The Mark and the Void

The Mark and the Void by Paul Murray

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


A book that has similarities to the film Stranger Than Fiction (one of my favorites, the film that made me respect Will Farrell’s ability to underplay a comedic part and the film that made me just love Maggie Gyllenhaal), The Mark and the Void is Paul Murray’s long-awaited follow up to the utterly terrific Skippy Dies.

I say similar to Stranger Than Fiction: both involve some stiff person who works in some financial job who become attracted to some free-wheeling server type, whose lives are being chronicled or narrated by an author whose goal is to somehow or other effect the life of their subjects. But there are key differences.

For one, this is set in Ireland and centers on the World Banking Crisis of the last decade. And while at first Claude, the banker and main character in this novel, becomes the unwitting tool of a writer/con man, the two lives become intertwined, and it is because of this relationship that he pursues the lovely Ariadne, a waitress at a local café. The writer (like the book’s author) is also named Paul, and he has struggled since his last book flopped years ago, largely in part to the fact that it was fairly similar to another book that came out at the time (yet did not equal it in quality) and was extremely successful. The financial ruin that being a failed author causes him is what leads him into Claude’s life.

It is an enjoyable read, and even at a somewhat hefty 459 pages, it is never dull. But it does bring me to a not so deep insight about the three books that Paul Murray has written: this guy can really write. And because he can really write and his books are so good, I wind up wishing there were more of them, and that they would come out more often. But they can’t, probably because they are so long and most likely time-consuming to produce. I just can’t help but think that the literary world would be better off if we sacrificed a few hundred pages here and there in a few of these long books so that Paul Murray could come out with a book every two or three years, instead of every six or seven.

Oh well, you can’t have it all. It’s really the only even joking criticism I have for a writer that is the same age as me yet is so much better of a writer than I am. I kid because I love and I’m green with envy.




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