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The Raw Shark Texts

by Steven Hall (Goodreads Author)

3.87 of 5 stars 3.87 · rating details · 7,557 ratings · 1,139 reviews

A March 2007 Significant 7 Editors' Pick: Not since Fight Club have a I read a book that sizzled with such fierce originality and searing vision as Steven Hall's electrifying debut novel, The Raw Shark Texts. It's a twisting, trippy thriller that tears through the landscape of language, revealing the lurking terrors uncovered in every letter of the written word. Steven Hal...more A March 2007 Significant 7 Editors' Pick: Not since Fight Club have a I read a book that sizzled with such fierce originality and searing vision as Steven Hall's electrifying debut novel, The Raw Shark Texts. It's a twisting, trippy thriller that tears through the landscape of language, revealing the lurking terrors uncovered in every letter of the written word. Steven Hall swims in the same surreal waters as pop-culture pioneers David Lynch and Michel Gondry, and The Raw Shark Texts deserves to be shelved somewhere between Trainspotting and Life of Pi. It pulls you under like a riptide, leaving you exhausted, exhilarated, and gasping for air.

But don't just take our word for it. We asked Audrey Niffenegger, one of the most creative contemporary writers working today, to share with readers her take on Steven Hall's debut novel, The Raw Shark Texts. Check out her exclusive Amazon guest review below. --Brad Thomas Parsons

Guest Reviewer: Audrey Niffenegger

Audrey Niffenegger is a professor in the Interdisciplinary Books Arts MFA Program at the Columbia College Chicago Center for Book and Paper Arts. A visual artist, she shows her artwork at Printworks Gallery in Chicago. The Time Traveler's Wife, her first novel, was an international bestseller and was one of Amazon.com's Best Books of 2003. It won several awards and is being made into a major motion picture. Her visual novels, The Three Incestuous Sisters and The Adventuress, were recently published by Harry N. Abrams. Miss Niffenegger is currently hard at work on her second novel, Her Fearful Symmetry, a ghost story set in London's Highgate Cemetery.

Eric Sanderson has lost his memory, his girl, his life as he once knew it. His pre-amnesiac self is sending him letters, a sort of correspondence course on how to be Eric Sanderson. Unfortunately, this previous self didn't really have it all together either. This is too bad, because the source of all the trouble is a conceptual shark, a Ludovician shark, no less. Soon Eric is on the run, trying to piece it all together and find true love before his mind gets wiped by the shark for the twelfth and probably final time.

Steven Hall is an inventive, funny and extremely smart writer. I am a letterpress printer and a typophile, and I was drawn to his book because of the typography: The Raw Shark Texts is riddled with typographic games, codes, a flip book, and a boatload of very elegant plot devices that hinge on collisions between the Information Age and the imagination. At one point Eric and Scout, his guide/love interest, are speeding away from the conceptual shark on a motorbike. Scout eludes the shark by exploding a letter bomb, a bomb made out of old metal type; the type diverts the shark into a stream of random letterforms. At this I practically fell off the couch with admiration.

There's plenty to groove on in The Raw Sharks Texts even if you're not a type maven. There's echoes of Cyberpunk, Borges, Auster; there is adventure on the high seas, lost love, an exploration of what it means to be human in the age of intelligent machines. The Raw Sharks Texts is huge fun, and I gleefully recommend it. --Audrey Niffenegger

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Paperback, 428 pages

Published April 11th 2008 by Canongate U.S. (first published January 1st 2007)

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Dec 15, 2011 mark monday rated it 3 of 5 stars

Recommended to mark by: Brad

Shelves: unstable-narratives

10.

You are a book, The Raw Shark Texts. You are an unstable narrative. You are a story of loss and love and memory, of a broken heart and a broken mind. You are a mystery; you are a postmodern text; you are equal parts Burroughs and Palahniuk and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. You are a first novel, complete with a first novel's typical weaknesses: a certain stridency and repetitiousness that is occasionally tedious, a tendency towards wanting to amaze the audience with your brilliance,...more 10.

You are a book, The Raw Shark Texts. You are an unstable narrative. You are a story of loss and love and memory, of a broken heart and a broken mind. You are a mystery; you are a postmodern text; you are equal parts Burroughs and Palahniuk and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. You are a first novel, complete with a first novel's typical weaknesses: a certain stridency and repetitiousness that is occasionally tedious, a tendency towards wanting to amaze the audience with your brilliance, characters and dialogue that are intended to be cheeky & real but often come across as precious & cutesy-poo. You are overlong. Still, your ambition is pleasing. Your level of writing ability is impressive. There is a mad genius to it. You exist on multiple levels. You excited me, then bored me, then excited me anew. You made me think on many things: new ideas and old, what is a person, what is an emotion, what makes a concept real. You are a book that this reviewer rather Liked. well, in a 3-star sort of way.

(view spoiler)

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2.

" - the view becomes the reflection, and the reflection, the view."

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Jan 11, 2012 Kinga rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

(There might be very minor spoilers here but I doubt they will make any sense to you if you haven't read the book, so read on, unles you are uber-paranoid about spoilers)

“The Raw Shark Texts”. It’s supposed to be a literary psychological thriller where Jorge Luis Borges meets Danielewski meets Matrix meets Fight Club meets Jaws. I thought: Oh dear. Steve, I hope you know what you are running up against and I hope your game is tight.

The book starts with the main character waking up on the floor n...more (There might be very minor spoilers here but I doubt they will make any sense to you if you haven't read the book, so read on, unles you are uber-paranoid about spoilers)

“The Raw Shark Texts”. It’s supposed to be a literary psychological thriller where Jorge Luis Borges meets Danielewski meets Matrix meets Fight Club meets Jaws. I thought: Oh dear. Steve, I hope you know what you are running up against and I hope your game is tight.

The book starts with the main character waking up on the floor not knowing who or where he is. His personal memory seems to have been wiped clean. This is a tried and tested opening that is sure to grip anyone from the first page. The problem with it is that you have to back it up. The book has to live up to its premise.

I give credit where credit is due – Steve Hall had a superb idea. Our narrator, Eric Sanderson, is hunted by a kind of conceptual fish (the kind of fish that lives in a purely abstract world and feeds on thoughts, ideas, memories). Somehow he stepped on the toe of the most dangerous conceptual fish out there – the Ludovician, a conceptual equivalent of the great white shark. And it eats his memory. Nom, nom, nom.

There are also very funny/scary (albeit gimmicky) typographical illustrations in the text. They even looked cute on my kindle.

While I think the idea was brilliant, I feel there was a little of wasted opportunity there. We are made to understand that the way to fight the shark (or at least to keep it at bay, so to speak) is to use so some sort of flow of information to throw him off your scent and set up a conceptual loop which works like a shark cage. And our hero uses other people’s post and Dictaphones to do that. Dictaphones? What is it, 1985? What else? Maybe he should fax the shark as well?
Why not set up some computers with facebook and twitter accounts that would constantly get new followers and feedback to each other ad infinitum. Perfect conceptual loop! Or why throw ‘letter bombs’ (made of shredded phone books and such) at your shark? Why not treat it with a stream of penis enlargement and Russian brides spam? That should send it all the way back to last century. Why go through other people’s post where you can just download their blogs, twitters, tumblrs, facebooks, and emails? I mean, if I were looking for tons of pointless information, the Internet would be the first place I would go to.

But fine, Steve. I am with you. Let’s party like it’s 1985, Dictaphones and all. So I am suspending my disbelief, conceptual sharks, some zombie like figures, Un-space (yeah, me neither) until Hall introduces Eric’s love interest in its two incarnations Scout and Clio. And boy, oh, boy, ain’t she a dream come true for any nerdy boy? She’s got boobs and likes to show them, she knows about computers, rides a motorcycle, and talks like she is reading a sitcom script. She never mentions kids or marriage. She is a superhero but also slightly damaged inside so can be occasionally protected. She is Lara Croft meets Leelo from the Fifth Element. And here comes the love story with the extra cheese on top. Here comes the melodrama when Eric decides to sulk for half of the book over something that a PMSing sixteen year old girl would have a hard time sulking over for longer than 40 minutes. I can’t take this. I shout : “Jeez louise, Steve, what are you doing? Why are you doing it?”.

And then at the end, Steve tells my why he was doing it. And it makes sense, and I get it. And he knew that I knew, but I didn’t know that he knew that I knew. And ha, ha, the joke is on me. But you know what, Steve, I could’ve stopped reading there and then if I wasn’t so OCD about finishing every book that I start. I really do get it, but I still don’t know why I was forced to read 100 or so pages of that bad soap-opera. So there goes one star from what could’ve been a four star book.

And then of course there is the ending... Oh.
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Mar 19, 2013 Brandon rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites, fiction, 2009

The Raw Shark Texts was released back in 2007 by first time U.K. author, Steven Hall. In some circles, it’s been referred to as some bizarre cross between Jaws and The Matrix with perhaps a little Da Vinci Code thrown in there for good measure. It follows the story of Eric Saunderson who awakes on his bedroom floor without any memories. While the man retains his basic motor functions, he remembers nothing resembling emotions or sense of identity. Shortly upon awaking, Eric finds a note left by t...more

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May 14, 2011 Brad rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: speculative, to-read-again, weird

For sheer ballsy creativity The Raw Shark Texts is an incendiary word bomb of conceptual fish, mad world hungry pseudo-immortals, 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 design was; if...more

19 likes · like · see review

Oct 04, 2007 Michael rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Invisibles fans, postmodern nerds, free thinkers

Shelves: slipstream

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 self: 'fontpla...more

8 likes · like · see review

May 16, 2008 Rick Monkey rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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 where the old rules don't apply. Yes, he h...more

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Mar 29, 2011 Jason rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: all-time-favorites

3/29/11 update:
I want to read it again. I also want Hall to write another book. Come on Steve!!

8/19/09 Update:
I found a copy of the UK version of this book in a used book store the other day and it prompted me to re-read it.
This book is so brilliant it's unbelievable. Reading it a second time brought out, in my mind anyway, what is really going on with this book. I'm truly amazed at Hall's performance here.

=================================================================

i was walking through b...more

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Jul 12, 2007 Corinne rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: didnt-like-didnt-finish

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 House of Leave...more

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Sep 29, 2008 Ryan Chapman rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

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 romantic scenes ar...more

4 likes · like · see review

Jul 13, 2008 Donald rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Donald by: Henrik

Shelves: 2008

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 what happene...more

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Jun 29, 2008 Gray rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition 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, the loss, the lack, the furtive brain c...more

6 likes · like · see review

Jun 29, 2008 Henrik rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: people who are interested in "literary" experiments with a story

Recommended to Henrik by: Amazon.com newsletter

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

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

1 like · like · see review

Jul 23, 2008 Janet rated it 5 of 5 stars

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

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 th...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.

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Jul 11, 2007 Bobby J. Hill Jr. rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition 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.

For the most part,...more

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Oct 04, 2008 Laura Nash rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Thriller readers looking for heft (also library users)

Shelves: fiction

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

2 likes · like · see review

Jan 11, 2010 Jeremy rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Apparently NOT die hard fans of Jaws

Recommended to Jeremy by: Logan

My 5 star rating is my first reaction to the read. I liked it so much that I wasn't really looking for holes in the story or "blatant rip-offs" of other pieces of work. Now I come back and read some negative reviews I start to think to myself, "am I just a sucker for books that try to screw with your mind?" That is a question I can't answer because I could not possibly be that objective about myself. I can tell you this: I loved the movies Fight Club, Memento and MOST recently Hangover. I enjoy...more My 5 star rating is my first reaction to the read. I liked it so much that I wasn't really looking for holes in the story or "blatant rip-offs" of other pieces of work. Now I come back and read some negative reviews I start to think to myself, "am I just a sucker for books that try to screw with your mind?" That is a question I can't answer because I could not possibly be that objective about myself. I can tell you this: I loved the movies Fight Club, Memento and MOST recently Hangover. I enjoy contemporary literature and classics, but I also am enamored by magical realism. The answer to the question may be that this book was written for the likes of me.

I can't believe how many people are pissed off because they think the ending is a blatant rip-off from Jaws. To get that angry I assume that movie would either have to be one of your all tame faves and/or you feel that the author was being lazy or not creative. I am going to give Steven Hall the benefit of the doubt, until proven otherwise, that he was not simply running out of time and finished off his book after having seen the movie. Note that I haven't seen the movie in over 20 years. Assuming that the ending is that close (some would have you think it is word for word) I am also going to give Hall the lenience that he didn't think he was trying to fool anybody. The thing is, tributes are done all of the time in the media. I saw an episode of some sitcom that did a spoof on the ending of The Usual Suspects (another mind twister that I loved). I didn't hate the show for doing it, I thought it was great.

And for the record, I didn't think the romance was that cheesy. For spoiler reasons I will not go into here, I think that is believable. Then again, I am a sucker for "cheesy" chic flics (please man's man friends, don't read this!) such as The Notebook and Definitely, Maybe.

Here is my attempt to defend myself that I am indeed not a sucker for liking this book at the 5 star level. I think the book as a whole is original. Is it a "bastard love child" of other movies/books/ideas? Yes. But that is the case in almost anything you read. Hall puts a new twist on a few different themes and for that - and for keeping me highly entertained over the course of a few days - I thank him. Keep up the good work!(less)

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Mar 13, 2009 Allycks rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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-back-together-after-what-would-see...more

10 likes · like · see review

May 05, 2008 Chuckell added it

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 of history, how painfu...more

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Nov 20, 2007 Paula rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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 Matrix" and ends with "Jaws." Conf...more

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Sep 15, 2007 Glenn rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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 about the love-story was i...more

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Nov 05, 2007 Dale rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: metafiction

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 once again it's the kind t...more

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Jun 10, 2008 Ruzz rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 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.

Sadly, this book seems desti...more

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Apr 08, 2008 Michael rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition 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 second read and a bit of trowling about the web finding th...more

1 like · like · see review

Jun 29, 2010 Justin Jaeger rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: folks who like the rollercoaster and don't care how it works.

Recommended to Justin by: Tommy

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 I 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 interest...more

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Feb 25, 2012 Dave Mead rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Great concept, mediocre execution. Much of the dialogue is head-smackingly, face-palmingly, groan-inducingly pedestrian, for example (the "Erm" chapter was nearly a book-closer for this reader). Not exactly awful, but surely could've benefited from a rewrite, with a better trained ear for real human speech.

1 like · like · see review

Aug 14, 2008 ScottK rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: people who like something different.

Recommended to ScottK by: A friend at work and a few friends on GR

This was perhaps one of the most Interesting books I have read in a long time. Not to say that the other stuff I have been reading has been crap because it has not been.This book,however,well it being a Borders ORIGINAL VOICES winner should tell you something. It was completely original, Very much like the movie Memento but at the same time not really like anything I have ever read. I am still trying to sort out some of the things in my mind, but one thing I do know is I will eagerly await Mr. H...more

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Sep 22, 2011 Taimi added it · review of another edition

Haiteksti antaa olettaa itsestään jotain aivan muuta. Ensimmäiset sivut menemät muistinsa menettänen miehen yksinäistä ja yksinkertaista elämää kuvatessa. Tutustutaan Clio Aamesin etäiseen ja traagiseen muistoon, saamatta silti mitään kosketuspintaa seuraaviin tapahtumiin. Eric Sanderson ei edes tunnista itseään Eric Sandersoniksi. Entinen elämä on mysteeri, mutta täysin päähenkilöstä riippumattomalta tuntuva mysteeri. Eric kuvittelee voivansa rakentaa täysin uuden elämän, ajattelee, että se on...more Haiteksti antaa olettaa itsestään jotain aivan muuta. Ensimmäiset sivut menemät muistinsa menettänen miehen yksinäistä ja yksinkertaista elämää kuvatessa. Tutustutaan Clio Aamesin etäiseen ja traagiseen muistoon, saamatta silti mitään kosketuspintaa seuraaviin tapahtumiin. Eric Sanderson ei edes tunnista itseään Eric Sandersoniksi. Entinen elämä on mysteeri, mutta täysin päähenkilöstä riippumattomalta tuntuva mysteeri. Eric kuvittelee voivansa rakentaa täysin uuden elämän, ajattelee, että se on varmasti ainoa vaihtoehto. Entisestä kun ei ole jäljellä peruskiveäkään.

Muutaman psykologisen termin avaamisen jälkeen tapahtuu jotain merkillistä. Eric Sanderson herää sohvalta, hyvin tietoisena ympäristöstään, tarkkaavaisena, valppaana, pian tapahtuu jotain... Valkoisen kohinan syvyyksissä oli jotain etäistä ja elävää - ajatusten eloisa lento, käsitteiden ja puoliksi aistittujen kuvien liikkuva hahmo ui kohti. Jokin ui televisiosta ulos, TV keikahtaa lattialle ja huone jää pimeyteen. Pohjantähtenä loistaa vain palohälyttimen valo. Lattia katoaa, Eric Sanderson tipahtaa käsitteiden mereen ja hengenvaarallinen taistelu loduvocaania vastaan alkaa.

Itse, henkilökohtaisesti uskon käsitteellisten kalojen olemassaoloon. Olen nähnyt niitä unen ja valveen välitilassa usein. Mieleeni tulee aina ensin assosiaatio kahdesta taulusta, jotka olivat lapsuudessani talomme seinällä, vielä kun perheeni asui Jyväskylässä. Taulut olivat lähes abstrakteja, ja ne herättivät monia mielikuvia vilkasmieliselle lapselle. Näistä tauluista syöksyi ulos monia käsitteitä, ne vilisivät kuin kalalauma. Käsitteelliset kalat ovat ilmeisesti kuitenkin aina saalistamassa muistoja, eivätkä nämä käsitteet kuitenkaan olleet samaa vihamielistä laatua, päätellen siitä että en ole menettänyt muistiani, ainakaan lopullisesti.

Eric Sanderson ensimmäinen oli väärässä tietyissä uskomuksissaan. Hän kuvitteli voivansa muuttaa menneisyyden tapahtumia muuttamalla menneisyytensä muistoja, ja tuo on nyt sanottu hyvin voimakkaasti tätä käsiteviidakkoa karsimalla, ja oli tietenkin väärässä. Mutta hän oli oikeassa kuitenkin osittain. Me emme muista pelkästään menneisyyttä, muistamme myös tulevaisuuden. Puolet muististamme on varattu aivan muulle kuin sille, mitä on jo tapahtunut, nimittäin sille, mitä seuraavaksi tapahtuu.

Toisin sanoen, kun unohdamme asioita tai muistamme ne jotenkin väärin, ei kukaan ole keksinyt sitä kutsua muistin menetykseksi. Muisto on alunperinkin ollut subjektiivisesta näkökulmasta koettu tapahtuman heijastus, eikä siinä mielessä oikea tai väärä. Varmasti se on vähemmän todellinen kuin itse todellisuus, mutta ei oikea, ei väärä. Siksi... Vain nykyhetken veitsenterä on missään määrin "kova".

Olen tähän kirjaan hyvinkin ihastunut. Hitto vie, Stevel Hall, häneltä haluan lukea jotain muuta joskus myöhemminkin. Kirja on loppujen lopuksi "vain trilleri", seikkailu, dekkari. Henkilöhahmot ovat varmaan hirveän mustavalkoisia, hyväuskoinen ja vilpitön sankari, teräväkielinen ja sähäkkä naiskaunotar, äkäinen mutta äärimmäisen viisas tiedemies ja munkkiluostariin kietoutuva vapaamuurarilaitos... Aines on silti mureaa ja käsitteellisten kalojen virta vie mennessään. Mikä ajatus!
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Jan 14, 2009 Dietmar rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Dietmar by: METRO newspaper review

Shelves: urban-fantasy, thriller

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Apr 24, 2013 Bjorn rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

One morning as Eric Sanderson awoke from uneasy dreams, he found himself transformed into himself. Except he doesn't remember the uneasy dreams. He doesn't remember himself. He's got more or less complete amnesia (think Eco's The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana - he's forgotten everything about himself, but every piece of historical and pop-cultural trivia, every turn of phrase, every cultural meme is still there). He's a blank slate. Except for the letters his old self keeps sending him, warnin...more One morning as Eric Sanderson awoke from uneasy dreams, he found himself transformed into himself. Except he doesn't remember the uneasy dreams. He doesn't remember himself. He's got more or less complete amnesia (think Eco's The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana - he's forgotten everything about himself, but every piece of historical and pop-cultural trivia, every turn of phrase, every cultural meme is still there). He's a blank slate. Except for the letters his old self keeps sending him, warning him of a conceptual shark - the idea of a predator, lurking in the stream of information surrounding all human interaction, and feeding on memories. The ultimate representation of self-destructive thoughts.

You'd think the best thing that could have happened to Eric - the new Eric, Eric II - would have been if Eric I had never told him about this, because once he knows, the shark is after him too. And so he has to set out on a quest to find himself - literally and figuratively, in both the subterranean and subtextual world under the consensus of what life in 21st century Britain is like. (Possibly, he's mad and it's all in his head. Possibly, the shark is very real. Possibly, both; after all, if you have an idea in your head, then that idea is real - the only reality there is, perhaps?)

It's difficult to explain, but it's really a quite clever idea, weaving in themes about language, subjective construction of reality, memetic mutation and evolution, dealing with grief, and a bunch of stuff that might have fit well in a Paul Auster or Haruki Murakami story (unsurprisingly, Hall namedrops both, along with Borges and other metafictional superstars). He's not quite the writer it takes to say anything truly profound about it, and rather than a new Kafka On The Shore it ends up more as a mixture of Snow Crash and Neverwhere with some unfortunate overtones of the Big Purple Dan Brown Book Which Shall Not Be Named. But hey, I really like two of those, and as metaphysical thrillers go it's entertaining. I'll put up with some clunky prose if it serves an original idea, and for a long while it does.

So I'm coasting along merrily on the streams of consciousness - not stream-of-consciousness - in Eric's wake until I hit the last 120 pages. Which, without giving away any details, are anything but original. In fact, I've both read and seen them. As in literally scene by scene, word for word. I get the point of it, but there's using pop culture references to make a point and there's outright plagiarism, and the fact that the characters acknowledge the original in the text while playing it out only makes it all the more stupid, and the book sinks like a stone.

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Mar 28, 2013 Yves rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I would rate this book a one if I didn't think the basic premise was so interesting.

Where it lacks is in the actual plot, which is terribly corny, like a shitty action flick. When the author interrupts important realisations in the story, it's intended to be compelling (? maybe) but more often than not it's just annoying because it signals that I'm going to have to read through several more pages of a trite 'romance' between Eric Sanderson 2 and Scout, a totally unlikeable character. Much of th...more

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About Steven Hall

Steven Hall was born in 1975. After completing a fine arts degree, he became one of the founding members of Manchester's Wet Nana and has produced a number of plays, music videos, conceptual art pieces and short stories. He lives in Hull.

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“Every single cell in the human body replaces itself over a period of seven years. That means there's not even the smallest part of you now that was part of you seven years ago.” — 24 people liked it

“I looked at her and a voice inside me said, we only see starlight because all the stars are bleeding.” — 18 people liked it

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