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Kapow!
Unfolding, turning and spinning, Kapow! is a new book by best-selling British writer Adam Thirlwell.
Kapow! takes place in the thick of the Arab Spring, guided by the highspeed monologue of an unnamed narrator - over-doped, over-caffeinated, over-weight - trying to make sense of this history in real time: with 24 hour broadcasts, YouTube films, lesbian bars in London’s East End and far too many newspaper clippings. A clever, funny and bitingly critical cultural commentary, using spinning digressions to tell the stories of a group of interconnected characters in London and Egypt, each transformed by the idea of revolution.
Beautifully and thoughtfully designed by Studio Frith, hailed by the New York Times as the "go-to graphic designer”, Kapow! asks readers to open and unfold pages, to follow text leaking in and out of paragraphs, to discover more and more visual surprises, while progressively becoming part of and lost within the narrator’s giddy digressions.
Kapow! is a beautifully crafted object told in Thirlwell’s uniquely acrobatic voice: a visually immersive storytelling experience like no other.
Kapow! takes place in the thick of the Arab Spring, guided by the highspeed monologue of an unnamed narrator - over-doped, over-caffeinated, over-weight - trying to make sense of this history in real time: with 24 hour broadcasts, YouTube films, lesbian bars in London’s East End and far too many newspaper clippings. A clever, funny and bitingly critical cultural commentary, using spinning digressions to tell the stories of a group of interconnected characters in London and Egypt, each transformed by the idea of revolution.
Beautifully and thoughtfully designed by Studio Frith, hailed by the New York Times as the "go-to graphic designer”, Kapow! asks readers to open and unfold pages, to follow text leaking in and out of paragraphs, to discover more and more visual surprises, while progressively becoming part of and lost within the narrator’s giddy digressions.
Kapow! is a beautifully crafted object told in Thirlwell’s uniquely acrobatic voice: a visually immersive storytelling experience like no other.
- GenresFictionArtLiterature
81 pages, Paperback
First published May 8, 2012
6 people are currently reading
442 people want to read
About the author
Adam Thirlwell
36 books91 followersAdam Thirlwell was born in 1978 and grew up in North London. He is a fellow of All Souls College, Oxford and assistant editor of Areté magazine.
His first novel, 'Politics', a love story with digressions, was published in 2003, and his second book, 'Miss Herbert: A Book of Novels, Romances & Their Unknown Translators, Containing Ten Languages, Set on Four Continents & Accompanied by Maps, Portraits, Squiggles, Illustrations, & a Variety of Helpful Indexes', in 2007. 'Miss Herbert' won a 2008 Somerset Maugham Award. His third novel is 'The Escape' (2009).
In 2003, Adam Thirlwell was named by Granta magazine as one of twenty 'Best of Young British novelists'. He lives in Oxford.
His first novel, 'Politics', a love story with digressions, was published in 2003, and his second book, 'Miss Herbert: A Book of Novels, Romances & Their Unknown Translators, Containing Ten Languages, Set on Four Continents & Accompanied by Maps, Portraits, Squiggles, Illustrations, & a Variety of Helpful Indexes', in 2007. 'Miss Herbert' won a 2008 Somerset Maugham Award. His third novel is 'The Escape' (2009).
In 2003, Adam Thirlwell was named by Granta magazine as one of twenty 'Best of Young British novelists'. He lives in Oxford.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
February 1, 2013
Adam Thirlwell, while bearing an unfortunate resemblance to Pete Doherty of disgraced noughties flashes-in-the-pan The Libertines, is single-handedly evolving the digressive novelistic-essay thing with a little help from his boutique publishing friends. Kapow! is a short novel on the Arab Spring told from multiple viewpoints (including the [unstated] author’s own) that sprawls and runs and dangles off and on the page, spinning off into anecdotal tangents, irrelevant sidenotes, clever-clever asides in all manner of crazy zigzag typography, pictured here. As stated in several broadsheet reviews, the extra text functions largely in the manner of footnotes, as clauses cast from their sentences are fated to hang off the page like so much authorial snot, and seems to add little to the meaning—essential for anything as typographically outlandish as this. Fortunately, Thirlwell drops little clues and winks throughout, or self-consciously refers to his technique, as the digressive sprawl and various subplots gather momentum, and the novel is a complete delight to read, whose more serious purpose beneath the “cartoon” of his approach should become clear upon multiple readings. Thirlwell as a novelist seems to flounder in the conventional form, if The Escape is anything to go by, but captivates when innovating as in the wonderful Miss Herbert. Here’s to further innovations from him. Only complaint here is the length—such a hypertextual feast should exhaust itself for at least 700 pages. Then again, that’s a lot of folding and typesetting. Kapow!
April 8, 2016
DON'T USE VISUAL GIMMICKS TO SUBSTITUTE MEDIOCRE WRITING
June 16, 2017
I like the themes in this: the idea of there being a story in your own life, in your direct environment, and there being other stories in other places, and what to do with those? We are asked, implored in a way, to empathise, to live all those stories in all those places on the news, in the movies. But don't we also have our own shit going on?
In a sense, Thirlwell is trying to say that the stories in, for instance, the Middle East unfold endlessly, and that in the end they fold back into our secluded Western lives too. A concertina of stories. You could say, perhaps that in order to say anything about anything at all, one should say either nothing or everything. The problem being that both those solutions rub against the grain of our every impulse. We want to shout out square-sized, tweet-sized, slogan-sized. Solution-sized.
Alas, though, very few things turn out to be solution-sized. When we do get to a solution, it is always at least partly by chance. This whole thing called life is like rain shot at by snipers.
But are we the raindrop or the shooter?
(Or, both?)
In a sense, Thirlwell is trying to say that the stories in, for instance, the Middle East unfold endlessly, and that in the end they fold back into our secluded Western lives too. A concertina of stories. You could say, perhaps that in order to say anything about anything at all, one should say either nothing or everything. The problem being that both those solutions rub against the grain of our every impulse. We want to shout out square-sized, tweet-sized, slogan-sized. Solution-sized.
Alas, though, very few things turn out to be solution-sized. When we do get to a solution, it is always at least partly by chance. This whole thing called life is like rain shot at by snipers.
But are we the raindrop or the shooter?
(Or, both?)
June 9, 2012
A whip-smart, funny, and smart-ass novel wrapped up in a form-breaking package. Visual Editions, one of my favorite publishing houses, has finally done a book that's actually a STORY and they've managed to shatter your preconceptions of the novelistic form yet again. It's not going to be for everyone, oh no, but for those of you who are at least a bit politically minded and for those of you who like stylistic exuberance, check this thing out. It's well worth your time, I promise.
Lots more about the book and the form and how awesome it all is at RB: http://wp.me/sGVzJ-kapow
Lots more about the book and the form and how awesome it all is at RB: http://wp.me/sGVzJ-kapow
November 1, 2019
I was particularly hopeful about this book. I loved Politics which for me is a 5 out of 5 book. This was interesting in a post modern kind of way but I just could not get invested in any of the characters. I had to trudge through the 80 pages, which I considered too far several times. There was a pay off of a sort at the end but I am not sure it was worth the effort. Despite this I plan to read The Escape which I hope is more on a par with Politics.
March 3, 2021
I get it! It's non standard construction and as it's written in first person it's rambly and confusing. I just miss the plot - there isn't one and although I kept reading and hoping, I finished wondering why I bothered. Why did Adam bother? It's weird, but not wonderful.
It's very short, so try it if you've got a few hours to spare, but if your reading time is precious, definitely skip this one.
It's very short, so try it if you've got a few hours to spare, but if your reading time is precious, definitely skip this one.
February 27, 2014
Very odd. The type comes at you in all directions which makes it very difficult to read until you realise that the strange crooked Y means "Insert here". And you have to be careful about how you turn the pages in case you miss something which may or may not matter.
The story is about the Egyptian Revolution of 2011 and the strange layout is obviously meant to convey the chaos of ordinary people's lives during that time of upheaval. {Ahdaf Soueif does this superbly and in easily readable script and language in her book "Cairo: My City: Our Revolution.] I am not sure that any of this helped with the novella at the heart of this book.
Rustum, Nigora, Ahmed and Mouloud are engulfed in a story that the narrator is trying to make sense of as he hears it from someone who observed the events, and is telling them to the narrator in various cafes in London. As you can imagine there is a certain unreliability about this made my abstruse by the narrator's philosophical musings.
This story is interesting, but on a personal level I found it very unsatisfying. Others will think otherwise.
The story is about the Egyptian Revolution of 2011 and the strange layout is obviously meant to convey the chaos of ordinary people's lives during that time of upheaval. {Ahdaf Soueif does this superbly and in easily readable script and language in her book "Cairo: My City: Our Revolution.] I am not sure that any of this helped with the novella at the heart of this book.
Rustum, Nigora, Ahmed and Mouloud are engulfed in a story that the narrator is trying to make sense of as he hears it from someone who observed the events, and is telling them to the narrator in various cafes in London. As you can imagine there is a certain unreliability about this made my abstruse by the narrator's philosophical musings.
This story is interesting, but on a personal level I found it very unsatisfying. Others will think otherwise.
September 3, 2012
The digressions in the pages make reading the book a project. Sometimes enjoyable, humorous, and quirky, other times frustrating. While DFW's footnotes usually enhance his work, Thirlwell's digressions break up the story in a way that makes this novel within a novel difficult to follow. Page 72 in my copy was printed twice, and I couldn't tell whether this was an intentional artistic decision or just a printing error, which made me think about the book differently. I'd recommend Kapow! for the reading experience, but the story felt distant and unrelatable.
October 12, 2016
Spiralling, tangential tale of people caught up in the Arab Spring whose stories are filtered through the author/narrator.
Three stars for content, an extra one for the clever layout with pages that unfolded to allow the incidental stories space to expand.
Three stars for content, an extra one for the clever layout with pages that unfolded to allow the incidental stories space to expand.
Want to read
April 30, 2016Visual Editions VE4
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews