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The Echo Chamber
An evocative and exquisitely written debut novel about family, empire and money.
Impressive in its scope and ambition, this first novel is at once a family saga, a book that reimagines the myth of the empire, and a history of objects. The Echo Chamber is narrated by fifty-four- year-old Evie Steppman, who grew up in Nigeria in the 1950s during the last decade of British rule. As a child, Evie exhibited extraordinarily acute powers of hearing; now, alone in an attic in Scotland that is filled with objects from her past and with her powers of hearing starting to fade, she sets out to record her history before it all disintegrates into a meaningless din. Tales of the twelfth-century mapmaker in Palermo, stories whispered by embittered expatriates, and eyewitness accounts from Nigeria's civil war mingle with Evie's memories of her childhood, of her grandfather, a watchmaker who attempted to forge a mechanical likeness of his dead wife, and of her travels across America. Williams's interest in history and storytelling and his talent for evoking multiple voices will remind readers of the work of David Mitchell, Peter Carey, and Jonathan Safran Foer.
Impressive in its scope and ambition, this first novel is at once a family saga, a book that reimagines the myth of the empire, and a history of objects. The Echo Chamber is narrated by fifty-four- year-old Evie Steppman, who grew up in Nigeria in the 1950s during the last decade of British rule. As a child, Evie exhibited extraordinarily acute powers of hearing; now, alone in an attic in Scotland that is filled with objects from her past and with her powers of hearing starting to fade, she sets out to record her history before it all disintegrates into a meaningless din. Tales of the twelfth-century mapmaker in Palermo, stories whispered by embittered expatriates, and eyewitness accounts from Nigeria's civil war mingle with Evie's memories of her childhood, of her grandfather, a watchmaker who attempted to forge a mechanical likeness of his dead wife, and of her travels across America. Williams's interest in history and storytelling and his talent for evoking multiple voices will remind readers of the work of David Mitchell, Peter Carey, and Jonathan Safran Foer.
384 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2011
10 people are currently reading
317 people want to read
About the author
Luke Williams
3 booksLuke Williams is a lecturer teaching prose fiction and creative-critical work across all Birkbeck’s Creative Writing programmes. He has been involved, since its initiation, in Birkbeck’s Compass project, which supports people with backgrounds in forced migrancy who would like to continue their education at university. He works within literary, visual art and community contexts, and tries to integrate these elements in his practice.
Luke is a graduate of the MA in Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia, where he met Natasha Soobramanien, with whom he now co-writes. Their novel Diego Garcia was published jointly by Fitzcarraldo Editions and Semiotext(e) in 2022 and won that year's Goldsmith's Prize. Their collaboration began with Luke’s first novel The Echo Chamber (Hamish Hamilton/Penguin 2011), for which Natasha wrote two chapters. The novel won the 2011 Saltire Award for Best First Book.
Luke has been involved in a number of public projects engaged with the contested space between literature and art, such as the events series Plastic Words at Raven Row.
Constituting publics and considering forms of community are increasingly central to his practice. In this he is influenced by Black Studies scholarship. Collaborative writing is one of the ways in which he tries to push back against forms of individualism.
His experience of community projects began with Akwaaba, a social centre for refugees and migrants in Hackney, where he first worked on a bike maintenance project before setting up a storytellers’ group. The group went on to develop a collaborative text which was performed at Stoke Newington Literary Festival, and subsequently published in Tales of Two Londons.
Luke is a graduate of the MA in Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia, where he met Natasha Soobramanien, with whom he now co-writes. Their novel Diego Garcia was published jointly by Fitzcarraldo Editions and Semiotext(e) in 2022 and won that year's Goldsmith's Prize. Their collaboration began with Luke’s first novel The Echo Chamber (Hamish Hamilton/Penguin 2011), for which Natasha wrote two chapters. The novel won the 2011 Saltire Award for Best First Book.
Luke has been involved in a number of public projects engaged with the contested space between literature and art, such as the events series Plastic Words at Raven Row.
Constituting publics and considering forms of community are increasingly central to his practice. In this he is influenced by Black Studies scholarship. Collaborative writing is one of the ways in which he tries to push back against forms of individualism.
His experience of community projects began with Akwaaba, a social centre for refugees and migrants in Hackney, where he first worked on a bike maintenance project before setting up a storytellers’ group. The group went on to develop a collaborative text which was performed at Stoke Newington Literary Festival, and subsequently published in Tales of Two Londons.
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Displaying 1 - 27 of 27 reviews
February 8, 2018
This story revolves around Evie Steppman, a woman with exceptional hearing and extremely large ears to boot. Although this novel is written by a young man, he does manage to make it believable that the narrator is a 53-year-old woman, living in Nigeria, even as English rule took hold.
At the time of the story, Evie is losing her biggest asset, her incredible hearing, and she decides she needs to get her story on paper before the rest of her faculties fade too.
The writing style is a little unusual, and the story is a good one, but not a book I would go back and re-read.
At the time of the story, Evie is losing her biggest asset, her incredible hearing, and she decides she needs to get her story on paper before the rest of her faculties fade too.
The writing style is a little unusual, and the story is a good one, but not a book I would go back and re-read.
August 12, 2011
Evie Steppman's mammoth ears are a repository of history, memory, and time. She was born unnamed to British parents in Lagos, Nigeria, during the end of British colonial rule (1946), and, now in her fifties, she is chronicling her story and the stories of various individuals from a collection of documents, letters, diaries, pamphlets, photographs, and assorted, emotionally powerful objects, or "unica" (one-of-a-kind objects).
Evie suffers from severe tinnitus (which resembles Ménière's disease), and, isolated in an attic in Eastern Scotland, is anxious to record these memories before she is engulfed by the din in her head. Her gifted and telepathic sense of hearing is analogous to Saleem's prophetic olfactory organ in Rushdie's Midnight's Children.
Lagos is an allegory to Evie's birth, a place that had grown out of the water. This duality of land and water euphemized Evie's ability to inhabit more than one "world," through her towering perspicacity of audition.
"My ears were extraordinary. Crimson, membranous, graced with heavy lobes, they whorled their way into the hollow where ciliary movement stirred, absorbing the sounds...All my talent had gone into the development of my ears."
Like Rushdie, Williams uses polyphonic diversity of voice and magical realism to tell a story of ordinary people living during extraordinary times. But whereas Saleem is born precisely at the stroke of midnight during the birth of a nation, Evie's birth is a tragic affair. Clinging to her mother's womb, she coveted her life inside the amniotic chamber, where her acute sense of hearing began. Evie delayed her own birth by two months, subsequently ending her mother's life.
"...the vicious spitting of feral cats, rugbeaters thwacking, fat goats being led to market...women pounding manioc. I heard the punishing of boy thieves...My hearing was demotic and unprincipled."
Evie's audition is also temporally transcendent--she hears through time and space, as if her hearing materialized from the primordial steam that saturated her with timeless tutoring of the past and present. As well as binding her to history, her ears have yoked her to ancient myths and fables.
The story is a non-linear journey, but is cohesively braided through the channels of Evie's aural migrations -- through empire, war, genocide, independence, and a glam rock tour through the US, David Bowie-style. A key event underground with the nightsoil workers is a literary triumph of compassion and imagination, a vivid, hallucinatory examination of humanity through those forgotten and marginalized souls. Williams seamlessly controls the disclosure of multiple events, with the penultimate, harrowing scene singularly expressed through a letter.
THE ECHO CHAMBER is both a subtle and outrageous novel that echoes other novels-- a pastiche and synthesis of luminaries, such as Isaac Babel, Robert Louis Stevenson, Bruno Schulz, Georges Perec, and others who are interwoven to buttress the story. There are a staggering number of motifs, metaphors, and allegories, which begs a second reading, just as complex music demands repeated immersion.
The novel's strength of character is matched by its astonishing assortment of objects that tell their own stories, such as an alleged ancient map, the mappa mundi, and its mythical "monstrous races," one of the most piquant images of the story. The picture on the map of a pelican is so evocative and shattering in its nuance that it will likely be embedded in the reader's mind eternally.
This review would not be complete without mentioning that the diary of Evie's lover, Damaris, is penned by Luke Williams' friend, Natasha Soobramanien. These two chapters are electrifying and immediately felt, removing a bit of the 19th-century fustiness that sometimes injects the narrative and gracing it with impetuous vigor. Moreover, the gap that the reader feels at times with Evie is closed, the distance removed.
Enter this splendid realm of objects and stories, this auricular theater of sound, the emptiness of silence, the chamber of echoes.
Evie suffers from severe tinnitus (which resembles Ménière's disease), and, isolated in an attic in Eastern Scotland, is anxious to record these memories before she is engulfed by the din in her head. Her gifted and telepathic sense of hearing is analogous to Saleem's prophetic olfactory organ in Rushdie's Midnight's Children.
Lagos is an allegory to Evie's birth, a place that had grown out of the water. This duality of land and water euphemized Evie's ability to inhabit more than one "world," through her towering perspicacity of audition.
"My ears were extraordinary. Crimson, membranous, graced with heavy lobes, they whorled their way into the hollow where ciliary movement stirred, absorbing the sounds...All my talent had gone into the development of my ears."
Like Rushdie, Williams uses polyphonic diversity of voice and magical realism to tell a story of ordinary people living during extraordinary times. But whereas Saleem is born precisely at the stroke of midnight during the birth of a nation, Evie's birth is a tragic affair. Clinging to her mother's womb, she coveted her life inside the amniotic chamber, where her acute sense of hearing began. Evie delayed her own birth by two months, subsequently ending her mother's life.
"...the vicious spitting of feral cats, rugbeaters thwacking, fat goats being led to market...women pounding manioc. I heard the punishing of boy thieves...My hearing was demotic and unprincipled."
Evie's audition is also temporally transcendent--she hears through time and space, as if her hearing materialized from the primordial steam that saturated her with timeless tutoring of the past and present. As well as binding her to history, her ears have yoked her to ancient myths and fables.
The story is a non-linear journey, but is cohesively braided through the channels of Evie's aural migrations -- through empire, war, genocide, independence, and a glam rock tour through the US, David Bowie-style. A key event underground with the nightsoil workers is a literary triumph of compassion and imagination, a vivid, hallucinatory examination of humanity through those forgotten and marginalized souls. Williams seamlessly controls the disclosure of multiple events, with the penultimate, harrowing scene singularly expressed through a letter.
THE ECHO CHAMBER is both a subtle and outrageous novel that echoes other novels-- a pastiche and synthesis of luminaries, such as Isaac Babel, Robert Louis Stevenson, Bruno Schulz, Georges Perec, and others who are interwoven to buttress the story. There are a staggering number of motifs, metaphors, and allegories, which begs a second reading, just as complex music demands repeated immersion.
The novel's strength of character is matched by its astonishing assortment of objects that tell their own stories, such as an alleged ancient map, the mappa mundi, and its mythical "monstrous races," one of the most piquant images of the story. The picture on the map of a pelican is so evocative and shattering in its nuance that it will likely be embedded in the reader's mind eternally.
This review would not be complete without mentioning that the diary of Evie's lover, Damaris, is penned by Luke Williams' friend, Natasha Soobramanien. These two chapters are electrifying and immediately felt, removing a bit of the 19th-century fustiness that sometimes injects the narrative and gracing it with impetuous vigor. Moreover, the gap that the reader feels at times with Evie is closed, the distance removed.
Enter this splendid realm of objects and stories, this auricular theater of sound, the emptiness of silence, the chamber of echoes.
September 1, 2011
The Echo Chamber
The Echo Chamber is the fantastical life story of Evie Steppman. She spent her much of her childhood in Nigeria when it was under British rule. When the revolution came she and her civil servant Father moved to Scotland. Now it’s 40 years later and Evie has sequestered herself in the attic of her Scotland home in order to write her memoirs. Evie may be mentally ill and therefore an unreliable narrator. She definately suffers from tinnitus and is challenging herself to write this memoir before the ringing in her ears renders her unable to think of anything else.
Evie’s, formerly, magnificent hearing plays a big part in the mythos of The Echo Chamber. She remembers being in the womb and listening to her Father tell her stories, sing her songs and in general explaining the history of the world to her all the while never coming to the end of anything. Her mother she has no memory of. Evie tells us that she killed her Mother because she wouldn’t be born. Happily two months late Evie was unwilling to leave her cozy home and join the world.
When Evie does arrive she is off to an auspicious start with her cradle next to her Mother’s coffin but she is more of a witness to all that comes next instead of a participant. All around her swirls characters that fascinate. Her family tree includes a watchmaker Grandfather who attempts to build a replica of his dead wife. Her extended family of servants, friends and a lover experience the end of colonialism, war and genocide.
Author Luke Williams uses Evie as our tour guide through her life and as any good guide will do she makes frequent stops to share history, opinions and the lives of others. These interjections bounce through the novel like they would in a conversation. This leads to that, wait a minute listen to this first, maybe it all happened this way, etc. There is not a linear storyline in The Echo Chamber. The structure is like the Louis De Bernieres novel Birds Without Wings or magic realism with stories within stories, shifts in time periods and a very broad view taken by Evie as to what constitutes her life story.
All the nontraditional elements that Williams employees in the book and the references in names, personal abilities and tall tales to novels like Midnight’s Children, The Tin Drum and even real people like Adolph and Eva make for fascinating reading but ultimately I think the sum total of the parts is better than the whole. There is a wealth of amazing writing in The Echo Chamber but for me it is all artifice and technique. The novel always feels contrived. It fails to find an organic center that would allow the reader inside.
The Echo Chamber is the fantastical life story of Evie Steppman. She spent her much of her childhood in Nigeria when it was under British rule. When the revolution came she and her civil servant Father moved to Scotland. Now it’s 40 years later and Evie has sequestered herself in the attic of her Scotland home in order to write her memoirs. Evie may be mentally ill and therefore an unreliable narrator. She definately suffers from tinnitus and is challenging herself to write this memoir before the ringing in her ears renders her unable to think of anything else.
Evie’s, formerly, magnificent hearing plays a big part in the mythos of The Echo Chamber. She remembers being in the womb and listening to her Father tell her stories, sing her songs and in general explaining the history of the world to her all the while never coming to the end of anything. Her mother she has no memory of. Evie tells us that she killed her Mother because she wouldn’t be born. Happily two months late Evie was unwilling to leave her cozy home and join the world.
When Evie does arrive she is off to an auspicious start with her cradle next to her Mother’s coffin but she is more of a witness to all that comes next instead of a participant. All around her swirls characters that fascinate. Her family tree includes a watchmaker Grandfather who attempts to build a replica of his dead wife. Her extended family of servants, friends and a lover experience the end of colonialism, war and genocide.
Author Luke Williams uses Evie as our tour guide through her life and as any good guide will do she makes frequent stops to share history, opinions and the lives of others. These interjections bounce through the novel like they would in a conversation. This leads to that, wait a minute listen to this first, maybe it all happened this way, etc. There is not a linear storyline in The Echo Chamber. The structure is like the Louis De Bernieres novel Birds Without Wings or magic realism with stories within stories, shifts in time periods and a very broad view taken by Evie as to what constitutes her life story.
All the nontraditional elements that Williams employees in the book and the references in names, personal abilities and tall tales to novels like Midnight’s Children, The Tin Drum and even real people like Adolph and Eva make for fascinating reading but ultimately I think the sum total of the parts is better than the whole. There is a wealth of amazing writing in The Echo Chamber but for me it is all artifice and technique. The novel always feels contrived. It fails to find an organic center that would allow the reader inside.
July 21, 2011
I find it hard to sum up what I feel about this book. It seems to have been written as an experiment in writing styles and dips its toes into many. It is a highly literary work - more of interest to those who appreciate poetry for poetry’s sake than the casual reader - an original and creative novel that didn’t quite work for me as a narrative.
It's a book of two distinct halves and the opening half - in which Evie’s sense of sound seems most important – was most successful. Later, the story consists mainly of discovered letters, diaries, transcribed conversations and the works of other authors; from the middle of the story till the end, it’s almost as if the premise has been completely forgotten as the tale explores other areas of its protagonist’s life.
While I could appreciate the artistry, there was something lacking in the foundations, a solid base to Evie’s memories, a lack of centre. The characters all seemed a little two-dimensional, I never warmed to any of them. I couldn’t shake the feeling that this was a too-conscious experiment, an attempt at a new form of magic realism that just didn’t quite work. There isn’t enough of a compelling plot and the characters are too coldly unappealing to read it as a novel; it really is all about the writing, and the writing, though interesting and stylish, is just not dreamy, not magical enough for this type of work; cut to maybe half its current length, the magic-realist style would have been greatly enhanced.
To sum up, I found the style clever, but self conscious, it felt to me as if it was written with a Booker nomination constantly in mind. The Echo Chamber has wonderful, lyrical moments, but ultimately, I found it lifeless and boring.
It's a book of two distinct halves and the opening half - in which Evie’s sense of sound seems most important – was most successful. Later, the story consists mainly of discovered letters, diaries, transcribed conversations and the works of other authors; from the middle of the story till the end, it’s almost as if the premise has been completely forgotten as the tale explores other areas of its protagonist’s life.
While I could appreciate the artistry, there was something lacking in the foundations, a solid base to Evie’s memories, a lack of centre. The characters all seemed a little two-dimensional, I never warmed to any of them. I couldn’t shake the feeling that this was a too-conscious experiment, an attempt at a new form of magic realism that just didn’t quite work. There isn’t enough of a compelling plot and the characters are too coldly unappealing to read it as a novel; it really is all about the writing, and the writing, though interesting and stylish, is just not dreamy, not magical enough for this type of work; cut to maybe half its current length, the magic-realist style would have been greatly enhanced.
To sum up, I found the style clever, but self conscious, it felt to me as if it was written with a Booker nomination constantly in mind. The Echo Chamber has wonderful, lyrical moments, but ultimately, I found it lifeless and boring.
August 21, 2011
This is not the best book I never finished. I tried. It took me almost a week to get through about 40 pages but when it got the where I was dreading picking it up, I knew I was done. The premise is that the protaganist, Evie Steppman, is able to hear and understand the stories her father tells her while she is a fetus. She develops an acute sense of hearing from that early exposure to words. As she ages, her hearing diminishes so she writes down all she knows and remembers.
It sounded like a good story so I entered the contest for the give-away. I would like to give it back. The writing is very poor, repetitive and hard to follow. I had to read some passages several times before I could follow them. That's why it took so long to get through 40 pages. It's Luke Williams debut novel and his next one could well be better. He does develop the characters and he has some interesting ones. The side stories and glimpses into history are good. But Williams needs to work on his math. At one point, Evie, who is sixty-four, visits her grandfather in his nursing home. Her grandfather. If she's sixty-four how old is he? No one seems to have been all that young when someone else was born.
In short, the novel is deadly dull. It could be an aide to insomnia I guess, but it is not a good way to spend an evening.
It sounded like a good story so I entered the contest for the give-away. I would like to give it back. The writing is very poor, repetitive and hard to follow. I had to read some passages several times before I could follow them. That's why it took so long to get through 40 pages. It's Luke Williams debut novel and his next one could well be better. He does develop the characters and he has some interesting ones. The side stories and glimpses into history are good. But Williams needs to work on his math. At one point, Evie, who is sixty-four, visits her grandfather in his nursing home. Her grandfather. If she's sixty-four how old is he? No one seems to have been all that young when someone else was born.
In short, the novel is deadly dull. It could be an aide to insomnia I guess, but it is not a good way to spend an evening.
December 6, 2014
It was a little disorienting in the beginning of the book. Evie, a 50-something who is writing her history, uses a variety of sources (journals of others, pamphlets, etc) and "unica" (memorable items)to chronicle her life starting with her parents' meeting and even Evie's own recollections from the womb. Yea. A bit much to settle into. But, once I got into the swing of the story I really enjoyed it. It reminded me a little of "The Alchemist." Not so much the story line but, in the writing voice and the little diversions of stories that were woven throughout.
January 17, 2023
This book has been sitting on my shelf since I got it as a Christmas present years ago, and I decided to give it a shot. I am abandoning it at about 100 pages in. The writing is overwrought and the plot is boring. The characters are completely unrelatable because they have no sense of authenticity. Also, the n-word was used within the first 50 pages and while I understand period pieces may have valid reasons to use the language of the period or of their characters, this was totally unjustified and did nothing to move the plot or tell us anything about our character or the world in which she lives. Not going to be able to finish this one.
October 1, 2019
Ugh. 'The Echo Chamber' is not necessarily boring - just absolutely not interesting. I'm not sure why I read all of it.
The parts when the writer is telling her history are alright, I guess. But in between, all those episodes in the 'present' about visiting her confused grandfather or describing her general struggle of existing are... I don't even have a word for it.
Maybe you need some special sort of 'understanding' for this type of books - which I'm obviously lacking - or it's simply as useless as it seemed to me.
The parts when the writer is telling her history are alright, I guess. But in between, all those episodes in the 'present' about visiting her confused grandfather or describing her general struggle of existing are... I don't even have a word for it.
Maybe you need some special sort of 'understanding' for this type of books - which I'm obviously lacking - or it's simply as useless as it seemed to me.
June 27, 2020
Not for me.
March 18, 2017
I can understand why some readers don't care for this book, but I see it differently. Disjointed, yes, but full of compelling small stories telling bigger stories. Language beautiful and, for me, very moving. Sad, disturbing, gorgeous.
December 10, 2019
The latter half had me reminiscing the winding stories that served as interludes.
I spent the last quarter of this book annoyed with the writers style, even though it intrigued me at first.
An unsurprising lack of the female perspective from a male author writing from a females perspective.
It’s whatever.
I spent the last quarter of this book annoyed with the writers style, even though it intrigued me at first.
An unsurprising lack of the female perspective from a male author writing from a females perspective.
It’s whatever.
September 16, 2011
1.5 stars, received in Goodreads giveaway
Evie Steppman, a woman clearly with symptoms of tinnitus (and perhaps madness), is inspired to write a history of her life (why? either I don't know because it was never said or I forget). The result of this written life history is the content of The Echo Chamber. In her family house in Gullane, Scotland, Evie explores the contents of the attic and chronologically recounts important stories of her life by relaying the significance of the objects in the attic.
The first, her father's pocketwatch, played a substantial role in the meeting, courtship, and subsequent marriage of her parents. Evie's father, Rex, meets a crazy old man on the train. This man, Evie's grandfather, Mr. Rafferty, is running from the law on the account of having murdered his wife. Turns out his wife wasn't very into the marriage and being batshit psycho, Mr. Rafferty built and tried to install in his wife a mechanical heart to "fix" her and make her love him again. Obviously, Mr Rafferty's crude version of a heart transplant is not successful, to say the very least, so he is forced to flee. He leaves his daughter behind and so requests that Rex, a complete stranger he meets on a train, deliver a letter to her. Upon meeting her at the family clock shop, I guess Rex is entranced or whatever and he continually breaks his pocketwatch in order to give himself an excuse to see her. Eventually they get married and Evie is conceived. Sometime during this, Rex and Evelyn (the mom's name is Evie too) move to Lagos, Nigeria as Rex takes a job as a civil servant in British-ruled Nigeria.
At this point of the book, I sort of stopped understanding what the heck was going on and I attempted to blaze through the book as fast as possible so the torture of reading this book would stop. So the following summary might not be the best account of The Echo Chamber.
While gestating in the womb, Evie tells us she can apparently hear the stories, songs, and history that her father tells her. The due date for Evie's birth arrives and passes as Evie basically "refuses to be born." Her mother eventually dies shortly after her birth and Evie's care is left first to a nursemaid named Taiwo and then to the cook's wife Iffe (after Taiwo commits suicide). Evie befriends Iffe's son Ade and the two of them are close until racial differences and sexual tension eventually puts a wedge between them.
As Evie enters her teen years, British occupation of Nigeria ends and Evie and her father are forced to go back to Scotland. Her father becomes almost as crazy as her grandfather and we don't really hear much about him except that he dies. Evie meets an actress named Damaris and they become lovers. Shortly before traveling to the US together, Damaris gives Evie a tape recorder. As they travel the US, Evie becomes obsessed with recording and documenting sounds and after Evie proves herself to be just as effing insane as her father and grandfather, Damaris pretty much just can't take it anymore and leaves.
Throughout The Echo Chamber, Evie's history is recounted through the letters and diary entries of those closest to her. Simultaneously, we see her in the present, visiting Mr. Rafferty and lamenting of the waning of her supposed "powers of hearing." As many other reviews have mentioned, the story is told in a nonlinear fashion and is a interweaving of different literary techniques and styles. As my rating of this novel shows, I personally did not enjoy reading this book. Despite how interesting a few of the mini-stories were in The Echo Chamber, I feel as if I have no idea what the point of this story as a whole was. I don't know what the motivations of any of the characters are, with maybe the exception of Damaris. Obviously Evie is not mentally stable and cannot be trusted as a narrator, but even with that taken into account, the narrative was overly confusing and incoherent. This book definitely wasn't for me...
Evie Steppman, a woman clearly with symptoms of tinnitus (and perhaps madness), is inspired to write a history of her life (why? either I don't know because it was never said or I forget). The result of this written life history is the content of The Echo Chamber. In her family house in Gullane, Scotland, Evie explores the contents of the attic and chronologically recounts important stories of her life by relaying the significance of the objects in the attic.
The first, her father's pocketwatch, played a substantial role in the meeting, courtship, and subsequent marriage of her parents. Evie's father, Rex, meets a crazy old man on the train. This man, Evie's grandfather, Mr. Rafferty, is running from the law on the account of having murdered his wife. Turns out his wife wasn't very into the marriage and being batshit psycho, Mr. Rafferty built and tried to install in his wife a mechanical heart to "fix" her and make her love him again. Obviously, Mr Rafferty's crude version of a heart transplant is not successful, to say the very least, so he is forced to flee. He leaves his daughter behind and so requests that Rex, a complete stranger he meets on a train, deliver a letter to her. Upon meeting her at the family clock shop, I guess Rex is entranced or whatever and he continually breaks his pocketwatch in order to give himself an excuse to see her. Eventually they get married and Evie is conceived. Sometime during this, Rex and Evelyn (the mom's name is Evie too) move to Lagos, Nigeria as Rex takes a job as a civil servant in British-ruled Nigeria.
At this point of the book, I sort of stopped understanding what the heck was going on and I attempted to blaze through the book as fast as possible so the torture of reading this book would stop. So the following summary might not be the best account of The Echo Chamber.
While gestating in the womb, Evie tells us she can apparently hear the stories, songs, and history that her father tells her. The due date for Evie's birth arrives and passes as Evie basically "refuses to be born." Her mother eventually dies shortly after her birth and Evie's care is left first to a nursemaid named Taiwo and then to the cook's wife Iffe (after Taiwo commits suicide). Evie befriends Iffe's son Ade and the two of them are close until racial differences and sexual tension eventually puts a wedge between them.
As Evie enters her teen years, British occupation of Nigeria ends and Evie and her father are forced to go back to Scotland. Her father becomes almost as crazy as her grandfather and we don't really hear much about him except that he dies. Evie meets an actress named Damaris and they become lovers. Shortly before traveling to the US together, Damaris gives Evie a tape recorder. As they travel the US, Evie becomes obsessed with recording and documenting sounds and after Evie proves herself to be just as effing insane as her father and grandfather, Damaris pretty much just can't take it anymore and leaves.
Throughout The Echo Chamber, Evie's history is recounted through the letters and diary entries of those closest to her. Simultaneously, we see her in the present, visiting Mr. Rafferty and lamenting of the waning of her supposed "powers of hearing." As many other reviews have mentioned, the story is told in a nonlinear fashion and is a interweaving of different literary techniques and styles. As my rating of this novel shows, I personally did not enjoy reading this book. Despite how interesting a few of the mini-stories were in The Echo Chamber, I feel as if I have no idea what the point of this story as a whole was. I don't know what the motivations of any of the characters are, with maybe the exception of Damaris. Obviously Evie is not mentally stable and cannot be trusted as a narrator, but even with that taken into account, the narrative was overly confusing and incoherent. This book definitely wasn't for me...
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 30, 2013
I'm selecting books that start with all the letters of my name, and finding an "E" was kind of tricky, but I found this hiding out on my shelf. It's extremely literate, but jumpy, and chronologically doesn't make any sense. The narrator's grandfather by the time of the book has to be at least around 100 years old, but there's no indication of his age. This bugs me enough that I sit around contemplating it while I'm reading the book. It's well-written, but does not get very interesting until you're about a third of the way into it. I finally took the book into the bathroom and it's somehow gotten better.
Final review: I cannot deny the writing is good. Most of the words seem necessary (but not all of them) , and the pace is slow but steady for the most part. The characterizations are consistent. The snippets of Nigerian history are fascinating, and it's in this history where the book becomes interesting and picks up pace.
That said, this work was not all Williams' own and I'm trying to figure out how he included passages from other published works without referencing them (though he did incorporate them seamlessly into the narrative), and though he gave credit at the back of the book, the two most interesting chapters were written by someone else entirely. These were the chapters where we get out of Evie, thankfully. We are allowed to see her from another point of view, and there is some action. But overall this book is not my cup of tea. From the beginning, Evie comes across as kind of bland -- maybe that's what Williams is going for, but it doesn't make me want to keep reading about her, especially the asides about her current situation in the attic, asides where she'll interrupt a story and say things like (but this is not an exact quote): "How lovely to copy someone else's work and not struggle with my own history. I just copy and copy and copy." These interruptions are too frequent and uninteresting, particularly the several paragraphs describing which volumes of the encyclopedia are holding up her desk. These are several detailed paragraphs relating what number volume of Encyclopedia Britannica are piled where, used as table legs, for her makeshift desk, so when she needs to look something up she has to take her whole desk apart. Honestly I just dont care about that.
The writing is artful, the story idea interesting, but the story itself just does not hold up. I dislike spending nearly 400 pages with an emotionless person and hearing her life story.
Final review: I cannot deny the writing is good. Most of the words seem necessary (but not all of them) , and the pace is slow but steady for the most part. The characterizations are consistent. The snippets of Nigerian history are fascinating, and it's in this history where the book becomes interesting and picks up pace.
That said, this work was not all Williams' own and I'm trying to figure out how he included passages from other published works without referencing them (though he did incorporate them seamlessly into the narrative), and though he gave credit at the back of the book, the two most interesting chapters were written by someone else entirely. These were the chapters where we get out of Evie, thankfully. We are allowed to see her from another point of view, and there is some action. But overall this book is not my cup of tea. From the beginning, Evie comes across as kind of bland -- maybe that's what Williams is going for, but it doesn't make me want to keep reading about her, especially the asides about her current situation in the attic, asides where she'll interrupt a story and say things like (but this is not an exact quote): "How lovely to copy someone else's work and not struggle with my own history. I just copy and copy and copy." These interruptions are too frequent and uninteresting, particularly the several paragraphs describing which volumes of the encyclopedia are holding up her desk. These are several detailed paragraphs relating what number volume of Encyclopedia Britannica are piled where, used as table legs, for her makeshift desk, so when she needs to look something up she has to take her whole desk apart. Honestly I just dont care about that.
The writing is artful, the story idea interesting, but the story itself just does not hold up. I dislike spending nearly 400 pages with an emotionless person and hearing her life story.
October 27, 2013
I came across this by way of recommendation and am delighted I listened to those who shared their opinions with me.
The writing is beguiling. It has a rhythm, like a reassuring pulse, that means the density of the book never feels heavy. Like any pulse there is variation in power and speed that relate to the situation at any given point. There are many facets to the novel to savour, including alterations of form and voice and the author shows a tremendous versatility in this respect.
The work of Italo Calvino came to mind. Mr Calvino and Mr Williams are alike in that just when I feel I'm grasping their whole and sense what is to come, they change direction like a well-bowled googly to remove my middle stump.
My mention of cricket isn't entirely random. This work is surrounded by Britain's colonial past, possibly even exposing aspects of the illusion of a colonial present.
Evie Steppman has lived a wonderfully rich life. Through her ears we follow the world as it was and as it has become. Not that it's all been sweetness. Her early days reminded me of The Secret Garden - a child of the colonies loses her mother. In this case, the poor unfortunate is so overlooked she isn't even given a name and when she does so...well, I'll leave that for you to find out (and urge you to do so).
It's a story that's full of complexity that also has humanity and warmth, not an easy thing to pull off.
I believe that Luke Williams won the prestigious Saltire Award for The Echo Chamber and I'd back the judges wholeheartedly on their decision.
Very well played indeed.
The writing is beguiling. It has a rhythm, like a reassuring pulse, that means the density of the book never feels heavy. Like any pulse there is variation in power and speed that relate to the situation at any given point. There are many facets to the novel to savour, including alterations of form and voice and the author shows a tremendous versatility in this respect.
The work of Italo Calvino came to mind. Mr Calvino and Mr Williams are alike in that just when I feel I'm grasping their whole and sense what is to come, they change direction like a well-bowled googly to remove my middle stump.
My mention of cricket isn't entirely random. This work is surrounded by Britain's colonial past, possibly even exposing aspects of the illusion of a colonial present.
Evie Steppman has lived a wonderfully rich life. Through her ears we follow the world as it was and as it has become. Not that it's all been sweetness. Her early days reminded me of The Secret Garden - a child of the colonies loses her mother. In this case, the poor unfortunate is so overlooked she isn't even given a name and when she does so...well, I'll leave that for you to find out (and urge you to do so).
It's a story that's full of complexity that also has humanity and warmth, not an easy thing to pull off.
I believe that Luke Williams won the prestigious Saltire Award for The Echo Chamber and I'd back the judges wholeheartedly on their decision.
Very well played indeed.
January 22, 2012
Some aspects of this novel are brilliant and compelling. At other times, I felt a tad annoyed. I wanted more of some characters and less (or none) of others. I felt slighted when especially endearing character dropped out completely and only made a re-appearance toward the end, to describe his witnessing of a massacre at the Kano airport, Nigeria. A small part of this novel recalls the massacres against the Igbo people of Nigeria in 1966.
Another novel, Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, speaks to the 1960s campaign of terror against the Igbo people in a heart-wrenching way. It's some of the best literary fiction that I read in 2011. All of this happened in Nigeria just a couple of years before I was born... and yet only this past year have I been reading about this... and the stories profoundly move me. When I think of Nigeria, I mostly think of the Niger Delta and multi-national oil corporations exploiting the land and the people and collaborating with the army and paramilitary to suppress activists like Ken Saro-Wiwa.
The bombings yesterday in Nigeria, killing at least 140 people, were also in Kano. So, when I write of Nigeria in this short "review," I mostly write of horror, loss, exploitation. Yet, I know there is so much beauty among the peoples and cultures of Nigeria -- and you do indeed see/feel this when you read both The Echo Chamber and Half of a Yellow Sun.
Yet with all of this beauty, I still grieve.
Another novel, Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, speaks to the 1960s campaign of terror against the Igbo people in a heart-wrenching way. It's some of the best literary fiction that I read in 2011. All of this happened in Nigeria just a couple of years before I was born... and yet only this past year have I been reading about this... and the stories profoundly move me. When I think of Nigeria, I mostly think of the Niger Delta and multi-national oil corporations exploiting the land and the people and collaborating with the army and paramilitary to suppress activists like Ken Saro-Wiwa.
The bombings yesterday in Nigeria, killing at least 140 people, were also in Kano. So, when I write of Nigeria in this short "review," I mostly write of horror, loss, exploitation. Yet, I know there is so much beauty among the peoples and cultures of Nigeria -- and you do indeed see/feel this when you read both The Echo Chamber and Half of a Yellow Sun.
Yet with all of this beauty, I still grieve.
January 16, 2020
I feel this book is hard to rate properly. Williams has written an ambitious novel chronicling the life of Evie. Born in Nigeria to parents originally from Scotland (I think...at least her father was), Evie has unusually acute hearing. Williams toes the line of believability as he describes Evie's childhood and beyond. Some passages are genuinely interesting...such as Nigeria's struggle for independence and modernization (but at the cost of affordable housing as evidenced by the striking market women). I also liked the awkward (but sweet) tale of how Evie's parents met. Those highlights are few and far between though, and in between is a lot of confusing, slightly mystical, non-linear narration.
Despite that though, Williams does manage to write an intriguing, original narrative...and for that I believe he deserves more than 1 star. Given 2.5 stars or "above average." Recommended for those who like poetical novels.
Despite that though, Williams does manage to write an intriguing, original narrative...and for that I believe he deserves more than 1 star. Given 2.5 stars or "above average." Recommended for those who like poetical novels.
Read
June 10, 2011Another unstarred tome.
This was a mixed bag for me. I get where Williams was going but there was something bloodless about the whole enterprise. Evie lives in Scotland, alone in her attic, and endeavors to write about her life- from pre-gestation through her childhood in Lagos to her exile in the early 60s. Gifted with exceptional hearing, she is ultra sensitive to the world of sound and becomes obsessed with recording ambient noises.
The novel is made up of journal entries, lists, letters and memories.
The most interesting section - and the one that gives the novel it's emotional weight - are two chapters worth of diary entries made by Evie's lover. These were actually written by Natasha Soobramanien. Without these, the novel wouldhave been much slighter but with them, many things about the plot, such as it is, fall into place.
This was a mixed bag for me. I get where Williams was going but there was something bloodless about the whole enterprise. Evie lives in Scotland, alone in her attic, and endeavors to write about her life- from pre-gestation through her childhood in Lagos to her exile in the early 60s. Gifted with exceptional hearing, she is ultra sensitive to the world of sound and becomes obsessed with recording ambient noises.
The novel is made up of journal entries, lists, letters and memories.
The most interesting section - and the one that gives the novel it's emotional weight - are two chapters worth of diary entries made by Evie's lover. These were actually written by Natasha Soobramanien. Without these, the novel wouldhave been much slighter but with them, many things about the plot, such as it is, fall into place.
January 25, 2013
I graciously received a free copy of this book through goodreads giveaway.
The first half of the book did not hold my attention. It took me over a year to actually finish reading this book. However, at halfway, I ended up finishing the book in 3 days. So the second half is def worth the read.
I personally didn't particularly care for the ending, but I can see why it was written this way.
While this book wasn't quite my taste, it was a well written book and I'm sure others will find much more pleasure in it.
The first half of the book did not hold my attention. It took me over a year to actually finish reading this book. However, at halfway, I ended up finishing the book in 3 days. So the second half is def worth the read.
I personally didn't particularly care for the ending, but I can see why it was written this way.
While this book wasn't quite my taste, it was a well written book and I'm sure others will find much more pleasure in it.
abandoned
August 29, 2011I had to stop reading this. I wanted so much to like it. The story had great potential. I found the writing confusing and the story meandering at best. At one hundred pages in, I still wasn't sure what point the narrator was making.
June 14, 2012
i abandoned this, not because it was a bad book, i think it's beautifully written, but i abandoned it because it was so hard to read. i think if i read it again when i'm older in a few years it will make more sense. it is a really good book, but for now i'll let it be
July 30, 2013
Rather slow to start out, but the second half, dealing with the end of Evie's childhood and more and more urgent loss of her hearing and memories, is a great read. I especially enjoyed her lover's diaries, which gives the reader a glimpse of Evie from the outside.
Want to read
October 2, 2011Received on 8/4/11 through the goodreads.com giveaway program.
August 25, 2011
I liked it defintely one to pass on to friends.
August 16, 2012
Probably should have stuck with it but needed something a little more active.
August 6, 2017
About 100 pages too long.
March 30, 2015
While interesting at times, it was also frustrating as the book has a different writing style that was sometimes hard to appreciate. Still trying to pin down how I feel about this book.
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