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Noughties
An inventive comic novel about the highs and lows of modern university life. Eliot may know a lot about Renaissance poetry, the post-modern novel, French literary theory, and how to get hammered at a highly competitive rate, but he is fast realising that adulthood beckons, and it's going to be asking a lot more of him than that.
274 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2012
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 45 reviews
December 28, 2012
I picked this up because I tend to like contemporary writing by young British writers, and this tale of the last night at Oxford sounded promising. Eliot (our narrator), Jack, Scott, and Sanjay are out for a night of epic drinking (the book's three acts mirror the three watering holes on their crawl: pub --> bar --> club), along with ladies Ella, Abi, and Megan, to celebrate the end of their undergraduate days. Intermingled with the night's events are many flashbacks of Eliot's time at Oxford and before, as well as his recounting odd dreams, and a barrage of texts from his girlfriend back home. Unfortunately, the book manages to be simultaneously boring, annoying, and too clever for it's own good, which is quite a trick. It's boring because there is no plot, the general theme of "wow, I have no idea what to do after uni..." is beyond trite, and Eliot's main dilemma of what to do about the girl he has back home is entirely uninteresting. It's annoying because Eliot is an entirely unsympathetic and uninteresting jackass, and none of the supporting characters have any depth to them whatsoever, and as they get drunker and drunker, this only becomes amplified. It's too clever because it appears to be jam packed with "literary resonances, allusions, quotations" (per the author's note, but I prefer to call them "wink-winks") that presumably are there in order to make sure the reader knows that despite writing a profanity-laden book about a booze-up, complete with vomiting, the author is a well-read dude. I have to confess, by the end of the first part (page 107), I found little reason to read on -- I didn't connect in any way with any of the characters, and I didn't care about their concerns. There was exactly one memorable chunk in these first hundred pages: Eliot's recounting of his admissions interview for Oxford, which was very well told and amusing. But a handful of decent pages out of a hundred just isn't a good enough ratio for me to invest any more time with these characters.
April 16, 2012
[An advance copy of this book was given to me by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review].
2.5 stars rounded down.
‘Noughties’ follows our hapless hero Eliot on his last night at University, flashing back to fill in the backgrounds of his friends and associates.
I have to admit, I did not enjoy reading this novel. It has all the ick-factor of watching an episode of ‘The Inbetweeners’ without any of the charm and humour; in fact - as great big swathes of dialogue were unashamedly pilfered from ‘The Inbetweeners’ - I think it’s an apt comparison. One quarter of the way in I had already grown bored of wanks, erections, testicles – I know they’re important things to a man, but I was looking for a little more heart, a little less penis and I think this could have been accomplished without affecting the ‘laddish grittiness’ that the author was clearly aiming for.
The characters – especially Eliot – were odious, their dilemmas and traumas boring and the ‘twists’ I could see coming a mile off.
The 2.5 stars are a reflection of the clever structure, sometimes running several ‘timelines’ at once and the occasional expositional paragraph that made me think – and the sporadic inclusion of points about his actual degree that - as I am also an English graduate of around the same time frame – made me smile.
Not recommended…
2.5 stars rounded down.
‘Noughties’ follows our hapless hero Eliot on his last night at University, flashing back to fill in the backgrounds of his friends and associates.
I have to admit, I did not enjoy reading this novel. It has all the ick-factor of watching an episode of ‘The Inbetweeners’ without any of the charm and humour; in fact - as great big swathes of dialogue were unashamedly pilfered from ‘The Inbetweeners’ - I think it’s an apt comparison. One quarter of the way in I had already grown bored of wanks, erections, testicles – I know they’re important things to a man, but I was looking for a little more heart, a little less penis and I think this could have been accomplished without affecting the ‘laddish grittiness’ that the author was clearly aiming for.
The characters – especially Eliot – were odious, their dilemmas and traumas boring and the ‘twists’ I could see coming a mile off.
The 2.5 stars are a reflection of the clever structure, sometimes running several ‘timelines’ at once and the occasional expositional paragraph that made me think – and the sporadic inclusion of points about his actual degree that - as I am also an English graduate of around the same time frame – made me smile.
Not recommended…
November 11, 2021
this book is like the catcher in the rye if holden caulfield went to oxford uni, had mates and was even more of a pretentious twat than he already is. the dream scenes were unbearable, skipping fully over some of them. it’s a huge warning against relationships at university and i enjoyed those parts, of adjusting and working stuff out. some of it was written so desperately wanting to be analysed that it made no sense, reading it felt like chewing on grit. just another story of a struggling english university student at uni but i do, and always will eat that shit up.
January 6, 2019
I believe it was Ernest Hemingway that said, “Write drunk, edit sober.” Unfortunately I think Ben Masters wrote drunk and edited drunk. This novel was extremely hard to follow. I don’t know if it was due to all the literary references that I’m not aware of, or the British slang, but I don’t even know what happened in the end. It was hard to understand if the story was in past tense or present tense the majority of the time. Very disappointing.
December 8, 2012
This is a hard book to review given my usual style for review so much is the style of the book. constant interjections of useless conjecture and memory, but I cannot show that through an affected prose style, given it's pervasiveness in my constant prose style.
masters lives in a world somewhere between James Joyce and David Foster Wallace although to my taste he feels closer to joyce and maybe closer to William Blake. But the text it oozes something that lives so distinctly in wallace's texts it can't be ignored. an intellectuality an intertextuality, a despiration, a confusion, a lack of defining character (well joyce so much had that too). but he lives in a world simpler than both but at the same time more complex a world of nightmares (The History of History) and a world of indefinition (Set This House in Order) a world of nights (Imperial Bedrooms) a world of one day (The Pets) It lives in a world where people are what they aren't and maybe are nothing at all.
it lives in a world of loss, a world of innocence (Alice in Wonderland) or lack thereof (Peter Pan). It lives in the world where we are what we cannot be, and we cannot be what we are (Darkside)
masters lives in a world somewhere between James Joyce and David Foster Wallace although to my taste he feels closer to joyce and maybe closer to William Blake. But the text it oozes something that lives so distinctly in wallace's texts it can't be ignored. an intellectuality an intertextuality, a despiration, a confusion, a lack of defining character (well joyce so much had that too). but he lives in a world simpler than both but at the same time more complex a world of nightmares (The History of History) and a world of indefinition (Set This House in Order) a world of nights (Imperial Bedrooms) a world of one day (The Pets) It lives in a world where people are what they aren't and maybe are nothing at all.
it lives in a world of loss, a world of innocence (Alice in Wonderland) or lack thereof (Peter Pan). It lives in the world where we are what we cannot be, and we cannot be what we are (Darkside)
October 24, 2012
‘Noughties’ takes place over the course of one night- and over the course of four years. The narrator, Eliot, is spending his last night at Oxford with his fellow grads, going from pub to bar to club. As the night goes on (and Eliot and his friends drink aggressively), Eliot reminisces over his last year of school, his entrance to Oxford, his three years there, his ex-girlfriend Lucy, the people he is drinking with. He is faced with becoming an adult, and is woefully unprepared. His time at Oxford has taught him a tremendous amount about English literature, an equally tremendous amount about drinking, and not much else. Up until this night, his course of action was always laid out for him; his lower middle class parents expected him to do better than they did and to them it was a given that he would attend university; once at Oxford, his course was set for three years. Now he has to make his own decisions.
I have mixed feelings about this novel. The mixing of past and present work well. I thought the sections about the tutorials were brilliant- the way the students were set into competition against each other, the professor who cultivates a persona of shocking hipster. The characters, however, all seemed somewhat stereotyped, and Eliot is a total prat. He’s horrible to women and not the greatest friend. He’s so eager to hide his origins from his Oxford mates that he decides his girlfriend from home is embarrassing- and is upset that they like her. While most of us aren’t at our best at his age, Eliot is hard to take. It’s difficult to empathize with someone who has no redeeming characteristics. All in all I liked the story, but not nearly as much as I’d hoped. I do think Masters has a great future as a novelist, but he needs more years of writing under his belt.
I have mixed feelings about this novel. The mixing of past and present work well. I thought the sections about the tutorials were brilliant- the way the students were set into competition against each other, the professor who cultivates a persona of shocking hipster. The characters, however, all seemed somewhat stereotyped, and Eliot is a total prat. He’s horrible to women and not the greatest friend. He’s so eager to hide his origins from his Oxford mates that he decides his girlfriend from home is embarrassing- and is upset that they like her. While most of us aren’t at our best at his age, Eliot is hard to take. It’s difficult to empathize with someone who has no redeeming characteristics. All in all I liked the story, but not nearly as much as I’d hoped. I do think Masters has a great future as a novelist, but he needs more years of writing under his belt.
March 31, 2014
People who hate Martin Amis and his overblown contemporary writers will find a ton to hate in this novel - and I think, had I read it as an adult, I might've liked it quite a bit less. But I'm 25. The heartbreaks and missed-chances and drunken misadventures of my college days are still pretty fresh in my mind - fresher, in many ways, than the same things that happen in the real world. Because when you're all trapped together for a couple of years like that, it's bound to feel more real than anything out in this more disparate 'real world'. Masters' novel made me feel. It caught something intangible inside of me and, for the few hours it took to read over the course of a rainy night over a scotch or two, it's like I was there. Eliot and I, we might be pretty different - but we share a commonality of experience that makes us brothers. Just like my real college brothers.
More TK at RB: http://ragingbiblioholism.com/2014/04...
More TK at RB: http://ragingbiblioholism.com/2014/04...
May 10, 2012
I liked the concept and plot of the book but I found the writing style hard to follow. The literary references were a bit too much throughout, like the character was trying to prove that he was clever ALL THE TIME, while the constant (part sentences and paragraphs in brackets) made it a bit disjointed at times. Some paragraphs were bracketed despite the fact that they would have stood alone as descriptive paragraphs which just added to the story rather than being a separate thought.
January 15, 2015
I attempted to read an ARC of Noughties that I picked up at a local thrift shop.
I wanted to try this book because the premise sounds relatively interesting, but I gave up after about 30 pages. The story felt like it went nowhere at all. It was also difficult to make sense of what little story we got during Eliot's drunken ruminations on what to do after college.
No, just no.
I wanted to try this book because the premise sounds relatively interesting, but I gave up after about 30 pages. The story felt like it went nowhere at all. It was also difficult to make sense of what little story we got during Eliot's drunken ruminations on what to do after college.
No, just no.
August 15, 2013
This was better than I was hoping after skimming some reviews,a likeable character, some good lesser characters,a familiar setting... I think what let it down for me (and should this actually be a complaint?)It was such a breeze to read, needed minimal concentration, which it sometimes got, and so I wasn't always sure exactly which of the three years of uni we were in. Oooops.
January 23, 2025
I read this simply because Masters attended the same secondary school as I did, and so our mutual English teacher held an assembly in which he read the first page or so and encouraged us to go and buy a copy. By the time I attended the school it was a a rather dangerous and unpleasant one - the first thing to pop up when the name was typed into google was about the fatal stabbing of a young boy on the school grounds - so it was really quite an excitement to think that one of us had gone to Oxford and published a novel!
Alas, I think as far as first novels go, Noughties struggles to find its footing. Echoing the main character of the book, the novel came across as something to do after graduating, born less out of a love for the story but more as a way to mull over the fears many graduates face. It is an answer to the question what now? and I don't think it's necessarily a good one. As other reviewers have pointed out, the book seems to hop between laddishness and pretentiousness, two worlds in which most academically inclined young men tried to inhabit at the time of reading, but it never really explores the clash of those cultures. As a result, the constant nods to literary greats feel like little nudges of the elbow, a way for Masters to say look, I'm well-read! It's a shame, for it's obvious just by Masters' use of language that he has consumed, understood, and loved many great novels. I can still remember, over 12 years later, my English teacher reading out the first page. The descriptions of characters Jack, Sam, and Sanjay and other pub patrons (jug headed, cauliflower-eared) struck me so vividly that I was one of the very few in the school to go to Waterstones and spend my money. Despite the subject matter not being my usual area of interest, I can recall the plot and a few turns of phrase because Masters so clearly loves literature. He did not need to point to various renowned names.
Masters hasn't written an amazing novel here, but he has whet his literary chops. His use of language is evocative and emotional, and clearly shows he has a way with words. Looking at the reviews for the books eh has since published, it's clear that his love for literature shines within them, too, and that he has only improved since this.
Alas, I think as far as first novels go, Noughties struggles to find its footing. Echoing the main character of the book, the novel came across as something to do after graduating, born less out of a love for the story but more as a way to mull over the fears many graduates face. It is an answer to the question what now? and I don't think it's necessarily a good one. As other reviewers have pointed out, the book seems to hop between laddishness and pretentiousness, two worlds in which most academically inclined young men tried to inhabit at the time of reading, but it never really explores the clash of those cultures. As a result, the constant nods to literary greats feel like little nudges of the elbow, a way for Masters to say look, I'm well-read! It's a shame, for it's obvious just by Masters' use of language that he has consumed, understood, and loved many great novels. I can still remember, over 12 years later, my English teacher reading out the first page. The descriptions of characters Jack, Sam, and Sanjay and other pub patrons (jug headed, cauliflower-eared) struck me so vividly that I was one of the very few in the school to go to Waterstones and spend my money. Despite the subject matter not being my usual area of interest, I can recall the plot and a few turns of phrase because Masters so clearly loves literature. He did not need to point to various renowned names.
Masters hasn't written an amazing novel here, but he has whet his literary chops. His use of language is evocative and emotional, and clearly shows he has a way with words. Looking at the reviews for the books eh has since published, it's clear that his love for literature shines within them, too, and that he has only improved since this.
July 8, 2023
Tonight's a special night. Eliot Lamb and his crew of friends are celebrating the end of their time at Oxford and their entry into adulthood. Eliot isn't sure what's next for him; two of his friends are taking a year to travel and others are starting careers. There's Eliot's best friend, Jack, two other guys Scott and Sanjay, Ella, the girl both Eliot and Jack think they might love and a few other girls. Together they go out to celebrate.
There is a code of celebration. First they go to the pub for preliminary drinks. Then to the bar for more serious ones and then to the club where they indiscriminately drink and dance. Both Eliot and Jack want to use this night to make their case to Ella. The two friends have had a strained year as both pursue her and both think tonight might be the night. Eliot is also still emotionally involved with his first girlfriend, Lucy, and he's really not sure which he would like to have.
The author of this debut novel was twenty-five when he wrote it in 2012. It's sad to think that college life is such an alcoholic event for so many but that seems to be the culture in England and other college venues. Ella holds a dark secret. Both Eliot and Jack believe they are the cause but the reader will soon see through the clues to who is responsible for Ella's secret. I'd be interested to read another novel from Masters now that he is in his thirties and see how his writing has changed. This book is recommended to readers of literary fiction.
There is a code of celebration. First they go to the pub for preliminary drinks. Then to the bar for more serious ones and then to the club where they indiscriminately drink and dance. Both Eliot and Jack want to use this night to make their case to Ella. The two friends have had a strained year as both pursue her and both think tonight might be the night. Eliot is also still emotionally involved with his first girlfriend, Lucy, and he's really not sure which he would like to have.
The author of this debut novel was twenty-five when he wrote it in 2012. It's sad to think that college life is such an alcoholic event for so many but that seems to be the culture in England and other college venues. Ella holds a dark secret. Both Eliot and Jack believe they are the cause but the reader will soon see through the clues to who is responsible for Ella's secret. I'd be interested to read another novel from Masters now that he is in his thirties and see how his writing has changed. This book is recommended to readers of literary fiction.
January 31, 2022
4.5
Was strong most of the way through - still deciding if it fizzled at the end.
A bit of a lackluster review but it falls into the category of experiential read that - maybe? - makes you question any strong feelings in any direction.
Very much a life being life typa beat. Never hurts to have human irrationality beaten into you.
A refreshing read after my most recents.
Strong disagree with reviews criticising the dream sequences and narrative flow - no complaints here.
Was strong most of the way through - still deciding if it fizzled at the end.
A bit of a lackluster review but it falls into the category of experiential read that - maybe? - makes you question any strong feelings in any direction.
Very much a life being life typa beat. Never hurts to have human irrationality beaten into you.
A refreshing read after my most recents.
Strong disagree with reviews criticising the dream sequences and narrative flow - no complaints here.
March 2, 2017
For the majority of this, I actually thought it was an autobiography, not a novel! Really interesting and not too complex. The narrator for audiobook version was very good & clear.
July 15, 2017
One of the many books that makes me feel very glad not to have been at Oxford as an undergrad.
August 10, 2013
Naughty, Naughty, Noughties
You gotta love a book about the first decade of the new millennium with a picture of an iPhone with a busted screen on the cover. The cell sits on what appears to be a bar, club, or pub counter. Looking around the Starbucks where I am writing this, all I see are people phubbing, which is a neologism for snubbing the people you are ostensibly with to stare at your PDA (Personal Data Assistant). We are all so bored with reality that we crave--nay--are hopelessly addicted to--such devices.
First time author Ben Masters tells a timeless tale of his Rite of Passage through the Ivy Halls of Oxford, where he was a Literature Major. So, it is a student novel, like Norwegian Wood, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, or Catcher in the Rye, but it is also about a writer finding his voice, as well as sorting out the dirty laundry of his messy romances.
It is great fun to read a book wherein Ben masters (been dying to use that pun since I first set eyes on the book) the art of writing an update of this hoary old tale, flashy and trashy on the surface, but whose glittery veneer masks a solid inner substance. The blurb compared this kind of writing to Martin Amis, who I confess, I have not read, but who I intend to add to my summer reading list post haste.
With all the British slang, at times I thought it was in Nadsat, but I could suss out the meaning by the context, most of the time. Wondering about a website called Mugshot, which I googled and couldn't find but surmise that it was actually Facebook they were talking about. All the mugshot dot com sites I found were actual mugshots.
To summarize, Eliot Lamb is a bright public school student who gets into Oxford. His girlfriend, Lucy, loves him, and he loves her, but she has zero interest or aptitude for Literature. He is drawn to Ella, who belongs with him, if only because of the alliteration of their names (Ella & Eliot) and their shared love of the same books, music, and films. He is drawn to Ella, but so is his best mate, Jack, posh Terrance Terrance, Professor Dylan, and so it seems all the males (and some of the females) of Oxford. And after their fling, he has a lot of 'splaining to do with Lucy, much of it done via texting.
Along the way there is a lot of student drinking binges and bacchanals, and tutorials on such rakes, scribblers, and libertines as John Wilmot (2nd Earl of Rochester), Anthony Burgess, John Keats, William Shakespeare, William Wordsworth, Oscar Wilde, John Updike, Charles Dickens, Jean Baudrillard, T. S. Eliot, James Joyce, Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Hardy, Mathew Arnold, Allen Ginsberg, John Milton, J. D. Salinger, H. G. Wells, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, E. M. Forster, W. H. Auden, Margaret Atwood, Georg Wilhelm Fredrich Hegel, and Andrew Marvel.
One thing bugged me, though: With all this texting, sexting, and shmexting, why isn't Ben Masters on Twitter?
You gotta love a book about the first decade of the new millennium with a picture of an iPhone with a busted screen on the cover. The cell sits on what appears to be a bar, club, or pub counter. Looking around the Starbucks where I am writing this, all I see are people phubbing, which is a neologism for snubbing the people you are ostensibly with to stare at your PDA (Personal Data Assistant). We are all so bored with reality that we crave--nay--are hopelessly addicted to--such devices.
First time author Ben Masters tells a timeless tale of his Rite of Passage through the Ivy Halls of Oxford, where he was a Literature Major. So, it is a student novel, like Norwegian Wood, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, or Catcher in the Rye, but it is also about a writer finding his voice, as well as sorting out the dirty laundry of his messy romances.
It is great fun to read a book wherein Ben masters (been dying to use that pun since I first set eyes on the book) the art of writing an update of this hoary old tale, flashy and trashy on the surface, but whose glittery veneer masks a solid inner substance. The blurb compared this kind of writing to Martin Amis, who I confess, I have not read, but who I intend to add to my summer reading list post haste.
With all the British slang, at times I thought it was in Nadsat, but I could suss out the meaning by the context, most of the time. Wondering about a website called Mugshot, which I googled and couldn't find but surmise that it was actually Facebook they were talking about. All the mugshot dot com sites I found were actual mugshots.
To summarize, Eliot Lamb is a bright public school student who gets into Oxford. His girlfriend, Lucy, loves him, and he loves her, but she has zero interest or aptitude for Literature. He is drawn to Ella, who belongs with him, if only because of the alliteration of their names (Ella & Eliot) and their shared love of the same books, music, and films. He is drawn to Ella, but so is his best mate, Jack, posh Terrance Terrance, Professor Dylan, and so it seems all the males (and some of the females) of Oxford. And after their fling, he has a lot of 'splaining to do with Lucy, much of it done via texting.
Along the way there is a lot of student drinking binges and bacchanals, and tutorials on such rakes, scribblers, and libertines as John Wilmot (2nd Earl of Rochester), Anthony Burgess, John Keats, William Shakespeare, William Wordsworth, Oscar Wilde, John Updike, Charles Dickens, Jean Baudrillard, T. S. Eliot, James Joyce, Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Hardy, Mathew Arnold, Allen Ginsberg, John Milton, J. D. Salinger, H. G. Wells, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, E. M. Forster, W. H. Auden, Margaret Atwood, Georg Wilhelm Fredrich Hegel, and Andrew Marvel.
One thing bugged me, though: With all this texting, sexting, and shmexting, why isn't Ben Masters on Twitter?
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June 11, 2014http://www.full-stop.net/2012/10/11/r...
Review by Patrick Nathan
Gertrude Stein, the story goes, said to Hemingway, “That is what you are… That’s what you all are… You are a lost generation.” It proved apt as an epigraph to The Sun Also Rises, published when Hemingway was 27, but is also a phrase the media has adopted since Occupy Wall Street took Zuccotti Park in September of 2011. It’s hard, though, to believe any generation — alienated from their parents’ world by technological and cultural shifts — could avoid feeling lost. Generation Y, for example — even if each of us had a job and nobody was hobbled by six digits of student loans, we’d still have the shame of comparing our Nickelback to Gen X’s Nirvana. At heart, though, it’s nothing more than a rose-colored effect, juxtaposing reality against a romantic past that never really existed. For artists there’s an added deception. As a writer, sometimes my education feels like an ever-lengthening definition of things I am not, of people I am not, of feats I’ll never achieve. Samuel Beckett, after the publication of Ulysses, spent 20 years fearing there was nowhere left to go in literature. He then published Godot. It’s easy to get so wrapped up in defining yourself and your place in the cultural timeline that your self is all you see.
Eliot Lamb, hero and villain of Ben Masters’ debut novel, Noughties, is nearly crippled in this act of defining. “What we are facing here is a problem of conceptualization,” he says:
We just don’t know where to place ourselves, and neither will history. The Roaring Twenties and the Swinging Sixties we ain’t. Can’t be. We resist totalizing models and interpretations… We’re a loose bunch: a confused series of tenuously associated, random events. How will we be referred to? How will they homogenize us? … We have no foreseeable narrative, untaggable as we are. Ours is a lost period, shopping around for identity, spiraling off in referential chaos.
Read more here: http://www.full-stop.net/2012/10/11/r...
Review by Patrick Nathan
Gertrude Stein, the story goes, said to Hemingway, “That is what you are… That’s what you all are… You are a lost generation.” It proved apt as an epigraph to The Sun Also Rises, published when Hemingway was 27, but is also a phrase the media has adopted since Occupy Wall Street took Zuccotti Park in September of 2011. It’s hard, though, to believe any generation — alienated from their parents’ world by technological and cultural shifts — could avoid feeling lost. Generation Y, for example — even if each of us had a job and nobody was hobbled by six digits of student loans, we’d still have the shame of comparing our Nickelback to Gen X’s Nirvana. At heart, though, it’s nothing more than a rose-colored effect, juxtaposing reality against a romantic past that never really existed. For artists there’s an added deception. As a writer, sometimes my education feels like an ever-lengthening definition of things I am not, of people I am not, of feats I’ll never achieve. Samuel Beckett, after the publication of Ulysses, spent 20 years fearing there was nowhere left to go in literature. He then published Godot. It’s easy to get so wrapped up in defining yourself and your place in the cultural timeline that your self is all you see.
Eliot Lamb, hero and villain of Ben Masters’ debut novel, Noughties, is nearly crippled in this act of defining. “What we are facing here is a problem of conceptualization,” he says:
We just don’t know where to place ourselves, and neither will history. The Roaring Twenties and the Swinging Sixties we ain’t. Can’t be. We resist totalizing models and interpretations… We’re a loose bunch: a confused series of tenuously associated, random events. How will we be referred to? How will they homogenize us? … We have no foreseeable narrative, untaggable as we are. Ours is a lost period, shopping around for identity, spiraling off in referential chaos.
Read more here: http://www.full-stop.net/2012/10/11/r...
June 19, 2013
2.5
Noughties is the story of Elliot Lamb, who has just finished studying English at Oxford and is having a celebratory night out with all his friends-with the novel being split into Pub, Bar and Club. However, there is plenty of unfinished business between Elliot and his friends Ella and Jack in particular-and his ex-girlfriend Lucy is continually trying to get in touch with him.
Masters' writing is generally pretty good, he definitely brings to life the university experience and all the anxiety and nerves that come along with it-which I can imagine are exacerbated at the very top universities. However, the plot just wasn't really that strong and it felt as though a lot of the 'twists' weren't really tied up that well.
Interestingly, I felt that his characterisation was strongest when dealing with his female characters-surprising, considering Elliot's treatment of them-but I found Ella and Lucy in particular to be the most interesting characters. Especially the latter, who I just felt sorry for.
My main problem with this novel as that the protagonist just didn't appear to have any redeeming features. Whilst he occasionally acknowledges the fact that he has a chip on his shoulder about attending state school before going to Oxford, and that he doesn't always portray people well-Elliot just did not seem like a good person. I felt that it was unclear whether Masters intended this increase in snobbery to be a warning about the current university system or not. Instead, I just became distracted by the similarities between Elliot's experience and that of Ben Masters himself-both from the Northampton area and both studying at Oxbridge-that I began to worry that the novel was almost autobiographical and that maybe Masters was kind of a jerk as well.
Noughties is the story of Elliot Lamb, who has just finished studying English at Oxford and is having a celebratory night out with all his friends-with the novel being split into Pub, Bar and Club. However, there is plenty of unfinished business between Elliot and his friends Ella and Jack in particular-and his ex-girlfriend Lucy is continually trying to get in touch with him.
Masters' writing is generally pretty good, he definitely brings to life the university experience and all the anxiety and nerves that come along with it-which I can imagine are exacerbated at the very top universities. However, the plot just wasn't really that strong and it felt as though a lot of the 'twists' weren't really tied up that well.
Interestingly, I felt that his characterisation was strongest when dealing with his female characters-surprising, considering Elliot's treatment of them-but I found Ella and Lucy in particular to be the most interesting characters. Especially the latter, who I just felt sorry for.
My main problem with this novel as that the protagonist just didn't appear to have any redeeming features. Whilst he occasionally acknowledges the fact that he has a chip on his shoulder about attending state school before going to Oxford, and that he doesn't always portray people well-Elliot just did not seem like a good person. I felt that it was unclear whether Masters intended this increase in snobbery to be a warning about the current university system or not. Instead, I just became distracted by the similarities between Elliot's experience and that of Ben Masters himself-both from the Northampton area and both studying at Oxbridge-that I began to worry that the novel was almost autobiographical and that maybe Masters was kind of a jerk as well.
July 26, 2013
I don't regret reading this book but it was certainly one of the less artful novels I've read recently.
It focuses on a group of friends attempting to enjoy their last night out at Cambridge before they graduate. The plot is told through a series of flashbacks from the main character as they proceed from Pub, to Bar and then to Club and home again after. The device is interesting enough and there are a few well-written scenes, in particular the main character's Cambridge admission interview.
Overall, it's a bit shallow, and the characters remain difficult to really care about. I suppose it may be accurate in describing the world of young people in academia in the UK but I found that the crudeness of the language made it feel like the author and his characters had very little respect for the institution they were a part of, despite still holding massive inferiority complexes about their university careers.
Strictly speaking, I guess the novel would be classified as a coming-of-age novel, seeing as it charts the main character's humble origins and first love, followed by his infatuation with and anxiety about his far-away college, his ultimate loss of innocence and then a return to home with an uncertain future ahead. He's kind of an unlikable twat throughout it all, though, which is unfortunate for the reader but I guess realistic?
I bought this book in an airport bookshop and as unpolished as it was I still sort of enjoyed reading it, but in the grand scheme of things I wouldn't put it at the top of anyone's to-do list unless they were particularly interested in English youth or academia.
It focuses on a group of friends attempting to enjoy their last night out at Cambridge before they graduate. The plot is told through a series of flashbacks from the main character as they proceed from Pub, to Bar and then to Club and home again after. The device is interesting enough and there are a few well-written scenes, in particular the main character's Cambridge admission interview.
Overall, it's a bit shallow, and the characters remain difficult to really care about. I suppose it may be accurate in describing the world of young people in academia in the UK but I found that the crudeness of the language made it feel like the author and his characters had very little respect for the institution they were a part of, despite still holding massive inferiority complexes about their university careers.
Strictly speaking, I guess the novel would be classified as a coming-of-age novel, seeing as it charts the main character's humble origins and first love, followed by his infatuation with and anxiety about his far-away college, his ultimate loss of innocence and then a return to home with an uncertain future ahead. He's kind of an unlikable twat throughout it all, though, which is unfortunate for the reader but I guess realistic?
I bought this book in an airport bookshop and as unpolished as it was I still sort of enjoyed reading it, but in the grand scheme of things I wouldn't put it at the top of anyone's to-do list unless they were particularly interested in English youth or academia.
May 12, 2014
Ok to pretty good. Book told from the point of view of narrator Eliot of his last night at university and the ensuing pub crawl. In three sections, we move from Pub to Bar to Club. During this we meet his friends, Jack (his bestie), Sanjay, Scott, Megan, Ali, and Ella (the object of his desires). Through flashbacks we learn of the key moments of his three years at Oxford Uni and of Lucy, his hometown girlfriend that he struggles to deal with as he grows up at home.
The privileged upbringings are all pretty obvious throughout so if you can deal with those, you'll enjoy the text mostly. There's plenty of poetry diatribe to get through though (Eliot is studying English) and you have to wonder why it's necessary to the book. The writer often indulges himself in long witterings that I'm sure he thinks help describe the situation but often confuse matters entirely. Throughout you eventually end up hating Eliot as he is mostly a complete dick, unable to communicate with others properly without losing the plot and ends up causing fights with all and sundry. He also has a disturbing habit of lapsing into very weird daydreams and you wonder for his sanity.
However, it is a good read and for those who attended University you'll see plenty of yourself in it. Coming to terms with being away from home, the tear between those you left and the new people you find yourself with, and then the worry of what to do when it all ends.
The privileged upbringings are all pretty obvious throughout so if you can deal with those, you'll enjoy the text mostly. There's plenty of poetry diatribe to get through though (Eliot is studying English) and you have to wonder why it's necessary to the book. The writer often indulges himself in long witterings that I'm sure he thinks help describe the situation but often confuse matters entirely. Throughout you eventually end up hating Eliot as he is mostly a complete dick, unable to communicate with others properly without losing the plot and ends up causing fights with all and sundry. He also has a disturbing habit of lapsing into very weird daydreams and you wonder for his sanity.
However, it is a good read and for those who attended University you'll see plenty of yourself in it. Coming to terms with being away from home, the tear between those you left and the new people you find yourself with, and then the worry of what to do when it all ends.
May 14, 2012
This book is about Eliot Lamb who is out with his Uni mates as they celebrate their last night at Oxford University. They go to a pub, a bar and then a club. In between Eliot reminisces about his three-years there, which means he reminisces mainly about girl trouble.
If I were to mark it as if it were a thesis I would mark it thus:
Good points:
There is some good stuff in this book. I like the author’s way of describing things. Straight from the off there are good descriptions, e.g. “Scott with his question-mark nose, Jack with his inverted-comma eyebrows, Sanjay with his square-bracket ears…”
I like the humour in the repartee between characters.
Bad points:
There is a lot of swearing and smut in the book, a bit too much for my liking.
It gets a bit confusing in places. Are the ideas conveyed too clever for me?
The bits with literary references went over my head in a lot of places.
Ella’s ending is unfinished.
Overall:
Frustrating – with more work this could have been better as there are snippets of story here that work well and which had me wanting to read on, but then as a whole it wasn’t as coherent.
If I were to mark it as if it were a thesis I would mark it thus:
Good points:
There is some good stuff in this book. I like the author’s way of describing things. Straight from the off there are good descriptions, e.g. “Scott with his question-mark nose, Jack with his inverted-comma eyebrows, Sanjay with his square-bracket ears…”
I like the humour in the repartee between characters.
Bad points:
There is a lot of swearing and smut in the book, a bit too much for my liking.
It gets a bit confusing in places. Are the ideas conveyed too clever for me?
The bits with literary references went over my head in a lot of places.
Ella’s ending is unfinished.
Overall:
Frustrating – with more work this could have been better as there are snippets of story here that work well and which had me wanting to read on, but then as a whole it wasn’t as coherent.
November 28, 2012
2.5 stars. This book was difficult to read at times because of the references that I'm too old and too American to get. It follows Eliot and his mates as they celebrate their last night as Oxford students. Through flashbacks you get Eliot's version of the last three years. And Eliot is a very self centered lad. I think you'd be hard pressed to find many people that age who are not. To the people around him, including his friends, he comes across as arrogant and even uncaring. Though Eliot is self centered he's also very insecure and that leads him to makes mistakes with relationships and misinterpret the actions of others. The story did not feel finished at the end and I think that goes with the feeling of college being over. You are left not knowing where you stand in the world and that is how I felt when I finished the book, like Eliot's story wasn't over or even complete. I can see how it speaks to people who are just finishing school or can remember the confusing time of being in school and feeling stalled in your growing up process. How you still can feel like a kid, but know that you're supposed to be more of an adult.
October 9, 2012
I feel like Masters did some interesting things with textuality and grammar--reflective of the POV being an English Oxford graduate--that would be clear if I were willing to sit down and do a close reading; but I'm not, so I was left with the surface story, which was a tedious thing about a predictably jejune brat who thinks he speaks for a generation and his mates as they get hammered the night before leaving university.
If you like Catcher in the Rye, you'll probably like this book. If you hate Holden Caulfield, you probably won't. Two characters are engaging and sympathetic enough to come through despite Eliot, the narrator's, myopic self-centered view: Jake, his best friend, and Lucy, his former girlfriend. I liked them enough to finish reading through the book; they are the best parts.
Everything else is best served as a warning for would-be alcoholics: drink this many pints and that many Jagerbombs, and you're going to be spending most of your evening whiny, introspective, and throwing up.
If you like Catcher in the Rye, you'll probably like this book. If you hate Holden Caulfield, you probably won't. Two characters are engaging and sympathetic enough to come through despite Eliot, the narrator's, myopic self-centered view: Jake, his best friend, and Lucy, his former girlfriend. I liked them enough to finish reading through the book; they are the best parts.
Everything else is best served as a warning for would-be alcoholics: drink this many pints and that many Jagerbombs, and you're going to be spending most of your evening whiny, introspective, and throwing up.
March 5, 2013
I really wanted for this book to engage me: a self-absorbed English literature student who feels completely out of his league having come to Oxford from a small village, leaving his younger girlfriend at home when he goes off to university, and falling in love (or fantasy) with the posh and seemingly perfect girl of his dreams. His entire life is inside of his head, is words, is trying to get the structure of his plotting and utterances perfect, but it rarely turns out that way. Our protagonist isn't particularly sympathetic, though, and understandably so, as we get to know him through his thoughts over a night of particularly excessive drinking (abnormally normal is implied), and wallowing in self pitying, and being generally incapable of making any sort of decision other than to not progress with his life in any meaningful way.
January 2, 2013
I don't know enough of Zadie Smith's writing to strike a comparison but there are definitely influences of Martin Amis in this book (whether you consider this a good thing or not is another matter). The one thing I kept thinking whilst reading this was that I'm so glad I was born when I was and that I went through the experience of undergrad university at the time I did. The life of the Oxford undergrads depicted in the book whilst ringing true really did not seem that fun, rather desperate. The main character is well written and whilst you can deduce the final plot twist way before the main character does it is still an interesting read.
August 11, 2013
Parts of this novel were engaging and stylistically brilliant, but the plot and character development let it down. The ending was anticlimactic to say the least and the characters seemed to undergo very little development over the three years they spent at Oxford. There were however some beautiful moments; the Oxford interview was particularly well written and gave the idea that the reader was there with Eliot, desperately trying to analyse the interview poem. A solid 3 stars, I would definitely give him the benefit of the doubt and read his next novel.
March 28, 2014
This is a novel for particular tastes because it is extremely self-conscious. An Oxford student of English literature is about to graduate, and has to own up to his past mistakes. Elliot goes out drinking and texting, suffers though English tutorials, and stays true to his best mates. I liked the contrast between the beauty and meaning of the works that Elliot is studying, and his actual nights spent puking in toilets! I also thought that the complexities of the friendships in the book rang true.
December 12, 2012
This is a difficult book to review. I want to give it a good rating because parts of it were interesting but for the main part the book felt like a really bad theatre production. Setting: Multiple bars. Dream monologues to break up monotony, flashbacks, a tantalising call that is the crux of the whole novel. But it was just a little too bizarre in points to be given a better rating.
It's not going to be for everyone.
It's not going to be for everyone.
March 5, 2013
Naughties by Ben Masters was an interesting book to read. Reminded me of a number of college students I knew who spent as much time partying as studying. An interaction of students trying to figure out life and what to do about it. Making mistakes and spending a lot of time worrying about whether things will be okay. Just your typical story about growing up. Not one I would have bought, but an enjoyable read.
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