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The Raw Shark Texts
by Steven Hall (Goodreads Author)
by Steven Hall (Goodreads Author)
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-seem-to-be-amnesia" kind of plot, but it is raging, it is rythmic and totally unapolagetic, like screw you if you think you've heard this song before. Steven Hall is promising to tease out the mystery with total originality and brio. The characterization of the shrink in particular is extraordinary. What is going on here? The reader awaits, the reader is prepared to suspend many further unknown belief mechanisms...
Then: Steven Hall is feeling kind of dull and uninspired, but here we go. Up and at 'em! Another 200 pages of "The Raw Shark Texts" coming at ya. Ah-hem... Kicking in with cutesy-poo winsome boy-meets-girl capers in post-modern clichèland... But Steven Hall is just MESSING WITH YOU, get it? Ok, ok, let's get back to the good stuff.
Then: "JAWS." Yeah, we're gonna re-do JAWS. But it's gonna be, like, a CONCEPT SHARK, get it? No? That's ok, really, no problem. Because the girl who appears out of nowhere but could also (but might not) be the over-simplified key to an overly-convoluted plot is, like, fortunately, the MOST BEAUTIFUL GIRL OUR MEMORY LOSS DUDE HAS EVER SEEN and, like, THE COOLEST GIRL EVER, and, umm, let's see, SHE DROPS TONS OF WITTY ONE-LINERS and stuff.
Also: This might be the afterlife.
Or: A dream.
I mean: It's what you what you might think if you're in a coma.
Then: This reader is thinking: I can't believe I finished this awful fraud of a book.
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-seem-to-be-amnesia" kind of plot, but it is raging, it is rythmic and totally unapolagetic, like screw you if you think you've heard this song before. Steven Hall is promising to tease out the mystery with total originality and brio. The characterization of the shrink in particular is extraordinary. What is going on here? The reader awaits, the reader is prepared to suspend many further unknown belief mechanisms...
Then: Steven Hall is feeling kind of dull and uninspired, but here we go. Up and at 'em! Another 200 pages of "The Raw Shark Texts" coming at ya. Ah-hem... Kicking in with cutesy-poo winsome boy-meets-girl capers in post-modern clichèland... But Steven Hall is just MESSING WITH YOU, get it? Ok, ok, let's get back to the good stuff.
Then: "JAWS." Yeah, we're gonna re-do JAWS. But it's gonna be, like, a CONCEPT SHARK, get it? No? That's ok, really, no problem. Because the girl who appears out of nowhere but could also (but might not) be the over-simplified key to an overly-convoluted plot is, like, fortunately, the MOST BEAUTIFUL GIRL OUR MEMORY LOSS DUDE HAS EVER SEEN and, like, THE COOLEST GIRL EVER, and, umm, let's see, SHE DROPS TONS OF WITTY ONE-LINERS and stuff.
Also: This might be the afterlife.
Or: A dream.
I mean: It's what you what you might think if you're in a coma.
Then: This reader is thinking: I can't believe I finished this awful fraud of a book.
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Comments (showing 1-4 of 4) (4 new)
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Joshua
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rated it 2 stars
Dec 01, 2010 06:04pm
Your review of this book is a million times better than what I read of the book -- take that for what it's worth!
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While I appreciate your perspective (some people do take what they read too seriously), I can't enjoy a novel if I find serious flaws in the presentation, plot, or character development. If the book was aiming for tongue-in-cheek or hyperbole, I wouldn't have been so put off by it, but, in my opinion, I found the book to be sincere in its objectives, which caused it to be cliche and unrealistic.
