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The End of Alice
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DISCUSSION OPEN! - 2014 Group Read #1 - The End of Alice
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Seriously, there IS more to this book than I was expecting. If you're on the fence about whether to read this one, I'd encourage you to give it a go. It's short, but intense.
I'm about 15% of the way in myself, and, wow. You're definitely right, is *is* intense. Very controversial as well, I understand completely how such a book can make waves of the unpleasant sort.But the writing is nicely done; I'm completely enthralled.
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..."
I'm so glad to hear that. I was worried I might be the only one reading this one. It would be a real shame - I'm enthralled so far too, and the writing is beautiful.
I'm in two minds whether to read it or not. I prefer 'out there' books but I'm wondering if this is a bit TOO out there for me.
Picked it up for me kindle, will start it tomorrowHmm, given I hated Lolita I have a bad feeling about this
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I have to say - I'd hate to see anyone miss out on this one. I really do hope that people will just pick it up & read it, and make up their minds how they feel about it afterwards.
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i'm with whitney thus far, about 20 pages in but haven't sat down and given it a proper involved read, just snatching pages between feeding kids, shouting at kids, threatening kids and throwing socks at kids
Just finished it over breakfast. I'm a bit stunned, is all I will say.
about 40% through it, it's compelling but i'm not quite sure what the point of it all is at the moment. feels like a cross between chuck palahniuk and nabakov.
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When are we allowed to chat shite about it? I'll likely finish it tomorrow and have 2 pages of rambling self-aggrandising notes on it
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You are correct. I am displeased.
All I'll say is that it took me 35% before the book clicked for me. But please - no talk about the actual content until discussion opens on the 15th.
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By all means, take notes. You can always go back to them when discussion starts.
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It does seem that way, doesn't it? I wish I'd waited a while to read it. I'll need a refresher course by the time start!
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I'm going to go over my notes again tonight to jog my memory bones. I get the feeling this one might be a little controversial, and not just because of the subject matter. From what I've seen, opinions are..... mixed. :)
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*There be spoilers ahead!*
Well! Wasn't that a refreshing change of pace?!
I know opinions on this book seem to be mixed, but I'm dying to know who liked it, who didn't and why.
I'd also be keen to talk about these other things:
* What aspect of the book (or even what scene) disturbed or challenged you the most?
* The narrator, "Chappy", is obviously unreliable. At what point did you start thinking he was unreliable?
*The other question is HOW unreliable is the narrator? What's real and what isn't? The teenage girl's stories? The letters? The girl? Alice?
*What do you think Alice's real story is? Did she provoke him? Seduce him? Nothing of the sort?
*What do you make of the fact that some characters are named, and some aren't?
*What do you make of the ending? Who is "you"?
*What elements in the writing style did you like/dislike?
*Do you have a favourite passage? In the text, I mean.
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Who liked it, who didn't and why.
As you've probably picked up by now, I loved it. Far more than I expected to. I was particularly impressed with the writing, and that there was plenty of room for interpretation. I don't like being spoon-fed stories.
*What elements in the writing style did you like/dislike?
I loved the frequent alliteration. For example p37, "..some sharp thing slipped, and his prize patient, Mrs Mavis Gilette, woke to find a harpoon hole through her cheek and her lost licker languishing on the floor."
I also loved the way the narrator speaks directly to the reader at several points. For much of the book, you can tell yourself that the graphic scenes aren't gratuitous, that it's not voyeuristic reading, but then the narrator practically looks you in the eye, tells you that it absolutely IS gratuitous, and calls you a pervert and a hypocrite besides. I think it's really cleverly done.
* What aspect of the book (or even what scene) disturbed or challenged you the most?
Definitely the scab-eating scene. That literally had me eol (eeuuwwing-out-loud).
* The narrator, "Chappy", is obviously unreliable. At what point did you start thinking he was unreliable?
When some of the small details were obviously contradictory. I think at one point Chappy says he hasn't had a letter in days, and then a paragraph later he tells us he got one yesterday. The mystery for me is whether this makes the letters a complete fiction or not. He could just be drug-affected and/or mentally unstable, after all.
*Do you have a favourite passage? In the text, I mean.
Probably pages 69-70, where he talks about who is in jail and who is not and their unspoken contract. Again - he talks directly to the reader, and the point is so well made, (though self-serving and spurious)- I thought it was magic. "And while you might think I'd find it heartening that such accidents do happen to others, that in all this random senselessness we are all of us caught in a kind of forced criminality - you are in error. You are breaking your promise, the very terms of our agreement - the one that puts me in here and lets you stay out there - if I commit the crimes for you, you must be good for me. You and I, we're in this together, best not to forget."
To be honest, I don't have very firm views on the other questions yet. I think I'd like to talk those through with everyone.
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I thought we'd have a good old-fashioned brawl about how you finally raved about a book that was pure crap. Then, about 70% of the way through, the book finally clicked. I still have some issues with the details, but there was a magic act going on here. It took me awhile to see it, but all the incredibly off-putting pornographic detail actually had a point to it, and the writing was pretty amazing.
I can go into more of my revelations later, but in answer to some of your questions:
'Chappy' is indeed the most unreliable of unreliable narrators. I think it became clear when he said something about 'rewritting' the girl's story because he could tell it better than she could. I'm sure there are actual letters from her, but God knows what they really contain. The glimpses we get of their actual text are pretty flat. I would guess they are very straightforward and fairly dull reports of a girl having an affair with a young boy. I suspect almost all the details are inventions of Chappy.
My favorite part of the writing is how the unreliability and it's many different levels are dealt with: the girl is unreliable; the girl's story is even more unreliable as filtered through the narrator's prose; the narrator's story is unreliable, and his narration and perceptions become more suspect as his story moves more towards what seems to be the truth of 'the end of Alice'. I also appreciated the way the text moved effortlessly between the different narratives without the need of any glaring signposts.
The 'you' of the ending - I want to hear what other people have to say. This is one of my criticisms of the book. I also want to hear more of what other people think of the references to "Lolita", for me this was a mixed bag of admirable and obnoxious.
And I see what you did with that last question.
Addendum: I posted this before reading the follow-up (message 23). Will have more to say, but will let other people have their turn first. I am really interested in the different perceptions of this one.
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I thought we'd have a good old-fashioned brawl about how you finally raved about a book that was pure crap. Then, about 70% of the way through, the book finally clicked. I still have some issues with the details, but there was a magic act going on here. It took me awhile to see it, but all the incredibly off-putting pornographic detail actually had a point to it, and the writing was pretty amazing...."
Bahahahahaha! I'm still chuckling about this. I was CERTAIN we were going to have that brawl this time!
No brawl here. I'm not really sure I can answer any of the questions I'm afraid as I was never really challenged or disturbed by this, I was mostly just bored. Not bored in a contempt way but more in a "Really? Is that it?" I wrote up some note below, apologies if they are rambling.When reading books about strong subjects I always wonder what motivated the author to write it. What did she think she was showing? Was she shining a light on the subject matter or just baiting controversy? What made her feel she could conjure these characters in a world where such characters do exist?
Having read the book I have no idea. Her motivations are a mystery to me and I don’t feel like she has shown anything approaching a truth.
Years back, I guess it would have been around ’98, Alice came up during a back yard conversation with my brother. He rarely read but he knew I read a lot so he’d throw me a bone now and then conversation wise. He was a policeman in the paedophile unit at the time and he’d just read The End of Alice as there was a copy at work that had done the rounds of his team. He passed the book off as ill-informed and disturbingly glorifying of the subject matter. It didn’t match up with the guys he’d arrested nor did it shine a light on any of the deaths or abuses he had encountered. “The worst thing about,” he said, “is that people might take it seriously.”
I’d been thinking about reading it, the whole WH Smith fiasco in the UK was fascinating at the time and great publicity for the book. A mate came home from uni with a copy of Alice and told me that it was "Important." I’d thought about picking it up but decided against it given as I was only 22 and busy being annoyed by the novel Trainspotting and dating a 33 year old (which thinking about it would have been newsworthy had I been 11 and she 22). He told me I should read it one day so I guess I have honoured my promise that I would.
Having finally read Alice, was it shocking? Well not really. There were a few lines I raised an eyebrow at – him chewing a rough nail after he had been fingering his anus was the main one – but there were many others where I just ticked off the expected boundary pushing shock – his mother having him fist her in the pool comes to mind. Did it add anything? Explain anything? Or was it just a grand image to shock? I’d say the latter.
Maybe had I read it in '96 it would have seemed stronger but as it is now it seems like a parody of strong subject matter, much like Blue Jam was when it aired on Channel 4 or the Brass Eye episode Paedoegeddon. So saying though Blue Jam and Paedogeddon both had a point whereas Alice felt pointless.
The book feels split into 2 halves. The first half is the prison sequences and the musings on the girl’s intentions and actions. The prison sections felt unbelievable in their grotesquery. I’m not saying such things don’t happen but that in Alice they are paraded one by one for our review. Here he is fingering his anus. Here he is being penetrated. Here he is having his ring licked. Here he is at the prison doctors. One by one it was “shock value moment number #5.”
The same feels true of the sequences with the girl. They pushed things as far as the author seemed to dare and each time I could almost sense her sitting at the keyboard nodding to herself thinking “This will shatter suburbia.” Would the novel be any different if the girls’ chapters were removed? Given the girl fades away in the second half I can only question if she even existed at all. The book is one long unreliable narration which seemed interesting at first but becomes increasingly frustrating. There is no certainty in anything we are presented which leaves us with nothing to seriously consider come the books end. Does the girl exist? Does she seduce the boy? Do we care?
In the second half, with the girl largely out of the picture, the book becomes a ridiculous pantomime of sequences with Alice that we know cannot possibly be true. There seems no point in trying to pick out the reality of these sequences as we know Alice is most likely dead. We are left wading through chaotic imaginings until we finally reach the summary of the crime. At this point I thought “well surely the girl must reappear now with some kind of closing comment” but instead the book ends with no resolution.
Like the majority of his imaginings of the girls’ activities the book itself ends as just a tease. No resolution, no emotion, no certainty, just vacancy.
I’ve no objection to being in the mindset of the grotesque, Henry Portrait of a Serial Killers was a powerful piece of cinema, American Psycho is a strained things but is a landmark novel (and surprisingly funny film), andAtonement has one of the finest unreliable narrations and unforgettably infuriating characters ever created. Alice though, well it just seems to be hot air. There is no shadow that feels explored, just a caricature of a paedophile that has been conjured from nothing in the real world.
Alice feels like there was a chance to shine a light in a dark place but the author preferred to play in the shadows while she dug out the biggest cockroaches she could find without looking for what it was they were feeding on.
I saw Romper Stomper with some acquaintances way back in the accidentally living with a drug dealer stage of life. During the film some of the guys in the room started cheering as the Vietnamese kid got beaten up in the tunnel. They ignored the message and cheered the violence (and I stopped watching movies with them) and moved in with an alcoholic 40 year old virgin instead.
With Alice I’m sad to say I can imagine some of the audience reading it becoming titillated by passages. The author writes with an eager, though stunted, vocab and her flicked nipples and moist openings would easily arouse with the shock of the passage becoming lost by the prose. Put this book in the hands of a teenager and you would have fantasy material irrespective of the lead characters warning against such desires later in the book. A teenage boy would love the sequences with the girl and, as I know from having been a teenage boy if you want to read something you will get your hands on it.
I’ve read a few interviews with AM Homes and though she’s not boring I don’t feel interested in either her or Alice. She reminded me of Jeanette Winterson so it was not a surprise to read that they were friends. Winterson is more poetic and honest though and I have sought out more of her books since the superb Sexing the Cherry or Oranges are Not the Only Fruit. Both of these books had the courage of their conviction instead of coy obfuscation to hide the lack of any meaning.
Still I’ve no regrets for reading Alice, it was 2 days on the bus, but I’ve no hunger for more. Neither would I recommend Alice, I’d just say it was 2 days spent with a book that could have been better, stronger and more provocative but as it stands is occasionally capably written.
As for the inevitable “a book you either love or loathe” I honestly felt neither, I just felt I’d had my time wasted. It wasn’t good, it wasn’t bad. Had it not been a book club read I would have left it unfinished. My wife asked what I was reading and when I described the book it resurrected Lolita debates between my wife and I and they are always good fun. She praises the book, I despise it, we never agree. She looked at Alice, read a few pages and said “life’s too short for a shit book” and moved on.
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One amusing moment that reminded me of reading the more powerful The Book of Revelation by Rupert Thomson 13 years back on the train in London. I was reading Alice on the bus in Sydney on my Kindle. I got the feeling that the lady next to me was glancing at the screen so, given the content was quite strong (it was the consideration of ejaculating on the letter and sending it to the girl so she could moisten the dry seed with saliva and then masturbate with the mixed fluids letter back to the prison), I turned the screen towards myself a little more so as not to offend.
I heard a tut and the lady quickly moved to another seat and fidgeted for the rest of the journey. This was similar to what happened with Book of Revelation though that time a man opposite me was reading his bible out loud which I felt was very rude so I being just a little drunk I started reading Revelation out loud. He stormed from the carriage in fury while the girl sat behind me asked for details of the book.
Sorry for the length, but that's everything I had in me head after reading it
actually it felt like a cheat not to try and address the question so here goes* What aspect of the book (or even what scene) disturbed or challenged you the most? none, flat line through out
* The narrator, "Chappy", is obviously unreliable. At what point did you start thinking he was unreliable? about page 1, the book was so reverential to Lolita that given Humbert is unreliable it seemed likely that Chappy would be to
*The other question is HOW unreliable is the narrator? What's real and what isn't? The teenage girl's stories? The letters? The girl? Alice? None of it felt real, it was so hyper realised that nothing we were told felt dependable
*What do you think Alice's real story is? Did she provoke him? Seduce him? Nothing of the sort? Impossible to say given the narrators unreliability. I couldn't fathom how - if they had had sex I presume he took her virginity so there would be blood, but she then becomes frightened of her period.
*What do you make of the fact that some characters are named, and some aren't? no opinion
*What do you make of the ending? Who is "you"? no opinion, it felt glib when she started using You, like a justification for the book
*What elements in the writing style did you like/dislike? The alliteration seemed too like mimicking Lolita, it felt forced
*Do you have a favourite passage? In the text, I mean. no
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You've said a few times that you found the story "pointless", but I don't understand - in what way? I get the sense that you're probably more focussed on "what happens" in books than I am. I'm mostly interested to see what I can learn from a book as a whole, and not so focussed on what the story line is for the characters. I know that's not the case for everybody. At the same time, I'm struggling to see what you thought was missing. I didn't actually like the last paragraph, and the "you" that she throws in there, but at the same time, I don't feel like there was an uncertain ending. He failed his parole hearing. What more did we need to know?
Your point about it being unrealistic... again. I'm not sure Chappy's account was meant to be realistic. This just tells us how he thinks, how he sees himself, and how he wants us to see him. When I was about 18, I did some field work with an offender's aid program. One of the first things they had me do was accompany the care worker on his prison visits - to a maximum security men's facility, in particular to the division housing the inmates under protection. So I met all kinds of serial killers, pedophiles & rapists - and no. None of them were quite like Chappy. In fact, the worst crimes seem to have been committed by the men who appeared the most outwardly "normal". Do I think that has anything to do with this book? Nope. I don't think Homes was trying to give us a work of non-fiction here.
I just went back and checked my shelves, and I did read Rupert Thompson's book back when it came out - but I don't remember anything at all about it! Oh well. Different strokes n all that....!
Yay, differing opinions!
Pointless in that for the gravity of the subject I expected some kind of resolution but instead there was nothing. No ending no clarity, just an overwhelming vacancy. And given the subject that seemed like a cheat I'm fine with any kind of book really, plot heavy, plot lite, abstract, I enjoy them all. Alice just left me feeling like I'd read something that never really started
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What sort of resolution, for instance?
The girl - was she / wasn't she real? Chappy, I doubted even he was real to be honest, I half expected a reveal showing him to be a catholic priest or school bus driver wrestling with demons and trying to show himself the punishment should he act on his desires.
To me it felt like there were many strands in play and no tying them off. I note Holmes has written a companion piece to Alice so maybe there's more in that
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Ah. I see what you mean. Personally, I would've been disappointed if she'd done that. I prefer the ambiguity - but I see where you're going now.
I'm still pondering (which I like), but my two cents about what's real & not:
*I think the letters were meant to be real - for starters, his anger at the thought that the girl had broken her compact with him by having sex with the boy seemed unlikely to have no basis.
*He (as he said) filled in a lot of the details of the girl's adventures himself (see Whitney's point above).
*Alice was real (the parole hearing scenes indicate that), but I can't figure out how much of what happened was fantasy. Perhaps he really thought Alice was playing these games with him, perhaps she really was, perhaps he made the whole thing up to justify his actions. I wonder if Chappy even knows..? In real life, do we ever know?
I think there are a few points made in the book, but this is a key one for me:
*We pretend that children aren't sexualised, aren't fucked up in their own ways, don't have any role in these situations. We also forget that the abuser is almost always abused themselves. I'm (obviously) not justifying pedophilia, but there are shades of grey, and the book points these out in graphic detail. It shows us Chappy as the abused, the abuser, the villain, the hero, the patient.... all sides of the story in a way. That's why the ambiguity is important, I think.
Richard- What's the companion piece to this book, BTW?
Appendix A: An Elaboration on the Novel The End of Alice - I believe it shows the girl more I see your points, but I don't see them in the book if you see what I mean
Everyone stop being so bloody insightful and interesting, there's too much good in this discussion for me to comment on jeeeeez!Whitney as always you've been paying much closer attention to the book than me and I agree with everything you say so thanks for the brainwork ;)
"saw Romper Stomper with some acquaintances way back in the accidentally living with a drug dealer stage of life." HA.
"coy obfuscation to hide the lack of any meaning." YES.
"the Brass Eye episode Paedoegeddon." totally although Chris Morris went a bit off the rails without his Day Today team...
I agree that I didn't understand her motivations for writing it, or why she thought that she in particular would have anything special to say about the subject. And the Nabokov allusions weren't really, I don't know, powerful enough or clear enough for me to understand. What's your point? It's maybe redundant to say but the novel seems to be a result of her own explorations of the character, in order to test her own abilities or a method of entering these characters' heads for her own satisfaction + beautiful language, but then there's less in it for the rest of us...
That said even with all the weird crap I've read, the ending stuck with me at least for the rest of the day- I thought it was a call for us to resist Humbert's seductions.
I'm always looking in books nowadays to work out how much research the person did- in this case it wasn't clear that there was any at all, that isn't to say it's a good or bad thing but it's some heavy subject matter and a bit bludgeony- maybe base it on an actual case? (I got a similar feeling from seeing Nymphomaniac recently: von Trier clearly started researching sex addiction then fell down a Wikipedia hole of fishing, golden ratio, Fibonacci and Bach which leaves you going "Trust your good story and stop using pretention as polyfilla!" Shit, I think I just had a writing epiphany.)
*The other question is HOW unreliable is the narrator? What's real and what isn't? The teenage girl's stories? The letters? The girl? Alice?
I actually had to learn on Wikipedia that the narrator was sending letters to this teenage girl. I assumed he was sending letters to Alice to groom her, then he got out and the last scene happened haha! So clueless. So I just read it as a collection of disconnected scenes of weird stuff happening. God, I really wasn't paying attention... that's why I haven't answered all the questions D:
*What elements in the writing style did you like/dislike?
Her choice of lyrical prose was often beautiful, but deliberately confusing at times- I could have done with an oh by the way this is what's happening every now and then.
*Do you have a favourite passage? In the text, I mean.
HAHahaha. Since I've read it only the ending has stuck, not to say it was my favourite but certainly the take-home part of the book.
It's funny to think that This Book Will Save Your Life came afterwards which is a kind of zany Zadie Smith adventure... I wanna read May We Be Forgiven too :D
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Damn! Just remembered - when I was writing up the trivia etc in the first post, I came across an interview with Homes about her research, and was planning on posting it as "bonus content" along the way..... and totally forgot. My bad - I'll see if I can find it. I seem to recall that she did a lot of research though, including taking a course on "surviving prison". Then again, I've read & seen so much prison stuff lately, I could have just completely had a brain fart....
"It's funny to think that This Book Will Save Your Life came afterwards which is a kind of zany Zadie Smith adventure... I wanna read May We Be Forgiven too :D "
I have both of those on the shelf, but totally wasn't in the mood for anything along such different lines straight afterwards. Then I got out Lolita & Tampa, thinking I'd do some kind of paedophilia-hat-trick, but direct comparisons didn't seem like a good idea either.
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Brain fart averted.
Or did This Book... come earlier? I dunno.
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Nope. "This Book.." came out later.
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This interview is excellent, and it reinforces some of the reasons I did a 180 and starting appreciating this book. Holmes says that she knows people who think that in Lolita, Humbert and Lolita don't have sex, and also that they like how the the book isn't smutty. To write a current day Lolita, there HAS to be that over the top, pornographic level of detail to cause the same kind of shocked response that greeted Lolita in the 50's. I think that these details are as much a comment on how anything that isn't in-your-face graphic tends to defy people's comprehension as much as they are a comment on Chappy's character and desire to shock us.
More to come later. Off to work.
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This interview is excellent, and it reinforces some of the reaso..."
Yeah, that's a good point. The other thing the interview touches on that we haven't talked about yet is the humour. One of my very favourite parts is this:
"While I peruse the Book Worm's stacks, she excuses herself to the five-and-dime, saying 'I just need something.' Whips and chains and coils of rope, no doubt.
When she's gone, I ask the owner for a volume of Ovid's love poems, thinking they would be more appropriate than Ferlinghetti for dear one's patent leathers.
'Finally, a true bibliophile,' he cries, coming out from behind the counter, slapping me on the back.
I blush. 'Hardly that,' I say, and am quickly out of the store."
Well, I laughed out loud.
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This also relates to the Lolita parallels, in that Humbert was a charming and likable guy, despite being a complete monster. Holmes was doing (or trying to do) the same thing without hiding behind euphemistic language to mask the reality of what really happened.
I also found some of the Lolita parallels to be weak at times. Like Richard, I thought the alliterative language was too forced. You could argue that this was Chappy trying to be like Humbert, but in the same way that the parade of lurid detail can also be attributed to Chappy instead of Holmes, we're stuck reading it either way.
And while I've already said that I saw the point of said parade of lurid detail, I still found it a tiresome. It was recited so bloodlessly and relentlessly that there was soon nothing titillating about it. It might have well been a laundry list for all the interest it held. And I thought being berated by the pornographer for enjoying the pornography was obnoxious.
And, Leo, I will be looking for ways to work “stop using pretention as polyfilla” into any and all conversations.
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Really? Baiting me with "(sic)" on a correctly spelled English word?
Well, looks like someone had their Spitey-Bix for breakfast today..
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Really? Baiting me with "(sic)" on a correctly spelled English wor..."
Tee hee. Total bait. Couldn't resist when I saw it highlighted by my spellchecker.
i kinda feel like saying anything else here would be redundant, but i didn't see any humour in the book. i saw black attempts and dark laughs but they all fell flat for me. i've been more interested reading the interviews and the reviews of Alice than the book itself, but it still all feels like the fictional equivalent of a very minor storm in Nabakov's tea cup
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As much as I appreciated this book, I suspect you're right about its ultimate place in literary memory. We should revisit it during the Chaos Reading 25th anniversary celebration.
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Who liked it, who didn't and why.
I enjoyed this novel quite a bit. I think I responded most strongly to the writing itself and the narrative voice. The writing is highly stylized and constantly waltzing around pretension but with an aplomb that I found myself charmed by. Perhaps even seduced. How easy is it to say to one's self (much less people you've never met on the interwebs): I really dig this book about a pedophile who gets raped in prison and retells about having sex with a child and then murdering her? The narrator's complexity was also something that drew me in--his anger, his passion, his pain, his lust, his sic humour. Ultimately, it was a book that made me sympathize with what I would normally consider a monster. I found that impressive, but the manner in which Homes did it I also found a bit deceptive (more on that later). I also found it interesting the way we sort of romanticize the predator (ala Hanibal Lecter from the Silence of the Lambs, or Humbert Humbert): Chappy is highly intelligent, manipulative, well-spoken, arrogant (yet full of self-hatred), witty, charming, and then also crude, obnoxious, blunt, and explosive.
*What elements in the writing style did you like/dislike?
I mostly responded positively to what I saw as an erudite narrative voice that was often poetic, especially in its frequent flights of nostalgic retellings of "precious" moments (or imagine precious moments). At times it got a little tiring, but mostly, I thought it was well handled and integral to creating a sense of character.
What aspect of the book (or even what scene) disturbed or challenged you the most?
Hands down, when Chappy retells about his mother finishing off one of their lovely family moments with her taking some menstrual blood on her fingers and applying it to his lips [cue gag reflex in 3... 2... 1... ].
The narrator, "Chappy", is obviously unreliable. At what point did you start thinking he was unreliable? I don't remember the exact point, but it was relatively early on when I realized how little of the girl's actual letters were being read directly vs. paraphrased or spun in his own imagination. It soon became apparent that his version of things was what mattered and that his version might easily be how he thought they should have happened. Chappy has a definite view of the world, desire, etc. and requires that the story he tells reinforce his view (as well as shape ours).
Do you have a favourite passage? I was going to say no, but then I immediately thought about the passage of the young boys eating all their junk food together (I don't have the book nearby; otherwise, I'd quote it). There was something about that scene that was kind of touching in the way it captured both the innocence of youth and a kind of wantonness at the same time. I also like how layered it was--Chappy desires the girl but she desires the boy and he has to somehow convey both desires while retaining a little of his own disgust since the object of desire is both male and a bit past its prime in Chappy's opinion.
The one drawback or letup in this book for me was just how blurred Homes made the lines. I think she made it too easy to sympathize with both choppy and his epistolary companion. I don't mean to imply that she should have tried to make the reader more judgmental about them, but I couldn't think of single passage where they had a moment with their "prey" where the children (the boy or Alice) resisted, seemed unhappy, or were forced to act in some way they did not also want. This could be explained as part of Chappy's unreliability or even as necessary to the psyche of a pedophile, but it came off to me as a slightly unbelievable way of making Chappy and the college girl almost like victims. Did others get the sense that each aggressor was actually at the mercy of its prey? Almost like a drug addict being helpless in the presence of their drug of choice (except that analogy fails because the drug addict inflicts no harm upon the drug, whereas the pedophile must). The harm was masked from the reader (other than the murder). Anybody else feel this way or bothered by it?
I also found it really interesting how the college girl and boy seemed almost more acceptable to me. Was it their age range being much closer? Was it that the boy took on a more stereotypical aggressive role sexually? And yet Alice is also portrayed as the assertive one pulling the strings... What I'm stumbling with here is how ambiguous some of our social/sexual mores are--what age difference is appropriate? At what age do we accept children as sexual beings? How does gender play a role (I liken it to a gross generalization of mainstream audiences seeming more comfortable with two women kissing on film vs. two men; in this case, our we any more of less comfortable when the aggressor is male or female and the victim is the opposite sex)?
Obviously, this book got me thinking and I tend to respond well to books that make me think. It's probably the main reason I read.
i agree re the college age girl and 12 year old boy seemed more acceptable. It seemed fantastical, what 12 / 13 year old boy doesn't hope that a college age girl will pursue them? there is something more acceptable about it - there was a case in the Uk of a 14 year old who's 23 year old english teacher slept with him. The judge stripped her of her teaching credentials but commented in court that he saw no need for damages to be awarded to the boy as the boy had bragged about the encounters to his friends. The judge stated quite bluntly (and controversially) that the boy had likely enjoyed himself greatly.
Would any judge ever say anything similar if it had been a 14 year old girl?
this may off-beat but i did find reading Alice that it reminded me of several other books and films. Not sure if anyone would be interested but i found myself thinking of
Hard Candy - the excellent and very uncomfortable film about the teenage girl trapping a paedophile
Now It's Time To Say Goodbye - but then again most books remind me of this one, but certain moments of language, detail and uncertainty
The Book of Revelation - not a perfect book but a striking one, 3 obsessive fans kidnap a male balerina, chain him to the floor by his penis and force him to dance for them
Mod
That's some great commentary, Marc. You've raised some really good points. I laughed when I saw the bit above - I've been discussing the book with my partner on the phone, knowing full well that the nosy old lady next door is listening to every word I say. Despite that (or more likely, because of it), I've been referring to it as "that lovely paedophile book".
The scene you mention with the boys eating junk food stuck in my mind too. I automatically knew what she was describing, and it struck me as so realistic, but I shared a little bit of Chappy's disgust at the same time.
I see what you mean about the predators being presented as prey - particularly Chappy who was presented as being preyed upon by a tiny sociopath, but also the girl. She seemed helpless to refuse Matt, and tried to refuse the others to no avail. It might have been better to see at least one of these children being harmed by the experience, but to some extent that's done via Chappy's story of childhood abuse.
I think you make a really good point with regard to ambiguous social mores. I don't know whether Alice's abuse seems worse because of her age, gender, or because of the physical harm that's done to her. You could right about the gender lines/age being a factor. There are still a lot of people who don't think of a man as being "rapable".
Mod
I especially wonder if the judge would have had a similar attitude if the seducer of the 14 year old boy had been a 23 year old man instead of a 23 year old woman.
Mod
Ruby, I can only imagine how much the nosy lady next door is enjoying your conversations. Maybe you should read your group submission out loud, as well! I think that's an excellent point and highly related about many people thinking a man can't be raped. This stuff gets pretty complicated psychologically.
If we assume a scale from disgusted to sympathetic, which end were people leaning toward in terms of Chappy? Personally, I found myself more sympathetic than disgusted, which I think speaks volumes of Homes. And yet it had this surreal feel to it--I almost felt nothing about the murder of Alice, like there was no other alternative (which is ridiculous).
Chaos Reading
Books mentioned in this topic
Now It's Time To Say Goodbye (other topics)The Book of Revelation (other topics)
Lolita (other topics)
Tampa (other topics)
Appendix A: An Elaboration on the Novel The End of Alice (other topics)
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2014 Group Read #1: THE END OF ALICE by A.M. Homes
GROUP READ DETAILS
*Reading starts: As soon as you're able. I'm allowing around 3 weeks for this one: a week to get the book, plus two weeks to read it.
*Discussion Starts: 15 February 2014
*On the day, I'll add a note to the title of this thread to let people know the discussion's started. In the meantime, people can stop by this thread to chat, and read/post bonus material about the book - but please flag or hide any spoilers until discussion opens.
FACTS & TRIVIA
*Length: 252 pages
*First published: 1996
*Author: A.M. Homes (US)
*It was a controversial book on release and, when published in the UK, the National Society For The Prevention Of Cruelty To Children made an appeal to bookstores not to stock it. The W. H. Smith chain of bookstores complied and declined to stock the book. The NSPCC's spokesman, Jim Harding, described The End Of Alice as "the most vile and perverted novel I've ever read."
*Homes was a writer/producer on the tv show "The L Word" in 2004-2005. *Homes wrote the adaptation of her first novel, Jack, for which Stockard Channing won an Emmy.