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The Man Who Never Sleeps
"Lars Yenin is an overworked family man, who never gets enough sleep. When he loses both his job and family, he lies down to sleep and doesnt́̀̆ wake up. The mysterious coma continues for years. Two weeks into the sleep, another man who looks identical to Yenin arrives and takes over Yeninś̀̆ life. Within a short time, he becomes a world-famous occultist. This new Yenin never sleeps at all. Chaz Darf is a sorrowful emigrant whose only enjoyment in life is art. Most of his days are spent smoking cigars on the front steps of the block of units where he lives. Nobody knows anything about his life before he came to Australia. When Chaz goes missing, and murders of seemingly supernatural circumstances take place, the police are left with only one Chazś̀̆ paintings, which clutter up his unit. Every painting is of the same a beautiful but deformed woman. Thatś not much help, though. What the police need is the help of an expert in the occult - they go to Lars Yenin." Book jacket.
301 pages, Paperback
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
August 15, 2012
This is not a traditional sort of narrative. It is a novel experiment and respect to the author for putting it out there. It is a high-minded concept without the high falutin' language that makes other pataphysical books of this nature inaccessible. Yenin's story has a point and that point comes across. It is fun and enlightening and what more do you really want?
February 8, 2016
This is Diatschenko's first book and I was expecting a fun read (the cover led me to think it might be about a vampire speed freak). Unfortunately I didn't quite live up to my expectations.
The first third of the novel is set in Adelaide. An elite race of businessmen are controlling the world from luxury apartments above the skyscrapers. They can teleport from place to place via photocopiers and occasionally experiment by playing computer games and smoking bongs with common people. I liked this part of the novel because there was more I could relate to. Needless to say the second part of the novel gets very strange indeed...
The majority of the book is set in a fantasy world called Gamonville. This is a dream-like place where wizards compete to earn hats in a school and have their memories erased once a week. There's a lot of action in Gamonville and the description is very sparse. There's a lot of metaphysics and not much in the way of traditional themes like love, sex or death. This part of the story follows the tribulations of the lost Yenin. He starts a gardening business and fights wars in South Gamania. Other characters deal with clocks that are set into the face of the moon, turn into owls and play computer games until they fade right out of existence.
There's some good ideas here, but reading through the whole thing is discombobulating. I didn't make it through the last fifty pages or so (out of 300). The Man Who Never Sleeps is quite possibly the strangest novel ever written in the history of mankind. It should be compulsory reading for very conservative people. Hopefully it will make their brains melt.
review first appeared at: http://bench-press.blogspot.com.au
The first third of the novel is set in Adelaide. An elite race of businessmen are controlling the world from luxury apartments above the skyscrapers. They can teleport from place to place via photocopiers and occasionally experiment by playing computer games and smoking bongs with common people. I liked this part of the novel because there was more I could relate to. Needless to say the second part of the novel gets very strange indeed...
The majority of the book is set in a fantasy world called Gamonville. This is a dream-like place where wizards compete to earn hats in a school and have their memories erased once a week. There's a lot of action in Gamonville and the description is very sparse. There's a lot of metaphysics and not much in the way of traditional themes like love, sex or death. This part of the story follows the tribulations of the lost Yenin. He starts a gardening business and fights wars in South Gamania. Other characters deal with clocks that are set into the face of the moon, turn into owls and play computer games until they fade right out of existence.
There's some good ideas here, but reading through the whole thing is discombobulating. I didn't make it through the last fifty pages or so (out of 300). The Man Who Never Sleeps is quite possibly the strangest novel ever written in the history of mankind. It should be compulsory reading for very conservative people. Hopefully it will make their brains melt.
review first appeared at: http://bench-press.blogspot.com.au
July 22, 2009
Novel concept but what the hell, this book sucks.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews