. But if, like me, you loved The Phantom Tollbooth as a child, step right up because this novel is like one of my favorite children's books adapted for grownups. It's a thriller, a quest and a cleverly nerdy adventure, filled with unspace and metaphysical villains and the lost memories of love. It's basically everything I love in a book, and I'm tempted to pick it up immediately and start reading it again.

(less)

Like this review? yes (2 people liked it)

4 comments

07/12/07

Corinne rated it:

bookshelves: didnt-like-didnt-finish

Read in July, 2007

I give up. I'm nearly halfway through the book and I'm putting it down. Maybe, at another time, I'll pick it up again and feel differently but the action/adventure vibe just isn't sitting with me at all. It's like reading The Celestine Prophecy -which I did many, many moons ago- only without the big morality question leading you through to the end. Or, it's like reading Haruki Murakami without his talent for subtle storytelling. Or -sorry to go overboard on this- it's like reading </i>...more

Like this review? yes (3 people liked it)

1 comment

07/07/07

Bobby J. Hill Jr. rated it:

Read in May, 2007

recommends it for: No one. Okay, read it if you want to.

The book opens as Eric Sanderson wakes up on the floor of a bedroom he doesn't recognize. He then finds a letter from "The First Eric Sanderson" directing him to Dr. Randle, who tells him that he has recurrent dissociative episodes, or repeated and worsening periods of amnesia. As the story progresses you find out that the amnesia is caused by a conceptual shark. A ludovician. It feeds on a person's memories and, many times, gets a bit territorial. It's hunting Eric Sanderson.

...more

Like this review? yes (2 people liked it)

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10/04/08

Laura Nash rated it:

bookshelves: fiction

Read in October, 2008

recommends it for: Thriller readers looking for heft (also library users)

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

Like this review? yes (1 person liked it)

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06/01/08

Allycks rated it:

A brief behind-the-scenes recap of "The Raw Shark Texts":

Steven Hall is inspired. Writes a brilliant one hundred pages of an unfinished novel. The first hundred pages of 'The Raw Shark Texts' are truly a great read, hinting at something avant-garde, something page-turning in the finest sense of the term. We're all clicking off the rusty old disbelief mechanisms because 'The Raw Shark Texts' is putting it all together. OK, sure, it is yet another "piece-my-life-bac...more

Like this review? yes (2 people liked it)

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04/23/08

Chuckell added it (review of isbn 1847671748)

Read in May, 2008

You know how sometimes you read a book and you just know a character is a direct stand-in for the author? Take this book, for example. I simply could not shake the feeling that the narrator--a sadsack, lonely guy pining over the loss of his great and perfect love--is pretty much the absolute alter-ego of the author: I'm picturing a sadsack, lonely guy pining over the fact that no girl has ever really talked to him.

And no wonder the narrator misses his "Clio" (yes, the muse ...more

Like this review? yes (1 person liked it)

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11/20/07

Paula rated it:

Read in November, 2007

I couldn't resist picking up this book, with a lurking shark made completely out of text on the first page. I'm a big believer of judging books by covers, and once again I am proven right. The Raw Shark Texts is like several books you've read, and yet is completely different. It plays with the concept of words like "The Phantom Tollbooth," and its underground is vaguely similar to that of Gaiman's "Neverwhere." The plot starts out as "Memento," morphs into "The...more

Like this review? yes (1 person liked it)

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09/15/07

Glenn rated it:

(review of isbn 1841959022)

Read in September, 2007

Mellinger forced this book upon me as well, and he didn't really like it, but thought I might. I believe he's right. Certainly it's weird- a conceptual shark and a collective being that has assumed control of the internet exploding in a "matter-anti-matter" climax collision to save the hero (whose memories the shark had been feeding on), and his girlfriend (who resisted being subsumed into the collective being).

The book was highly readable, drawing me in, and something ab...more

Like this review? yes (1 person liked it)

2 comments

08/31/07

Dale rated it:

Read in September, 2007

This is the seventeenth book I read on my commute, and what a wonderfully weird little book it is. I bought it for my dad for his birthday in June, based on the review of it in the Washington Post Book World; he really liked it, and so he loaned it to me in August and in September I finally got around to reading it.

At least it was an easier read than Ulysses.

The Raw Shark Texts really was wildly entertaining, for me at least. I'm pegging it as sci-fi/fantasy, although...more

Like this review? yes (1 person liked it)

2 comments

05/29/08

Ruzz rated it:

bookshelves: 2008

Read in May, 2008

I think this is a book that needs to be read. I think some of the ideas while often wrapped in clunky prose are outstanding and if you're able to surrender any part of your reasoning mind to what's going on you can find yourself in an interesting world.

He has, at least 3 sensational ideas presented which alone are worth the price of the book. And one of them is so insightful i think it may be proved true by science at some point in the distant (probably far) future.

Sadl...more

Like this review? yes (1 person liked it)

1 comment

06/27/07

Michael rated it:

recommends it for: Everyone

Try mixing The Matrix with Jaws and Old Man and the Sea and you have a glimpse of what this book is.
One of teh more original pieces of fiction i've read in quite some time.

This is a book not everyone will love but everyone should read. I need to read it again just to brush up on why its so frickin awesome!!!

Can't really say enough about this book other than go find it and sit down with it and read the heck out of it.

*Update*

Well, after a seco...more

Like this review? yes (1 person liked it)

3 comments

10/13/08

Justin rated it:

Read in November, 2008

recommended to Justin by: Tommy
recommends it for: folks who like the rollercoaster and don't care how it works.

For the most part I enjoyed reading this, but the only reason I was able to give it three stars is because it is the type of story that like. If it doesn't bug you that there are major logic problems in the story or that the author chooses to regularly employ figures of speech as adjectives, you will be able to dive into a sort of comfortable mindless escape. Don't try to reason with it though or you'll get a "confusing waste of time" feeling. The structural novelty the author uses is ...more

Like this review? yes (1 person liked it)

1 comment