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Feb 20, 2011

Jeff rated it:

“In panic, time stops: past, present and future exist as a single overwhelming force. You then, perversely, want time to appear to run forwards because the ‘future’ is the only place you can see an escape from the intolerable overload of feeling. But at such moments time doesn’t move. And if time isn’t running, then all events that we think of as past or future are actually happening simultaneously. That is the really terrifying thing. And you are subsumed. You’re buried, as beneath an avalanche More...

3 comments like (7 people liked it)

Nov 19, 2007

Maya rated it:

This was a really compelling read. I read Birdsong many years ago, and I think that's the only Faulks novel I've ever read--and I frankly don't remember too much about, including whether or not I liked it, so it's unlikely I would have picked this up on my own. An NPR interview steered me in the direction of this book.

A fascinating character study of a sociopath, more telling(particularly early on) in what isn't implicitly stated than in what is. I couldn't put it down. I find my More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Feb 22, 2010

James rated it:

I had previously read Sebastian Faulk's Charlotte Gray, an historical novel of the best kind both for its historical accuracy and its dramatic characterization. In reading Engleby I found a psychological novel where characterization is brought to the fore with the presentation in the first person. That person, Mike Engleby, gradually becomes several characters as the novel progresses. Much like Dickens, notably in David Copperfield and Great Expectations, Sebastian Faulks's protagonist adopts More...

3 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 03, 2008

Jason rated it:

(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted here illegally.)

Too awful to finish: #5 in an ongoing series.

The Accused: Engleby, by Sebastian Faulks

How far I got: 220 pages (two-thirds of the way through)

Crimes:
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, unlike most of the other books at CCLaP that were too awful to fi More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Dec 01, 2007

Dorian rated it:

Thanks to my favourite librarian (thanks, Rob!), I have a now not-so-advanced reader's copy of this, Faulks's newest. And there's a lot of good buzz about it. (I kept seeing it in the recommended section of bookstores in San Francisco last week.) Jenny Davidson, of perhaps my favourite blog, Light Reading, likes it, and often that's enough for me.

But the book's left me cold. It's receding quickly into memory--never a good sign. The interest surely lies in Faulks's use of first- More...

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 17, 2009

Karlan rated it:

Mike Engleby's life story emerges gradually from the 1970s when he was an abused student to the 2000s when he is a successful journalist. The novel becomes darker when a college friend of Engleby's goes missing. His memories contain great blanks, and the reader could assume it was because of the drugs and alcohol he consumes. The unsolved mystery haunts him as memories return and his sanity is unclear.

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Oct 11, 2007

Tony rated it:

lead by great reviews and my wife's book club, i read this. started to fall apart around page 170, when the narrator suddenly reveals he has a rage problem. really? where's it been for 169 pages? other things i didn't like:

1. the book is set in the past, and characters make predictions about things that will happen in the future (now) and are of course right. cheap device.

2. There is a short rant about the Iraq war at the end that takes the stance that everyone alread More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 14, 2009

Bowerbird rated it:

Although well written this is not an easy read. If this had been the first Faulks novel I'd read I would not be keen to try more. Towards the end I understood why this book is written in such a way. One is looking into a very dark soul so it cannot be less than bleak. A condemnation of drug culture.

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 25, 2008

Ava rated it:

very interesting story - very disturbing. disturbing because the main character is complicated. you know there is something "off" about him yet you can probably relate to him on some level (unless you had a really "wonder-bread life"). by the end of the book it disturbs you that you were able to relate to him at all (and that such a character could exist - but you know he probably could). i like the twists and the complexity. i also like that it is written in 1st person - you More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 16, 2009

Ron rated it:

There's something particularly engaging about the title character, his cynical, arrogant intelligence, the easy way one is let into his mind/world through the text, one gets to be intimate/familiar with him in short order. And it's interesting, structurally, that the dramatic action takes a backseat, in terms of the narrative, and ultimately becomes a vehicle for questioning truth, memory, story-telling, etc. One gets to know Engleby quite well, in many respects, but not at all in other respect More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Oct 20, 2011

Andrew rated it:

I’d never read a Sebasitian Faulks book before, being slightly put off by the dreary-sounding settings and plotlines, but I’d been recommended him enough to give him a go, and I am glad that I did. Engleby is set in the 1970s and 80s and gives a first-person account of the life of Mike Engleby, a very intelligent loner and outsider. The main part of the novel takes place in his university years and adult life. Seeing the world through his eyes, from the beginning the reader is encouraged to iden More...

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Sep 09, 2011

Kurt rated it:

This is a great book, despite the narrative awkwardness that shows up in the end.

It's true that Mike Engleby has a mental illness, but that's not why he's an important character. He's important because there's something of him, sick as he is, in every smart outsider. (And every truly smart person should be at least a bit of an outsider, don't you agree?)

He is fascinated with the popular music of the time, finding significance in it. He politely goes along with people a More...

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Aug 20, 2011

Jacquie added it

Wow. This is an intense and heavy read, but worth it in the long run. It took me a while to get into it, and it floundered a little in the middle, but the overall feeling of this book was gripping, dusturbing, chilling and sad.

As this is written in 1st person, and as the protagonist is a 'loner' with definite social problems, most of the book is dialogue with himself. This can make for heavy reading at times, but it's also quite inthralling looking into the mind of a man whose view of reality More...

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Aug 06, 2011

Marc rated it:

There are two things I like in my novels: I like them to be rooted firmly in time and space. Despite the curious failure to mention that this story is set largely in Cambridge (references to "esteemed English university" are soon clarified when Trinity, King's and Queens' - with correct positioning of apostrophe! - are mentioned), the geography becomes crystal clear, and not only there, but also the very part of Fulham that I know so well - right down to Lillie Road (where my parents o More...

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Aug 01, 2011

Janet rated it:

Two days after finishing this book I still don’t really know what to write in terms of a review!

The story begins with Mike Engleby starting at university. He looks back at his school days, where he was first bullied and then became the bully - and from then it is written in chronological order. It seems obvious that he is involved with Jennifer’s disappearance but the story builds slowly moving away from university and to Mike’s working life until it reaches its conclusion.

It is difficult More...

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Jul 29, 2011

Laurie added it

A unique book, sort of as if "Lucky Jim" were actually a murderer. It's also a complex book, starting out as the story of an intelligent but creepy student who stalks a pretty classmate. He becomes a reasonably competent journalist, interviews famous people, moves in with his girlfriend. Then the book changes course in a jolting way, and all becomes clear--or does it? We're in the mind of an extremely unreliable narrator, so we can only choose the version we believe. Faulks is an More...

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Apr 10, 2011

Stephen is currently reading it

I was a bit reluctant to start reading this book, because the last book I read by Sebastian Faulks, Human traces I hadn't enjoyed very much. So my wife bought it three years ago, and it has sat on the shelf since then, but then looking for something I hadn't read for bed-time reading I picked it up and started it, and it seemed quite different from Human traces and I was rather enjoying it and finding it interesting, and beginning to think it was the best thing I had read by Sebastian Faulks.
More...

1 comment like

Feb 01, 2011

Philippe rated it:

My taste in contemporary fiction tends towards authors - Coetzee, Saramago, Barrico, DeLillo, Gustafsson, Murakami, Oshiguro - that master the art of meshing the darkly epic, the philosophically profound and the mildly surrealist into a compelling literary edifice. A few weeks ago I hurriedly picked up a copy of Faulks' Engleby in an airport bookshop. To be honest, I had never heard of Sebastian Faulks but there was something in the introductory paragraph - a mixture of matter-of-factness and gr More...

3 comments like (4 people liked it)

Sep 28, 2009

Jeremy rated it:

I read Sebastian Faulks' Birdsong a number of years ago - I think I was working in the Somme Valley at the time. I followed that up with Charlotte Grey and was so disappointed when Hollywood made that into a film. I think I felt intelligent reading Faulks, but, like others I honestly can't remember much about either book now.

I picked Engleby up in the local library and read the jacket and felt encouraged to give Faulks another try and I am glad I did. This is a wonderful portrait of More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 24, 2009

Jaime rated it:

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

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Dec 01, 2007

Sarah rated it:

I was quite captured by this character's voice and perspective. Engleby's relationship to the world around him, the way he views his peers for example, is subtly bizarre in the way he is rational and yet weirdly detached. I found the prose to be frequently stunning and almost always fluid and smart. This reads like a thriller at times. It was a intriguing, moody read that I found enjoyable despite its dark tone. I am glad I found this author and look forward to reading other books by him.

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jul 27, 2011

Lisa rated it:

For some reason when I threw this in my bag at The Friends of the Library Book Sale, I thought it was about a rancher or cowboy of something. I think I was thinking of the movie Somersby, which I believe is about a cowboy. Anyhow, Engleby is not about a cowboy, unless cowboy's now herd cattle in Cambridge and London.

What Engleby is is a mesmerizing account of a man's hidden life, hidden even from himself at times. God knows you will find out enough about Engleby's life, but stil More...

0 comments like

Aug 23, 2011

Luigi rated it:

There is no denying that ‘Engleby’, whose alternative title might well be ‘The Diary of a Madman’, is a clever and well written book.
Its main character is a working-class boy who becomes a brilliant scholar despite an upbringing marred by abuse and bullying. His story is told in the first person in a kind of diary form or memoir.
As the narrative progresses his personality seems to undergo a transformation and the image of a lonely,downtrodden but essentially nice boy, gradually disa More...

0 comments like

Jul 05, 2009

F.R. rated it:

For the first fifty pages or so I wondered if I was going to get on with this book at all, the story progressed in an irritatingly rambling fashion and the narrative voice was close to an even more earnest Adrian Mole (not that there's anything wrong with A.Mole, but it is suppossed to be funny). But I'm glad I persevered as the tale finally gripped and I actually lost an afternoon curled on the sofa anxious to see what happened.

The big revelation is signalled well in advance, but I More...

2 comments like

Aug 27, 2010

LindyLouMac rated it:

I found this title rather different to the previous novels I have read by Sebastian Faulks in that this one is a thriller which initially surprised me.

I thought the characterisation of Mike Engleby was excellent. A student at Cambridge when the action, that he narrates to us takes place, he came across as an intelligent young man who is terribly unstable. He unsettled me and I thought he seemed creepy, with his strange behaviour and stalking of Jennifer. Mike is definitely a social More...

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Dec 28, 2011

Fons rated it:

The book follows Engleby's journal, which he started during his time at university. At the beginning you believe Engleby is just a lower class guy in a middle-and-upper class environment. He mocks and moans, but just to try and find a way through life.
But as the book progresses, Engleby changes a bit. His writing changes, becomes more 'honest' (or tells more lies, did he lie before?), and you start to doubt if he is just a typical lower class guy or if he has some secrets.
This is wher More...

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May 06, 2009

Lcbogota rated it:

Michael Engleby is a seductive character, highly intelligent, acerbic, an underdog who has struggled to get ahead in life. But he is not quite loveable. As a matter of fact he can be downright sinister. Sympathy for the abuse he suffered as a boy at boarding school, dissipates as he, in turn, becomes the abuser. Heavy drug and alcohol use, and the convenient literary device of memory lapses, let us know early on in the game that something is afoot. A memory lapse is the traditional Chekhovian ri More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 25, 2008

Bookmaniac70 rated it:

Very sad novel about the desintegration of conscience. The critics of British society and education escaped me a bit,probably due to the fact that I`m not British. As a whole,it was difficult to relate or sympatise with the main character,and I couldn`t grasp at the end if he killed indeed the girl,or invented this in his imagination....

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Aug 01, 2011

Debbie rated it:

I'm not really sure how to review this book. It affected me on a level, yet it was a rather difficult read. The main character isn't very likeable, but that's sort of the point. He's a detached, hyper intelligent sociopath who narrates the story in the form of a journal that he's written. As the reader, you're not really sure what's real and what's just the perception of the narrator, all you really know is that the guy is cold and a bit weird. Things start to fall in place by the end, so at le More...

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Apr 11, 2008

Kathy rated it:

The life of a psychopath. I think the author wants you to empathize with Engelby. He explains that he was abused as a child by his father and classmates. But I don't necessarily believe what he has to say about himself. It is hard to weed out fact from fiction in a fictional, autobiography of a liar.

0 comments like (1 person liked it)