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C has been shortlisted for the 2010 Man Booker Prize.
The acclaimed author of Remainder, which Zadie Smith hailed a... read full description
The acclaimed author of Remainder, which Zadie Smith hailed a... read full description
reviews
Dec 07, 2011
Marc
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We live in an age of information overload. There's as much data around us, visible or invisible, as oxygen practically. I often like to think about what the internet will be like in 5, 10, 20 years. At some point, there's going to be a time when there is just SO much information on it - active and non-active, abandoned Livejournals, decades-old records of transactions, discarded emails, forgotten websites, log after countless log - it will all, theoretically, still be around, and still be ava
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Dec 05, 2011
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Dec 28, 2010
Adam
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The book jacket quotations claim this to be “a work of outstanding originality and ambition…An avant-garde epic, the first I can think of since Ulysses” and “The remix the novel has been crying out for.”
Among the many questions this book has left me with, perhaps the most pressing is this: What the hell were those reviewers thinking? This is a fairly straightforward narrative about the life, albeit a life that takes some unusual twists, of a rather dull protagonist. Serge is dull More...
Among the many questions this book has left me with, perhaps the most pressing is this: What the hell were those reviewers thinking? This is a fairly straightforward narrative about the life, albeit a life that takes some unusual twists, of a rather dull protagonist. Serge is dull More...
Mar 08, 2011
Aaron
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(http://www.opinionless.com/book-review-c...)
Author Tom McCarthy can write, there’s no question there, but what he chooses to write about in C, or rather the way he goes about it, can be painfully dull for a large chunk of the novel. The main character Serge isn’t very likable or relatable either. Though this isn’t always a requirement for a novel to be good, it would have helped if this character had at least some semblance of a direction or goal in mind. Instead he wanders throug More...
Author Tom McCarthy can write, there’s no question there, but what he chooses to write about in C, or rather the way he goes about it, can be painfully dull for a large chunk of the novel. The main character Serge isn’t very likable or relatable either. Though this isn’t always a requirement for a novel to be good, it would have helped if this character had at least some semblance of a direction or goal in mind. Instead he wanders throug More...
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Oct 10, 2011
keatssycamore
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This book is a Proustian period piece/faux memoir, except instead of beautifully describing nature & love, McCarthy has a go at technology & sex. To be fair, his go is literary. Entire quotations are lifted from McCarthy's favorite writers and thinkers and other important writers and thinkers will be alluded be directly. One literary idea connects to another and arises again in a different context. And the context grows into a big literary subtext that you can't help but subconciously apply
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Jan 09, 2012
Ângelo
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Falando do livro, falando da sua história, falando do que li, bem li o livro e não sei bem o que dizer/escrever dele.
Tom MacCarthy elege Serge Carrefax para personagem central deste seu livro "C" e tudo gira à sua volta. Logo no início do livro deparamo-nos com o nascimento de Serge, um parto realizado pelo Dr. Learmont, uma escrita que nos cativa logo à partida. Serge é filho de Simon uma personagem muito peculiar, seu pai é um inventor, um cientista e também um professor qu More...
Tom MacCarthy elege Serge Carrefax para personagem central deste seu livro "C" e tudo gira à sua volta. Logo no início do livro deparamo-nos com o nascimento de Serge, um parto realizado pelo Dr. Learmont, uma escrita que nos cativa logo à partida. Serge é filho de Simon uma personagem muito peculiar, seu pai é um inventor, um cientista e também um professor qu More...
Oct 11, 2010
Bookmarks Magazine
rated it:
Even with a good deal of mainstream attention for his third novel, C, Tom McCarthy is still something of a fringe writer. That's by choice, and not necessarily a bad thing. Maybe McCarthy, who owes a debt to James Joyce, Samuel Beckett, and the French nouveau roman, has it right when it comes to the writer's prerogative. "There is an intrepid attitude to Mr. McCarthy's literary sally that has little to do with pleasing publishers or an audience," writes the Wall Street Journal. The res
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Nov 27, 2011
David
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I loved the first 50 pages or so, then the writing started to get surprisingly lazy: the sister says something shocking to her brother, and he feels like the earth is falling away from him, stuff like that. And it deteriorates for a time, in the resort section that culminates in a shockingly figurative sex, then makes a come back with seances and the heroin flapper, and then kind-of tappers off again. Serge is boring and an asshole, so that one actively roots against him. Other characters act in
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Oct 01, 2011
Mark
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The dismissive summary is that it is a novel that says everything is connected (transmission and reception) — specifically focussing on the relationship of living and the dead — if you are either: mad, on drugs or seriously ill. (Doesn’t everybody know this?) I also found chunks of the book (especially the opening) tedious in the extreme. TM is well aware that you can’t scientifically connect with the dead (he has an episode where Serge debunks a seance) so what is the insistence on it mean, oth
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Sep 28, 2011
Paula
rated it:
A história começa de forma bastante aliciante e cativante para o leitor. Um médico é chamado para fazer nascer uma criança. Esta criança é o nosso personagem principal “C”. Há um prenuncio de boa sorte para este bebé, pois quando vem ao mundo, vem envolto numa coifa.
Na casa onde Serge nasce o pai dá aulas a crianças surdas. Uma escola onde é proibido gesticular!
Comunicar faz parte da vida, mas segundo o pai de Serge, é fundamental que se comunique através da fala “aqui ensinamos-lhes More...
Na casa onde Serge nasce o pai dá aulas a crianças surdas. Uma escola onde é proibido gesticular!
Comunicar faz parte da vida, mas segundo o pai de Serge, é fundamental que se comunique através da fala “aqui ensinamos-lhes More...
Sep 27, 2011
Noah
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This novel starts out on a fine note, with beautiful passages describing the labyrinthine Carrefax estate and the goings-on there, scientific and otherwise. The book comments on the role of science and technological experimentation in turn-of-the-century Europe, for good and for ill. Its descriptions of World War I, and the young Serge Carrefax's idiosyncratic experiences in it, are worth reading. But as it wears on, the act wears thin; McCarthy's lack of sentimentality turns from wickedly funny
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Sep 26, 2011
Palmyrah
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This was the first book I've read by this author. I read it in a very short time, which is strange if you consider that when I started it I thought I probably wouldn’t get through it at all. The way Tom McCarthy writes makes his sentences difficult to articulate mentally; reading his prose is like running the hurdles. I kept having to go back and re-read passages I had leapt or stumbled over without even noticing them. The density of the writing was partly responsible, all that literary and cult
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Jul 26, 2011
C is an engrossing work of literary fiction, from a very interesting author, which is on the current Man Booker Prize longlist. The book is in five sections, and follows the life of Serge Carrefax, who is brought up against the background of a family-run school for the deaf by an eccentric, progressive scientist/inventor father and a distant drug-addicted mother anchored in the past, who uses traditional techniques to manufacture silk fabrics and tapestries. The novel moves to a European spa t
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Mar 12, 2011
Greg
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Remember the mid-'90s tune "Everything Zen" by Bush? Remember how everyone loved the song 'cause it rocked, but no one had any idea what it was really about because the lyrics are a goofy mess of seemingly unrelated phrases and ideas? That's kind of how I felt about Tom McCarthy's uber-literary, Man Booker-shortlisted novel C.
There's a pretty straightforward story here that I enjoyed strictly on a "beat and rhythm" level. And then there's what it really means. McCa More...
There's a pretty straightforward story here that I enjoyed strictly on a "beat and rhythm" level. And then there's what it really means. McCa More...
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Jan 03, 2011
Cathy
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Perhaps if I had read reviews of this book, I would have avoided it. The reviews I have seen call it"post modern". Don't know quite what that is. Does it mean there is no plot?
Anyway,the novel is about Serge Carrafx - raised in rural England by his English father and French mother. Father runs a school for the deaf on their large, rambling rural estate. Deaf mother raises silkworms and makes and sells her silk fabrics. Serge's childhood is dominated by his sister Sofi More...
Anyway,the novel is about Serge Carrafx - raised in rural England by his English father and French mother. Father runs a school for the deaf on their large, rambling rural estate. Deaf mother raises silkworms and makes and sells her silk fabrics. Serge's childhood is dominated by his sister Sofi More...
Dec 29, 2010
Donald
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My feelings about this book definitely shifted over the course of my reading experience. For the first third I was hooked on the characterization of the school for the deaf and the wireless experimentation. Then the novel turned into a conventional war story, which I can't say I was crazy about but definitely had some bright moments. Transitioning from the war McCarthy takes us to the main character's life in London. Throughout this third section McCarthy definitely won me back as a reader,
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Oct 16, 2010
Erin
rated it:
i'll keep it short. i liked this book. because i like mccarthy's writing. but i didn't love it. because i don't think i really got it.
on the surface, there is a lot of clear plot happening. interesting life of an interesting young man. the pacing is both slow and hurried at the same time... in that mccarthy lingers on certain aspects of the boy's life that you sense are plot progressions, but at the same time, as one continues to read, seem not to have the importance in the ove More...
on the surface, there is a lot of clear plot happening. interesting life of an interesting young man. the pacing is both slow and hurried at the same time... in that mccarthy lingers on certain aspects of the boy's life that you sense are plot progressions, but at the same time, as one continues to read, seem not to have the importance in the ove More...
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Oct 02, 2010
Greg
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In my review for Jennifer Egan's newest novel I got carried away with digressions and forgot to mention the most remarkable aspect of the novel: the depth and richness she achieved even though the book was only two hundred and something pages, fifty pages were taken up by the powerpoint chapter, and each chapter had the difficult task of having to introduce a whole new cast of characters.
C has a similar-ish task that Egan's book does. Show a persons life through a series of chapt More...
C has a similar-ish task that Egan's book does. Show a persons life through a series of chapt More...
72 comments
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Aug 23, 2010
MJ
rated it:
Dear Mr. McC,
I had occasion to read your latest novel, C, over the weekend. I know this will be difficult to hear, given the warm reception to Remainder, but this novel is bloated twaddle.
Don’t get me wrong – I think you have talent. Bags of talent. Why, however, you chose to waste that talent writing a bad novel from the 19th century is beyond me. I mean, you are a modern artist, Tom – why must you borrow from the past to “steer the contemporary novel in exciting directi More...
I had occasion to read your latest novel, C, over the weekend. I know this will be difficult to hear, given the warm reception to Remainder, but this novel is bloated twaddle.
Don’t get me wrong – I think you have talent. Bags of talent. Why, however, you chose to waste that talent writing a bad novel from the 19th century is beyond me. I mean, you are a modern artist, Tom – why must you borrow from the past to “steer the contemporary novel in exciting directi More...
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Oct 06, 2010
Grace
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This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers.
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Sep 01, 2010
Kasa
rated it:
Serge, the protagonist, makes his way through the early 20th century in chapters that become increasingly dense and harder to reconcile. However, he remains unformed and indistinguishable. The forces of history and personal journey never quite jell. Serge never really seems to come to life casting a caul over the entire novel. Could that be why McCarthy has his hero born with a caul? Could "C" also stand for Clueless? Although there are interesting insights into a diverse range o
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Jan 01, 2011
James
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I absolutely loved this book, though like a few others here I'm not completely sure why. I think it was something to do with the extremely weird feeling I had when reading it, which had a lot to do with the relative blankness of the main character, Serge. I think McCarthy displays a true mastery here, making Serge a kind of conduit (or even an antenna) for information rather than a fully developed human being. He seems to only exist to try and make sense of, and report on, his spectrum of experi
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Dec 28, 2011
Melanie
rated it:
Loved it when it started. A strange amalgam of so many things--life in early 20th Century England, education of deaf children, silkworms and silkweaving, early telegraph systems. Serge Carrafax and his sister, Sophie, both hearing, live in a school for the deaf, with their father, the schoolmaster, and their deaf mother, in a world of constant change and experimentation. As Serge grows up, he lives through a number of changes in 20th century English history, including flying in WWI and experi
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Dec 19, 2011
Brian
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Author's that choose to create an unlikable main character must do so in order to make some sort of point about life, or else the disrespect shown the reader seems twice insulting. There isn't a lot to recommend C's Serge Carrafax, the son of a turn of the 19th Century teacher of the deaf and experimenter with wireless, and yet the novel belongs to Serge and little else. Tom McCarthy tempts us with extremely detailed historical and scientific data in several eras and a number of fields and far
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Nov 18, 2010
Nick
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A metatextual mess -- that is so intriguing you want to start over again with it the minute you put it down. Serge is a blank character who observes the advent of the modern world (ca 1890 - 1920). And he is also the most interesting of heroes caught up in circumstances he can't even begin to fathom. WWI flying Ace? Egyptian necromanticist? Freudian snitarium patient? Strange and inviting.
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Jul 27, 2011
John
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This book demonstrates a prodigious talent, but I feel McCarthy has yet to write his inevitable great masterpiece. I enjoyed the section on WWI the best, but the other parts I found less engaging, especially the first hundred pages or so covering the protagonist's childhood, which I slogged through hoping that all the acclaim accompanying the book would be justified eventually. I'm glad I didn't give up at that point because once Serge, the protagonist, goes off to war, the book becomes a fascin
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Sep 20, 2010
Robert
rated it:
I cannot claim to have unearthed and decoded all the rich meanings and messages from this strange wonderful novel. Yet, Tom McCarthy mines so much thought, beauty and humor out of this journey through sound and silence; codes and symbols; mortality and immortality - that much like reading Ishiguro or Pynchon, it is less about plot than it is about the layering of the experience.
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Jan 18, 2012
Emily
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I really enjoyed this book, its almost a really quirky memoir of a man's journey through life with the oddest of circumstances. I would recommend this book to people who can handle odd occurences in the middle of commonplace historical events, as well as people that can follow a story with quick jumps regarding the timeline, and not be disoriented due to it.
The main character is riveting, in a humble sort of way. The author makes even the dirtiest vilest actions appear justified and i More...
The main character is riveting, in a humble sort of way. The author makes even the dirtiest vilest actions appear justified and i More...
Jun 30, 2011
Mike
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While very dense and cryptic, this novel was not wholly satisfying to me -- perhaps for the reasons just mentioned. It seems to play on words almost like Joyce or obsesses with insects throughout almost reminiscing Burrows or Kafka. For my everyday taste, this is a bit much. This felt more like an undertaking than a reading and I wasn't up for it.
That said, there is much to enjoy. The historical context of the novel is its greatest strength as we are taken through England, German More...
That said, there is much to enjoy. The historical context of the novel is its greatest strength as we are taken through England, German More...
Feb 06, 2011
Rob
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(8/10) C is a very difficult novel to get a handle on. It's a strange book -- not strange in the immediately obvious way of, say, Pynchon or DFW, but in a more subtle way that just makes everything feel slightly off. It feels like McCarthy is playing by a just slightly different set of rules than other novelists. Maybe it's the way that C is written like a science-fiction novel set in the past, where early short-wave radio crackers talk like modern-day chat room denizens. Or maybe it's in th
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