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The Unnamed

3.3 of 5 stars 3.30 · rating details · 4,665 ratings · 1,074 reviews

Tim Farnsworth is a handsome, healthy man, aging with the grace of a matinee idol. His wife Jane still loves him, and for all its quiet trials, their marriage is still stronger than most. Despite long hours at the office, he remains passionate about his work, and his partnership at a prestigious Manhattan law firm means that the work he does is important. And, even as his...more

Hardcover, 310 pages

Published January 18th 2010 by Reagan Arthur Books

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Jan 11, 2010 oriana rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-2010, the-new-new-new-new-thing, book-i-hate-you

Gah, I hated this stupid book. I knew I hated it after the first twenty pages, and I only finished it out of spite.

I am a big enough person to admit that I was expecting to hate this, as I always hate anything that's too hyped, too anticipated, too next big thing, so obvs I may not have given it an honest chance, but whatever. It still was a weird, uneven, mostly bad book.

On the good side: Gone was the gimmickry of Then We Came to the End. Nicely done, Joshua; though your first book was widely...more

54 likes · like · see review

Apr 14, 2011 Krok Zero rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: spring-2010

[Upgrading from 3 to 4 stars because for some reason I keep thinking about this book even though I read it like a year ago, and because I fucking love the audacity of the opening sentence.]

What an odd book.

The first section really is magnificent, instantly hooking you with descriptions of the bizarre illness alluded to in the title as well as vivid sketches of the sufferer's life at home and at work. (Some early office-set scenes actually do offer an interesting echo with Ferris' Then We Came to...more [Upgrading from 3 to 4 stars because for some reason I keep thinking about this book even though I read it like a year ago, and because I fucking love the audacity of the opening sentence.]

What an odd book.

The first section really is magnificent, instantly hooking you with descriptions of the bizarre illness alluded to in the title as well as vivid sketches of the sufferer's life at home and at work. (Some early office-set scenes actually do offer an interesting echo with Ferris' Then We Came to the End, containing the book's sole nods toward humor, although Ferris loses interest in the work thread pretty quickly--a symptom of his surprising lack of focus in this novel.) All the pieces are in place for Ferris to pull off a wrenching tragedy. As is my wont, I was imagining the cinematic possibilities: a man wakes up in an unfamiliar place, alone and disoriented; he shakes the sleep from his body and waits for his mind to follow suit, takes out his phone, and then we cut to the car ride home with his wife, all tense silences and lens flares. Later, an unbroken shot of the man walking, walking, over bridges and along sides of highways, walking and then stopping and then cut; back to the wake-call-ride ritual. The blinking editing rhythms plunging us into his vicious cycle of involuntary escape and shameful return. If nothing else, this first section could make a fine piece of elliptical filmmaking. And of course it works on its own as a study of a family under catastrophic duress, the wife and daughter just as compelling as the man.

And then, shit gets weird. In what I can only assume is a show of solidarity with his perambulatory protagonist, Ferris ditches the sharp sense of purpose he had in the first section and starts wandering aimlessly in the narrative hinterlands. Wife and daughter recede into the background; plot elements introduced earlier fail to pay off even cursorily; different thematic/philosophical hats are tried on, none purchased. Voice and tone become crushingly inconsistent. It's established that the characters don't know what causes the man's condition, but does Ferris know? Did he have any sort of endgame or overarching design in mind? It feels like he was just winging it. But line-by-line the book remains fascinating, and although the shift in conflict from external to internal cuts off too much of the reader's air supply, it's an understandable choice and a gutsy one. One thing Ferris doesn't lack is balls.

The Unnamed is a long way from the fully realized masterpiece that was Then We Came to the End, but I still recommend it, and I think it confirms that Ferris is a writer of consequence and substance who could develop into one of our more interesting prestige novelists. Contrary to the Goodreaders disappointed over Ferris' departure from comedy, I applaud him for trying something different, even if it didn't totally work. Again: balls.(less)

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Feb 22, 2010 Kemper rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: plain-old-fiction

If you took the scenes from Forrest Gump where Tom Hanks runs across the country several times and mixed that with some sections of The Time Travelers Wife, you’d have an idea of what this book is like.

Tim Farnsworth is a successful lawyer, and he lives with his wife Jane and their daughter, Becka, in upper middle class splendor. Becka has some weight issues and general case of teenage angst, but overall they’re living the American dream. However, Tim has an odd problem. He has twice endured per...more

14 likes · like · see review

Oct 12, 2011 Andy rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: list, jenn

I listened to Joshua Ferris read this, his second novel. I hadn't read his first (the lauded Then We Came to The End), but I heard good things about this one. And from the very first moments, I loved it. There's two things an author can do with his characters—one is to present every moment of their lives and try to make them round and three-dimensional and all that crap; or, present them in certain moments and allow the reader to infer their three dimensionalness without having it shoved down th...more

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Jul 14, 2011 Pamela rated it 1 of 5 stars

Boring, repetitive, two-dimensional. The walking away was a clever idea and would have perhaps made an interesting short story. But an entire novel? Nope. It just wasn't enough. By the time I reached the last Jane-Tim reunion, I was seriously considering skipping to the end, reading the last couple of pages and calling it quits. I was fairly certain I had figured out what was going to happen and wasn't interested in wasting the time reading it happen--slowly and boringly happen. Unfortunately, k...more

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Nov 29, 2010 Destinee Sutton rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: grown-up-books, audio

I think I have a book crush on Joshua Ferris (or "Josh" as I call him when I talk back to his narration). I super liked And Then We Came to the End and listening to The Unnamed, I felt hypnotized by the soft rhythms of his voice. Oh, Josh. Your new book is so sad. Are you, okay?

Here's the plot: Tim Farnsworth and his wife Jane are happily married, well off, etc. But they are dealing with a strange unnamed affliction. Tim has this problem where he just starts walking and he can't stop. He can't...more

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Feb 04, 2011 Stacey rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: borrowed-from-library, time-i-will-never-get-back, contemporary-fiction, ebook

I read an excerpt of The Unnamed right before the release date (a year ago.) It had such a weird set-up, I couldn't get it out of my head, and I wanted to buy it so I could finish the story, and find out what the hell was wrong with the main character. Why did he wander? Was he possessed? did he have a disease? hidden superpowers?

Well, I'm pleased to say I managed finally to borrow this ebook from the library and I didn't pay one dime for it. PHew. Then I read it like a maniac in two sittings....more

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Nov 09, 2012 Nathan James rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012, ughmakeitstop

Man, do I dislike giving bad reviews. I completely understand the amount of sweat and tears that goes into a novel like this one. I can tell you right now that I would cry if someone said something even slightly negative about my work.

This book suffered from being read in tandem with a horror novel. I don't usually read horror. I am very susceptible to nightmares from the slightest indication of malicious behavior. I needed a book that I could just relax into, because I could not read the horror...more Man, do I dislike giving bad reviews. I completely understand the amount of sweat and tears that goes into a novel like this one. I can tell you right now that I would cry if someone said something even slightly negative about my work.

This book suffered from being read in tandem with a horror novel. I don't usually read horror. I am very susceptible to nightmares from the slightest indication of malicious behavior. I needed a book that I could just relax into, because I could not read the horror novel before bed without repercussions. This was not the book I should have read.

So depressing.

Oh! Here's the quicktime summary: Family deals with a man's undiagnosable disease: walking too much.

SPOILERS AHOY!

I picked this book up thinking it would be similar in tone (kinda goofy with an edge to it) to Joshua Ferris' first book, Then We Came To the End. I was wrong. The entire family is depressed. The wife and daughter are only sketches of characters. They encompass the basic reaction to the main character, Tim's affliction without any specific personality traits.

There are very involved descriptions of dreams in this book. I gotta tell you, at the risk of you thinking less of me as a human being, that someone else's dreams are not interesting to me unless I am directly in them and then I find their dreams creepy and wonder if they have a crush on me. The same holds true for a character. It's kind of like all the speculation before a presidential election. The polls, the what ifs, the could bes, the who knows. It's so tiring. I just want to know who wins and then move on. None of the opinion's matter. None of them. Ugh - but considering this very topical subject I might be projecting anger onto this book caused from different sources.

I do feel there are important topics in this book being discussed. The inhumane way we treat patients that aren't diagnosable yet because they're the first to have it. I read other reviews of this book that said they were bothered that we never found out what Tim's disease was. I think finding that out would have been beside the author's point. This was a book about dealing with the unforeseen. Taking life's punches - things that no one else can identify with because they will never live it.

Can you imagine the frustration and anger of the first HIV/AIDS patients? What that anger did to their loved ones? And back then they did not live long enough to find out what their killer was all about. That's a luxury we have today. That, I think, is Joshua Ferris's point. It's just not a point I ever want to visit again. (less)

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Feb 14, 2010 Trin rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: american-lit, fiction

I really liked Ferris’ debut novel, Then We Came to the End, which makes how confused and just plain bad this follow-up effort is even more disappointing. Gone is the sense of humor and the light, humanist touch that made Ferris’ first book so readable. The Unnamed is bleak and its characters thin, and with so little sense of who they were, it was hard for me to feel connected to them throughout this series of implausibly awful circumstances. You gotta hope that this is a sophomore slump, but it...more

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Apr 05, 2012 Ashlei Peavie rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Ashlei by: Cortnee Kelly

Shelves: book-club-reads

The book was not at all what I expected which is somewhat a good thing. I was really hoping for a happy ending for Jane and Tim. I was left feeling a little empty. We never really get an explanation as to why this uncontrollable walking is occurring. And what with the voice? Is he schizophrenic? Who knows. It was a good read. Definitely kept me enthralled but left me wanting some finite answer.

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Jul 05, 2012 George Ilsley rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

This is one of those books that starts out with a promising premise and then fizzles. At first it felt like a brilliant satire, like A.M. Homes with half the bite, but then it became boring and lost. The ending was ok, but I had to read it a few times to parse the sentences.

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Feb 24, 2011 Jennifer rated it 4 of 5 stars

This book made me actually gasp from amazement several times and has reminded me what I love about literature once again after a long period colored mostly by disappointment with current fiction. Joshua Ferris has done what so many authors today have tried, and have failed, to do: he has taken questions as old and as heavy as time itself and has both tried to answer them and tried to make those attempted answers especially relevant to a current zeitgeist. This book is definitely going on my list...more

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Apr 21, 2013 Bill rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: literary

Walking Around A Good Idea

Ferris, J. (2010). The Unnamed. New York: Hachette/Reagan-Arthur/Little-Brown.

Tim Farnsworth is a successful, wealthy partner in a New York law firm when he suffers a recurrence of a weird medical disorder, a compulsion to walk, and keep walking, any direction, any time of night or day, until he finally collapses in exhaustion. The onset of the urge is without warning, so he might be in the middle of an important client meeting then just turn around and walk out of the...more Walking Around A Good Idea

Ferris, J. (2010). The Unnamed. New York: Hachette/Reagan-Arthur/Little-Brown.

Tim Farnsworth is a successful, wealthy partner in a New York law firm when he suffers a recurrence of a weird medical disorder, a compulsion to walk, and keep walking, any direction, any time of night or day, until he finally collapses in exhaustion. The onset of the urge is without warning, so he might be in the middle of an important client meeting then just turn around and walk out of the room, go down the stairs, out into the street and across town, even if it is freezing weather and snowing outside. He has no time to even put on a coat. Eventually he collapses from total exhaustion, perhaps in New Jersey, and calls his wife to pick him up. For a while he can make excuses, but eventually he loses his job for nonperformance. He loses many of his fingers and toes to frostbite in the winter.

It’s an interesting premise, although a bit thin to support a whole novel. The theme in the first part of the book is the fact that medical science can do nothing for him. He has had every conceivable test and nothing abnormal can be found. For a time, he wears a specially outfitted bicycle helmet that continuously records his EEG in an attempt to isolate a cause. There are some well written scenes when he shows up in court with his helmet and is unable to explain either to his colleagues or the judge. But nothing comes of that either. The horror of having an undiagnosed and undiagnosable disease is a chilling one. To be suffering deeply, having your life uprooted and your body in pain, and be told there is absolutely nothing wrong with you – maybe it is all in your head – is a situation many people have found themselves in, and all of us fear.

A secondary theme is the extreme stress such a situation puts on the caregiver. Tim’s wife takes to drink and slides down that slippery slope until she loses her job too. That caregivers’ stress is well known but under-documented in the culture. His teenage daughter becomes totally estranged. The marriage falls apart.

Later in the book, additional themes are introduced, such as whether religion provides any explanation or solace for inexplicable life events. That theme is just glimpsed as it passes by. And there is a similar theme that suggests love conquers all, or maybe that the love of caring of family relationships can help one bear any burden. That theme is only weakly presented, not the least because the book ends without resolution. There is no cure for Tim’s condition. He keeps walking the rest of his life and then he dies. There is no answer to any of it, no moral, no lesson to be learned. The author does not take any of the earlier suggested themes seriously.

Besides the thin plot and repetitive scenes of walking, another problem is that the disease itself is not well characterized. It is inconceivable, indeed biologically impossible, that there would not be detectable changes in the somatosensory area of the cerebral cortex during expression of the disease. So maybe it is supposed to be a metaphorical disease, indicating, for example, the urge to just suddenly walk away from a hated job and a deadening marriage. But Tim loves his job and his family and regrets their loss, so that metaphor doesn’t work.

In the last half of the book the disease mutates from a presumed skeleto-muscular disorder into a psychosis. He eventually takes antipsychotic medication, which keeps him lucid, but doesn’t mitigate the compulsion. We can guess at a metaphorical statement, perhaps about about how, for every person, the body eventually betrays the mind, except that the reverse is true for some people.

The story is not literally believable nor metaphorically defined, so we end up with just a weird tale that doesn’t make sense, doesn’t go anywhere, and doesn’t have any resolution. Nevertheless, the well-observed and carefully rendered descriptive writing can keep you turning the pages. Here is an example from a scene in which Tim has had a temporary remission and is able to stay at home with his wife.

“They woke that morning in the bed that had contained them like a miracle for another night… Any predawn stir in those days that rustled the bedsheets put the one on guard that the other might be ready to rise and start the day. But if neither of them opened their eyes to look at the other, that was a sign that sleep was still irresistible in the lengthening hour, maybe because of the lengthening hour, and hey drifted back to sleep. They dozed in and out like that most mornings, half-conscious of the clock and of the other” (p. 187).

The descriptions in this book are good, and that excellent writing may be just strong enough to buoy a silly story full of holes.(less)

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Apr 14, 2013 Faith Nelson rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

The Unnamed by Joshua Ferris. The following words drew me to this book: “He was going to lose the house and everything in it…”

I don’t believe Tim (the main character) lost anything. “Lose” means “to displace” and that is not what happened because Tim walked away from everything. When you read this story you might disagree, you might think he lost everything, and that is fine because this book will mean different things to different people.

Mr. Ferris’ writing is exquisite with breathtaking descri...more

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Aug 30, 2012 Eliza Victoria added it

How honest, this novel. And how brutal, how cruel, how unforgiving. Tim Farnsworth lives in a beautiful house in the suburbs with his wife and child, works in a top law firm, and earns enough money to support a lavish lifestyle. But he suffers from episodes that forces himself to walk. He gets up, he walks, and he cannot stop, no matter how much he wills it. What Tim suffers from is an undiagnosed condition with no precedent, so there is no cure. It doesn’t even have a name. He walks in the mids...more How honest, this novel. And how brutal, how cruel, how unforgiving. Tim Farnsworth lives in a beautiful house in the suburbs with his wife and child, works in a top law firm, and earns enough money to support a lavish lifestyle. But he suffers from episodes that forces himself to walk. He gets up, he walks, and he cannot stop, no matter how much he wills it. What Tim suffers from is an undiagnosed condition with no precedent, so there is no cure. It doesn’t even have a name. He walks in the midst of a storm or a painful summer and on bloodied feet. He walks in winter with only a bathrobe and suffers from frostbite and feels his toe fall off and sees it crumble in his own hand. He calls his wife whenever the walk ends, and she picks him up. They call each other “banana” and they believe they are devoted to each other. Every now and then, however, she sees a perfectly healthy man in the grocery store or in the houses she shows as a real estate agent, and imagines a life she can create if she can only walk away. Every now and then, Tim thinks of suicide.

The writing is beautiful and the novel has its fine moments, but before long, it becomes redundant. Tim walks and returns, there are descriptions of places where he ends up, the suffering piles on top of one another. There is the intriguing question about the mind and the body – is the mind superior, is the mind and the soul one, or is the mind simply the brain, and therefore part of the body, part of the mechanism that makes us move and enslaves us? But then he just keeps on walking. His wife is dying, and he just keeps on walking, and the philosophical questions die away as his feet die away. I came to this book still with Ferris’s wit and humor in Then We Came To The End echoing in my ears, which was a mistake, because then the first page became a bit of a letdown. I knew from the first line that this was going to be a different journey.

If Ferris didn’t write with such a ferocious voice I would have stopped reading. There was a point in the book when I could have stopped reading, because it was frustrating and I was sure it was going nowhere because there was no more hope. But like Tim, I couldn’t stop, and I kept on reading, and I saw that there was no plot, really, just this intense exploration of a man’s despair. I was reminded of Synecdoche, New York, a film with no joy, a film featuring a man who grows old and watches the people he love die away. That’s why it hurt so much to watch that film, and to read this book – because it’s true, all of it is true, no matter how dark and disappointing. And what did I hope for anyway? There’s this man who can’t stop walking, and doesn’t know why he can’t stop walking, and the doctors don’t know why he can’t stop walking, and there is no cure in sight, and his wife is dying, so why was I hoping that in the end, he will find happiness?

I just wished Ferris gave the man a break.(less)

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Jul 07, 2012 Elliot Ratzman rated it 4 of 5 stars

Tim, a high-powered NYC lawyer, is beset by a unique condition: at unpredictable times his body compels him to walk and walk until he drops. The unnamed ailment leaves him collapsed, exhausted and disoriented; his long-suffering wife and daughter having to track him down. The illness, like Gregor in Kafka’s Metamorphosis, is an everyman stand-in for something: careerism, distraction, environmental destruction, mortality, self-sabotage. This is not a fun novel, even if puzzling out the interpreti...more

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Jun 28, 2012 Marc Nash rated it 4 of 5 stars

Ferris' debut novel "Then We Came To The End" was a quiet but sure-handed dissection of the corporate life of a declining advertising agency at the end of the dot.com boom. This his second book is set against the world of a corporate law firm, but the scalpel is more subtle and metaphorical. Ultimately, the book stands of falls by what you make of its central metaphorical conceit.

Tim Farnsworth, one of the partners of the firm, is afflicted by a compulsion to walk. Walking out of bed at night, w...more

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May 16, 2012 Carl Brush rated it 1 of 5 stars

The Unnamed, for all of me, might have gone unpublished. I had Joshua Ferris’s first book, And Then We Came To The End, on my little list, but after looking it up, decided it didn’t look so interesting and went with this one instead. I don’t know if it was a mistake to eschew the first for the second, but it was a mistake to open this one.

The premise is that a hotshot lawyer develops an undiagnosable/untreatable compulsion to walk. The urge might overtake him at any moment--in court, at home, w...more

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May 15, 2012 Mark Soone rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book sounded to have such promise for me....But 2 stars is the highest I can go. I have long loved books where self discovery and exploration is a combined theme with walking, hiking, back packing and/or vagabonding. This is probably why Stephen king's (or Bachman's)The Long Walk has always appealed to me in a delightfully diabolical way. this book was more about a man with an obscure issue of compeeled walking that he didn't understand or want or any part of.

I don't know...The characters d...more

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Apr 18, 2012 Josh rated it 3 of 5 stars

Joshua Ferris is a great writer. The voice, tone, and pacing of this book belongs to a writer far older than Ferris. The Tim and Jane are older than Ferris and the depth of their relationship as they struggle with The Unnamed is profound and tragically beautiful.

At the same The Unnamed is both incredible normal and true to real and and completely implausible. The "disease" that is never named, that literally renders Tim powerless to stay in one place and live the basic, balanced, family-work-lo...more

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Mar 03, 2012 Bonnie Brody rated it 2 of 5 stars

Anyone who reads this book will never think of walking in the same way again. Tim Farnsworth is an attorney who is stricken with a disorder (?), disease (?), mental illness (?), neurological problem (?), psychiatric disorder (?) that remains 'unnamed'. He will be okay for long periods of time, sometimes years, and then be stricken with his 'problem' which is uncontrolled, unstoppable walking. He will walk until exhausted and then sleep wherever his walking takes him, even if it's on a park bench...more Anyone who reads this book will never think of walking in the same way again. Tim Farnsworth is an attorney who is stricken with a disorder (?), disease (?), mental illness (?), neurological problem (?), psychiatric disorder (?) that remains 'unnamed'. He will be okay for long periods of time, sometimes years, and then be stricken with his 'problem' which is uncontrolled, unstoppable walking. He will walk until exhausted and then sleep wherever his walking takes him, even if it's on a park bench or behind a dumpster. The episodes can last for months and as the book begins, Tim is on his third episode after several years in remission. When I say that the walking is unstoppable, I mean that literally. At one point, a little girl walks into Tim and she is thrown off balance; he doesn't even stop to see how she is. This is completely uncharacteristic of him. If he'd been well, and not in the grips of the 'unnamed', he would have stopped to see how she was. He can't stop walking in order to eat and the smells of Manhattan food vendors drive him crazy. He can only stop for one thing - exhaustion - complete and utter exhaustion. You might think that Tim is like Forrest Gump but Forrest chose to run, he was not compelled.

When not ill, Tim is a functional attorney at a top-notch law office in Manhattan. He is a partner and has made so much money that he doesn't have to think about his spending at all. He and his wife, Jane, live in a home with eight bedrooms. As Jane says, she could sleep in a different bedroom every night of the week. Jane and Tim are still in love after twenty years of marriage even though Tim's disorder has taken a toll on their marriage. They have a daughter, Becka, who is a teenager when the book opens up.

Tim has gone to specialists around the world for his unnamed disorder. He has seen psychiatrists, neurologists, homeopathic specialists, internists, nutritionists and endocrinologists. He has taken CAT scans, MRI's, x-rays, and whatever other tests the doctors can come up with to try and see what is causing his interminable walking. At one point he wears a bicycle helmet over his shaved head - the helmet has been fitted with a portable MRI-like scanner that will take pictures of his brain while he is walking. Jane has fitted him with a backpack that is filled with food and basic necessities so that he can take care of himself when the 'unnamed' hits him and he begins to walk.

When the book opens up, Tim has lost hope of finding a cure or getting a diagnosis. He had wanted a diagnosis badly and he was willing to go to the ends of the earth to get one. He had hoped that by putting a name to what was wrong with him, he could evoke sympathy and compassion from those around him rather than being thought of as a walking freak. Tim has even been the subject of an article in the New England Journal of Medicine. One of the main problems in finding a diagnosis is that he is the only one ever who has been stricken with this particular unnamed problem. The walking and the searching is exhausting for Tim.

Jane and Tim have come up with all types of extreme ways to handle Tim's walking and keep him safely at home. At one point, Tim has been strapped to the bed in handcuffs for weeks at a time, having to use a bed pan, never able to get up. He even develops bed sores. He has to be watched 24/7 and this takes a real toll on Jane. Becka does much better with watching Tim than her mother does. Together, they watch episode after episode of Buffy and the Vampire Slayer. When he does walk, he and Jane have an agreement. The first is that he take the backpack that Jane has prepared for him. The second thing is that he calls Jane when he's done walking for the day(s) and Jane will come and pick him up no matter where he is.

My problem with the book is that it is repetitive and there is not good character development. We are told what is going on with the characters at various times but I felt like I was being educated about them rather than having them open up to me as real people in the evolution of the book. The book's plot is like that too. It meanders back and forth and we are told what is happening in order to be able to follow the narrative. I prefer books that are more organic, that flow easily with rich character development. This book does not have that.

The seasons come and go as the novel progresses. We are with Tim and his family through the years. Tim deals with profound issues of life and death, mind and body, wellness and illness. This aspect of the novel is very well done. The novel is also an homage to Tim and Jane's love over the years. I appreciated the depth of feeling that was conveyed here. However, there are several things that just didn't make sense or have follow- through. One was the reason for Tim's taking so much medication towards the end of the book. Why? He is floridly psychotic but what is the reason for this change? Walking is the illness, not psychosis. As Tim searches for a rational explanation for what is unnamed, he appears to get more and more psychotic. Why? The author peppers the book with attempts at magical realism - bees pounding against Tim's window and strewn over the street like leaves, blackbirds falling from the sky, fires out of control - but it feels awkward and unnecessary. It is just 'out there' and does not fit with the constrained style of writing and overall thematic issues.

I find it difficult to recommend this book. The writing style feels constrained and didactic. The plot themes are repetitive and often there is no follow-through with characters who come and go. I am left to ask the question 'Why?' too many times to feel comfortable in my reading. I appreciate the author's attempt to portray a tortured individual and his family but, ultimately, I ended up not being able to empathize with the characters as portrayed. I was educated as to who they are and how they act but it just didn't feel natural. I guess that's the major issue I have with the book. It seemed to try too hard to pull me in and what happened, paradoxically, is that I felt outside looking in. With a great book, I'm on the inside with the characters and environment. Their sensibility is mine. This just didn't happen with this novel.
(less)

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Feb 26, 2012 Steve Gold rated it 1 of 5 stars

Joshua Ferris's debut novel, Then We Came To The End, was a comic look at office life that let drama bleed in from the edges. In the end, it was a novel of surprising power.

With The Unnamed, he tried something different. It's about a lawyer who can't stop walking. His involuntary marathon marches destroy his health, his family and his career. Surely Ferris will lighten the proceedings with some comedy, right? Or at least the characters will use humour to relieve the pressure of the protagonist's...more

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Feb 24, 2012 Joan Hanna rated it 3 of 5 stars

Joshua Ferris, one of the writer’s in the New Yorker’s 20 Under 40 fiction issue, gives his readers a microscopic look at the decline of not only his lead character, Tim Farnsworth, but of the effects of a mysterious illness on his family and career. When Tim tells his wife, Jane, “It’s back” the reader begins a curious and unusual trip with Tim and Jane when an ambulatory illness takes control of Tim causing him to stop in the middle of things and begin to walk.

Ferris takes the reader completel...more

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Feb 11, 2012 Sueij rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: book-club

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I absolutely loved this book right up until (here's the spoiler) Tim developed schizophrenia.

What was absolutely fantastic about this book was the in-depth look at what long term illness does to a person, does to their job, their personality, their marriage and relationships and self-image and all the fullness of their LIFE. It also gives a decent look at what long term illness does to the people around them: spouses, children, co-workers, clients.

Illness changes everything. I struggle with seve...more

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Aug 25, 2011 Brett rated it 3 of 5 stars

I chose this book because I loved Ferris's first book, Then We Came to the End, so much. This one was completely different from Then We Came to the End. It wasn't funny, it focused on one character instead of a cast of characters, it didn't have a strong tie to a geographic place. It began promising as the main character encounters a second occurrence of a mysterious affliction that forces him to walk. He can't stop his legs and he can't control where he walks and when the urge strikes he must s...more

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Aug 09, 2011 Giano Cromley rated it 3 of 5 stars

As a huge fan of Ferris' first novel, Then We Came to the End, I have to admit The Unnamed was somewhat of a letdown. Now, it should be clear: The Unnamed was not written as an attempt to replicate the tone, ideas or style of Ferris' earlier work. The Unnamed is a completely different book and, perhaps because of that, it's unfair to compare the two. With that caveat out of the way, let me try to explain my thoughts on this book on its own terms.

The Unnamed follows the story of Tim Farnsworth, a...more As a huge fan of Ferris' first novel, Then We Came to the End, I have to admit The Unnamed was somewhat of a letdown. Now, it should be clear: The Unnamed was not written as an attempt to replicate the tone, ideas or style of Ferris' earlier work. The Unnamed is a completely different book and, perhaps because of that, it's unfair to compare the two. With that caveat out of the way, let me try to explain my thoughts on this book on its own terms.

The Unnamed follows the story of Tim Farnsworth, a successful (and prototypically workaholic) criminal defense attorney, as he deals with the consequences of a mysterious illness that forces him to go on lengthy, uncontrollable walks.

The first section of the book revolves around Tim's attempts to diagnose and perhaps cure his disease. It also shows how the disease affects his law practice and how it impacts his relationship with his wife and daughter. This section concerns itself with questions of whether or not Tim will ever be able to reign in his illness and bind the various shards of his life.

The second section of the novel follows Tim's travails after he's succumbed wholly to his illness and simply is trying to live with its consequences. This section is largely episodic, with only a minimum of plot to sustain it.

This novel is intended to function on a metaphorical level, with the unnamed illness symbolizing something important. But the metaphor never felt accessible to me; I couldn't tell what was supposed to be illuminated by it. Which forced me to read this novel straight: as the story of a man whose life is dismantled by an illness he can't explain. That would be fine, I suppose, though Tim's pre-illness life isn't particularly desirable or even unique. So I walked away from this novel feeling a little cold.

That being said, the writing here is strong; in sections it's fantastic. And there were times when Tim's plight was truly heart wrenching. Ferris certainly knows how to stick the knife in quickly when he wants to. Perhaps if I'd never read Then We Came to the End, perhaps if I'd had fewer expectations for this novel at the outset, I'd be more inclined to show more generosity in my review
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Jul 07, 2011 Ursula rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: american

Loved "Then We Came to the End" and could not wait to read this. Main character Tim Farnsworth has everything going for him: partner in a prestigious New York law firm with a devoted wife and a teenage daughter. But there is his 'disease', lying dormant until the next sudden outbreak. Then he will feel the sudden urge to get up and walk on and on and will not be able to stop until he collapses. Tim is convinced that his body, not his mind is the driving force behind his 'illness' whereas Doctor...more

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Jun 19, 2011 Vivian rated it 3 of 5 stars

I'm confused about how to review this book, I admit it. I seem to be reading too many books lately where there is no point, or, if there it one, I'm not getting it. Ferris writes beautifully, and we as readers are drawn into the sadness of Tim's, the main character, "unnamed" illness. There are also moments of piercing loveliness, as Tim's wife, out of deep love and devotion, tries to keep herself sane as her husband's condition, and their marriage, deteriorates.

Is his unexplained compulsion to...more

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Jun 11, 2011 Jenny rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-in-2010

I'm torn about this book. There were things I really liked about it, but there were also things I didn't like. But I felt like I'm supposed to like it. Most of the reviews I've read exclaim its greatness. My husband also read it and really enjoyed it. And I'll admit my mixed emotions might be related to the high expectations I had for this book.

Let me start off by saying the author, Joshua Ferris, has a talent for putting words together. The Unnamed would be a great book to read slowly just to s...more I'm torn about this book. There were things I really liked about it, but there were also things I didn't like. But I felt like I'm supposed to like it. Most of the reviews I've read exclaim its greatness. My husband also read it and really enjoyed it. And I'll admit my mixed emotions might be related to the high expectations I had for this book.

Let me start off by saying the author, Joshua Ferris, has a talent for putting words together. The Unnamed would be a great book to read slowly just to savor the writing. In The Unnamed Tim Farnsworth, husband, father, and attorney, is afflicted with a rare disorder in which he is overcome by his body taking control of itself and walking for miles on end. Tim has no control over the walking, yet still suffers the natural consequences of such endurances including exhaustion. Most of the uncontrollable walks are followed by deep sleeps wherever he may stop. Tim's wife, Jane, is ever dedicated to him and will pick him up anywhere at any time. This book was, in many ways, a reflection on marriage and its obstacles. Jane's obstacle is a large and very frustrating one, but so are many other more typical ones. Ferris shows the reader what an authentic marriage is and how something like this can affect a great couple in love like Tim and Jane. Some parts illustratee the love the couple has for each other despite the mundanities of married life. I love this following quote because of the way it does exactly that.

Later that day at an early lunch they taked about what had transpired since breakfast, which was nothing, really, but they still talked as if they hadn't seen each other in a while. They had lived another half a day and that time had gone by without incident and they were together again, and this alone made them talkative. (pg. 168, nook)

Tim also has a daughter (who is young at the start of the book). The book goes somewhat into how her relationship is affected by her father's strange disorder. We see how she struggles with what she considers the absence of her father in her life as well as with wondering if her father is even making this up. Meanwhile, Tim struggles with trying to convince the medical community that this is, indeed, a medical issue and not a mental health one.

Here is a quote where Tim is talking about how the walking sensation overcomes him and is separate from his mine.

His mind was intact, his mind was unimpeachable. If he could not gain dominion over his body, that was not "his" doing. Not an occult possession but a hijacking of some obscure order of the body, the frightened soul inside the runaway train of mindless matter, peering out from the conductor's car in horror. That was him. That was her husband. She reached out in the darkness and touched his breathing body. (pg. 26, nook)

And here's another quote about the cycles that place in a marriage.

Was she up for this? She lay in bed under the covers, her breath visible in the slant moonlight. Really up for it? The long matrimonial haul was accomplished in cycles. One cycle of bad breath, one cycle of renewed desire, athird cycle of breakdown and small avoidances, still another of plays and dinners that spurred a conversation between them late at night that reminded her of their like minds and the pleasure they took in each other's talk. And then back to hating him for not taking out the garbage on Wednesday. (pg. 23, nook)

The first two sections of the book focused on Tim's iwith his wife and daughter and how this was affected by his walking. It also was comedic but sad in the way it affected him at work. The latter sections of the book focused more on Tim's inner thoughts. As with the rest of it, the author's writing was put together so well. I felt like reading this book was a lesson in writing. But at the same time, I got sort of bored with that part. So while I flew through the beginning, I had more difficulty with the latter part. But I have also read other reviews that loved this introspection. In speaking to my husband about this book, he seemed to really enjoy it because of how *authentic* he thought the characters and relationships were. He was also able to relate to the frustrations of the main character. While I've certainly never heard of anything like this disorder, it can easily be alternated with other lesser difficulties and still have the same affect in a person's life and family.

If for no other reason, read this book so you can learn what great writing is or see how characters should be fleshed out in a book. Or read it because it may become a modern classic. (I just feel like it might). Or at the least it will win a lot of awards, and you'll want to know what this book about the man who can't stop walking is. I will say that I worried I would get bored reading about a man who is walking. But that in itself is not the focus of The Unnamed. In fact, those parts are actually pretty comical. So, yes, my feelings are mixed, but I still think this book should be read, and I'm glad I did.

Taken from my blog at www.takemawayreading.com (less)

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Apr 30, 2011 Charlie Quimby rated it 5 of 5 stars

A lawyer with an uncategorizable and untreatable malady struggles to stay afloat with the help of people who love him. I liked Ferris's THEN WE CAME TO AN END very much, and though this is a different and much darker book, it's similar in the way it brings a mundane work life into the novel, showing how we make our living can be both essential and sadly irrelevant to who we are.

The protagonist's condition — a compulsion to be moving that causes him to leave safe places — is strange when viewed...more

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About Joshua Ferris

Joshua Ferris's first novel, Then We Came to the End, won the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award and was a National Book Award finalist. His fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, Granta, and Tin House, among others. His new novel, The Unnamed, will be published in January 2010. He lives in New York.

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Quotes from The Unnamed

“The long matrimonial haul was accomplished in cycles. One cycle of bad breath, one cycle of renewed desire, a third cycle of breakdown and small avoidances, still another of plays and dinners that spurred a conversation between them late at night that reminded her of their like minds and the pleasure they took in each other's talk. And then back to hating him for not taking out the garbage on Wednesday. That was the struggle. Sickness and death, caretaking, the martyrdom of matrimony--that was fluff stuff. When the vows kick in, you don't even blink. You just do. She had to be up for it.” — 3 people liked it

“They were like two inviolable spheres touching at a fine point in their curves, touching but failing to penetrate, failing to breathe the other's air.” — 3 people liked it

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