<![CDATA[The Tesseract]]>

false <![CDATA[The Tesseract]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1173063299m/243257.jpg 243257 23 In The Tesseract, set in muggy, scary Manila, Alex Garland again proves himself the past master of the youth paranoia novel. His first novel, The Beach--a tale of Western tourists on a druggy Thai isle--was dubbed a Gen-X Lord of the Flies. It made him Britain's richest 28-year-old writer even before Leonardo DiCaprio starred in the movie version. Now Garland ups the literary ante with an intricate three-part crime-story structure that several critics have compared to Pulp Fiction (only without the jokes). It's hard-boiled yet lyrical, subtle yet simple. Garland has three sets of characters collide, as if in a devilishly devised model-train wreck involving real trains, and his Manila is more grittily realistic than his Thailand. The first protagonist is Sean, an English seafaring lad who's about to meet the gangster Don Pepe, who's upset because Sean's boss recently missed a protection payment. It's not just the tarmac-melting heat that accounts for Sean's sweaty state of mind. As Don Pepe's posse's footsteps get louder outside his room, Sean glimpses his face in the mirror "in a state of flux. Unable to resolve itself, like a cheap hologram or a bucket of snakes, the lips curled while the jaw relaxed.... Fear, Sean thought distantly. Rare that one got to see what it actually looked like." Garland's great gift is conveying such mental states with the economy and grace of a Muhammad Ali punch. One feels that Don Pepe is about to reach up from the book and do violence to the reader. Next comes the entire, tensely compressed life story of Rosa, a rural beach beauty turned big-city physician. Rosa is tormented by memories of her first love at 16, a man who comes crashing back into her life. In the last section, Sean and Don Pepe's thugs literally crash into her life, along with the book's third star duo, tough street kids Cente and Totoy. The Tesseract's vivid images and breakneck chases make it unsurprising to learn that Garland started out as a comic-book author, though his second novel really bears comparison with Robert Stone's Dog Soldiers. --Tim Appelo 1020167 1998 The Tesseract total:954|5:101|4:285|3:367|2:152|1:49| 954 3099 1230 66 3 0 false false Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Fri Feb 06 15:21:46 -0800 2009 Fri Feb 06 15:24:26 -0800 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Tue Feb 12 09:23:57 -0800 2008 Tue Feb 12 09:23:57 -0800 2008 more...]]> 4 0 false false Tue Feb 05 16:37:33 -0800 2008 Sat Feb 23 00:25:12 -0800 2008 PULP('tho there is something to be said for that genre, but Garland is pure human psychology,&dare ...more...]]> 4 0 false false Sun Nov 23 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Sat Nov 22 21:59:07 -0800 2008 Sun Nov 23 21:08:09 -0800 2008 more...]]> 3 0 false false Fri Nov 13 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Sun Nov 08 18:42:24 -0800 2009 Fri Nov 13 11:01:41 -0800 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Sun Feb 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Tue Feb 17 10:57:14 -0800 2009 Tue Feb 17 10:59:56 -0800 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Mon Jul 27 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Jul 20 20:14:57 -0700 2009 Mon Jul 27 21:35:52 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Mon Mar 30 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Thu Mar 26 14:51:03 -0700 2009 Tue Apr 07 13:15:34 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Sun Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2006 Mon Nov 09 14:34:53 -0800 2009 Mon Nov 09 14:41:21 -0800 2009 4 0 false false Fri Oct 30 16:17:56 -0700 2009 Fri Oct 30 17:43:58 -0700 2009 4 0 true false Fri May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Wed May 20 09:00:32 -0700 2009 Sat May 23 20:27:01 -0700 2009 1 3 0 false false Fri Feb 06 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Tue Feb 03 18:42:36 -0800 2009 Fri Feb 06 16:39:28 -0800 2009 4 0 false false Sun Jan 20 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Tue Jan 15 09:40:34 -0800 2008 Sun Jan 27 19:40:57 -0800 2008 more...]]> 4 0 false false Sun Jul 19 14:46:57 -0700 2009 Mon Jul 20 13:34:09 -0700 2009 2 0 false false Mon Oct 19 16:13:16 -0700 2009 Mon Oct 19 16:14:24 -0700 2009 4 0 false false Thu Jul 05 00:00:00 -0700 2001 Thu Jul 30 09:04:09 -0700 2009 Thu Jul 30 09:04:46 -0700 2009 1 5 0 false false Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2004 Sun May 31 23:49:20 -0700 2009 Sun May 31 23:49:57 -0700 2009 5 0 false false Fri Nov 06 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Thu Oct 22 18:29:04 -0700 2009 Tue Nov 10 05:31:08 -0800 2009 5 0 false false Fri May 08 15:54:29 -0700 2009 Fri May 08 15:55:20 -0700 2009 3 0 false false Sat Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2000 Tue Nov 03 11:30:54 -0800 2009 Tue Nov 03 11:31:44 -0800 2009 http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=243257