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Digital Trilogy #2
The Yips
2006 is a foreign country; they do things differently there. Tiger Woods' reputation is entirely untarnished and the English Defence League does not exist yet. Storm-clouds of a different kind are gathering above the bar of Luton's less than exclusive Thistle Hotel.
550 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2012
36 people are currently reading
1094 people want to read
About the author
Nicola Barker
35 books305 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
Nicola Barker is an English writer.
Nicola Barker’s eight previous novels include Darkmans (short-listed for the 2007 Man Booker and Ondaatje prizes, and winner of the Hawthornden Prize), Wide Open (winner of the 2000 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award), and Clear (long-listed for the Man Booker Prize in 2004). She has also written two prize-winning collections of short stories, and her work has been translated into more than twenty languages. She lives in East London.
Nicola Barker is an English writer.
Nicola Barker’s eight previous novels include Darkmans (short-listed for the 2007 Man Booker and Ondaatje prizes, and winner of the Hawthornden Prize), Wide Open (winner of the 2000 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award), and Clear (long-listed for the Man Booker Prize in 2004). She has also written two prize-winning collections of short stories, and her work has been translated into more than twenty languages. She lives in East London.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 88 reviews
December 30, 2022
Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2012, this is an addictive comedy set in Luton with an eclectic cast, that all centres round ex-celebrity golfer Stuart Ransom's visit to the town. A clever, dialogue driven comedy and well worth its long listing. A 7 out of 12, Three Star read :)
2013 read
2013 read
August 21, 2012
The middle point between Darkmans and Burley Cross Postbox Theft. Attempts the weaving of a series of anarchic comic plots à la the latter with the palpable if underunderstated tone of pathos of the former. The Yips is a yelping comedy, stuffed with manic eccentrics, their manic eccentricities cranked to eleven in the form of larger-than-life dialogue tics—ludicrous overemphasis, autopilot whimsy, cartoony character traits, etc. The book’s linking solvent comes in this questionable notion of ‘embracing pain’—each character learns to accept their shortcomings and internal agonies like religious virtues (one character is a female vicar, another a Muslim fundamentalist manqué) . . . this seems somewhat curious from a writer who wants to see people “lit up by the beauty of their suffering.” Hmm. Pain aside, Barker completely exhausts her laughter muscles in this one—the agenda is largely one of manic tittering at the expense of narrative heft. Sadly, the pace flags and the relentless kookiness of her personnel really does begin to grate after a while, and the investment we have in these characters, esp. the agoraphobic tattooist Valentine, isn’t quite satisfied as the 500th page is turned. Where will her next novel take her? A reprise of the more moody literary wonders of Wide Open or Reversed Forecast? Why not? Newcomers, do Darkmans first.
August 20, 2012
J.D. Wetherspoon – the Novel.
Save yourself the trouble of reading this by watching a non-consecutive reel of ‘Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps’ (or some forgotten early nineties sitcom). Be sure to look away from the screen, to accurately evoke the need to understand everything though dialogue. Sit back and dream of it all ending.
This is quite the biggest pile of horseshit I have read in many years – and I’ve read ‘Darkmans’, the last Booker longlisted Nicola Barker. That it is widely being described as a great comic novel once again demonstrates the weird hyperinflation we see in the comedy fiction world: outside fiction, a lazy, piss poor bit of humour is called a ‘dad joke’. In contemporary British fiction, a lazy, piss poor bit of humour is called ‘blisteringly funny… full of belly laughs… fizzes with wit and invention’.
The dialogue – 97% of the content - is insufferable, and offers very little guide to character or nuance. The hallmark, for me, of really bad comic novel dialogue is: interruptions and deliberate misunderstandings. “I said she’s coming this afternoon”, “Who’s coming this afternoon?” “She is”, “Who’s she?”. This is full of that, and it’s exhausting.
Another giveaway bad-dialogue tic is punctuating conversations with eating and drinking: ‘She took a bite of out her biscuit’; ‘he took a small sip of his cup of tea’.
And, boy, those characters. I just did not care. I cared no more than I would care about the next move in an overheard mobile phone conversation on a train between two blokes discussing a DIY project.
They’re wooden – of course. Sure, the Ransom character is a credible evocation of contemporary Clarkson-man-in-the-pub cliché – but I can get that anywhere. The Jamaican manager is just sloppy and faintly racist.
It’s not merely that the characters are bloodless – they’re just arbitrary, as if constructed using a dice throwing, paper folding exercise. Gogol turns a man into giant nose – for a purpose. Why is Gene married to a lady priest? Why do we care about ‘Jen’ – why are they even listening to her?
I remember reading in an essay on character by James Wood (possibly himself citing Henry James) that characters are really formed by interaction with other characters. At no point did I believe in the interactions here. There were moments where, say, the wife of Gene would talk about ‘Jen’ – a 19 year old barmaid – and I would be screaming ‘Why would she care about Jen?’. Why would she care about the manager of a golfer she has never met? Why are they all speaking as if they are intimately involved with each other, when there is nothing to suggest that they are? Tellingly, there’s a young man called Israel in there too (who is suddenly a concern for all). I was wondering if he’s a homage to the hero of Ian Sanson’s execrable ‘Mobile Library’ series, that this reminds me so much of.
It is often said in praise of Nicola Barker that she does the kind of place that we don’t normally see in English fiction. She takes us beyond the French villas and middle class settings that longlists always play back. This was said about Darkmans (re Kent / Romney Marsh) and is now being said about Luton, re this. She’s ‘doing’ Luton or provincial England – perhaps like Alan Sillitoe does Nottingham or Patrick Hamilton does Earls Court.
Let us be clear: there is nothing ‘Luton’ here, beyond a citation or two of the name. There is nothing here of place. That middle class readers think ‘Thistle Hotel’ is enough to evoke a ‘Luton’ speaks volumes about how narrow the frame of reference UK fiction has.
I could go on… but I, luckily, know when to stop.
If this was a sitcom, ‘Dave’ wouldn’t run it. Not even in the 4am slot.
Save yourself the trouble of reading this by watching a non-consecutive reel of ‘Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps’ (or some forgotten early nineties sitcom). Be sure to look away from the screen, to accurately evoke the need to understand everything though dialogue. Sit back and dream of it all ending.
This is quite the biggest pile of horseshit I have read in many years – and I’ve read ‘Darkmans’, the last Booker longlisted Nicola Barker. That it is widely being described as a great comic novel once again demonstrates the weird hyperinflation we see in the comedy fiction world: outside fiction, a lazy, piss poor bit of humour is called a ‘dad joke’. In contemporary British fiction, a lazy, piss poor bit of humour is called ‘blisteringly funny… full of belly laughs… fizzes with wit and invention’.
The dialogue – 97% of the content - is insufferable, and offers very little guide to character or nuance. The hallmark, for me, of really bad comic novel dialogue is: interruptions and deliberate misunderstandings. “I said she’s coming this afternoon”, “Who’s coming this afternoon?” “She is”, “Who’s she?”. This is full of that, and it’s exhausting.
Another giveaway bad-dialogue tic is punctuating conversations with eating and drinking: ‘She took a bite of out her biscuit’; ‘he took a small sip of his cup of tea’.
And, boy, those characters. I just did not care. I cared no more than I would care about the next move in an overheard mobile phone conversation on a train between two blokes discussing a DIY project.
They’re wooden – of course. Sure, the Ransom character is a credible evocation of contemporary Clarkson-man-in-the-pub cliché – but I can get that anywhere. The Jamaican manager is just sloppy and faintly racist.
It’s not merely that the characters are bloodless – they’re just arbitrary, as if constructed using a dice throwing, paper folding exercise. Gogol turns a man into giant nose – for a purpose. Why is Gene married to a lady priest? Why do we care about ‘Jen’ – why are they even listening to her?
I remember reading in an essay on character by James Wood (possibly himself citing Henry James) that characters are really formed by interaction with other characters. At no point did I believe in the interactions here. There were moments where, say, the wife of Gene would talk about ‘Jen’ – a 19 year old barmaid – and I would be screaming ‘Why would she care about Jen?’. Why would she care about the manager of a golfer she has never met? Why are they all speaking as if they are intimately involved with each other, when there is nothing to suggest that they are? Tellingly, there’s a young man called Israel in there too (who is suddenly a concern for all). I was wondering if he’s a homage to the hero of Ian Sanson’s execrable ‘Mobile Library’ series, that this reminds me so much of.
It is often said in praise of Nicola Barker that she does the kind of place that we don’t normally see in English fiction. She takes us beyond the French villas and middle class settings that longlists always play back. This was said about Darkmans (re Kent / Romney Marsh) and is now being said about Luton, re this. She’s ‘doing’ Luton or provincial England – perhaps like Alan Sillitoe does Nottingham or Patrick Hamilton does Earls Court.
Let us be clear: there is nothing ‘Luton’ here, beyond a citation or two of the name. There is nothing here of place. That middle class readers think ‘Thistle Hotel’ is enough to evoke a ‘Luton’ speaks volumes about how narrow the frame of reference UK fiction has.
I could go on… but I, luckily, know when to stop.
If this was a sitcom, ‘Dave’ wouldn’t run it. Not even in the 4am slot.
January 22, 2021
This is a deliberately exaggerated comic novel - rather silly in places but very inventive and entertaining. What impressed me most is that Barker's comic invention never flags, which is an achievement given how long the book is. She creates some memorable caricatures, and for the most part her targets are well chosen.
I may write more later if I can find time.
I may write more later if I can find time.
August 18, 2012
I'd never read Barker before and I doubt I ever will again. This book was like spending several days in the company of one of those self-consciously "wacky", trying way too hard to be eccentric girls we all knew in college. All of Barker's characters are a jumble of extreme traits - agoraphobic gorgeous burlesque-dressing tattooist of pubic hair descended from Nazis (really), to give but one example - but none are real people, although all are tedious. The book is also written almost entirely in dialogue, and all of Barker's lovable oddballs have one thing in common - they talk way too much, with all the banal repetition and flat vocabulary of actual speech. It makes the book a fast read, but not a particularly pleasurable one. There are lots of zany screwball set pieces, several coincidences and a certain amount of dwelling on identity, but none of it adds up to a plot. Awful.
March 31, 2024
The Yips is not too dissimilar to one of Nicola Barker’s Darkmans : there is a cast tightly linked to each other, a person injures her leg and a dubious lead character.
The Yips (it’s a nervous tic golfers suffer from ) is, at first, split into two narratives. The first being a rather annoying professional golfer, a woman who bluffs and a man who has had cancer, narrowly escaped a car crash and is married to a priestess.
The second narrative consists of a tattooist, her mentally ill mother, her impulsive brother and eccentric baby niece. The two narrative will be linked together and it’s done cleverly. Nicola barker is an expert at connecting all her characters, some subtly, sometimes blatant.
Generally closure is not something common in Nicola Barker’s novels although there quite a few loose ends tied up, it still dangles in places. The point is the overall topics discussed. The Yips is a state of the nation novel and it pokes fun at Britain’s foibles, with a specific emphasis on social class and racial attitudes to Muslims.
At times The Yips is funny, in Nicola Barker’s slapstick, Martin Amis way but I did find it overlong at times and a bit frustrating. Saying that the characters are memorable and wacky although there are times where it is a bit of an overload. Still it is playful and if this is weak Nicola Barker, then it’s a testament of the standard of her strong novels.
The Yips (it’s a nervous tic golfers suffer from ) is, at first, split into two narratives. The first being a rather annoying professional golfer, a woman who bluffs and a man who has had cancer, narrowly escaped a car crash and is married to a priestess.
The second narrative consists of a tattooist, her mentally ill mother, her impulsive brother and eccentric baby niece. The two narrative will be linked together and it’s done cleverly. Nicola barker is an expert at connecting all her characters, some subtly, sometimes blatant.
Generally closure is not something common in Nicola Barker’s novels although there quite a few loose ends tied up, it still dangles in places. The point is the overall topics discussed. The Yips is a state of the nation novel and it pokes fun at Britain’s foibles, with a specific emphasis on social class and racial attitudes to Muslims.
At times The Yips is funny, in Nicola Barker’s slapstick, Martin Amis way but I did find it overlong at times and a bit frustrating. Saying that the characters are memorable and wacky although there are times where it is a bit of an overload. Still it is playful and if this is weak Nicola Barker, then it’s a testament of the standard of her strong novels.
September 1, 2012
I approached The Yips by Nicola Barker with a certain amount of caution. It is a large book (almost 550 pages) from an author with a reputation for experimental writing and from its title seemed to be set around the game of Golf, or to be more precise on a Golfer. When I finished it, I felt significantly more positive – it was an entertaining read which seemed shorter than its page length, always a good sign. It has now been long listed for this year’s Booker prize and seems to be one of the favourites to progress onto the shortlist. Hopefully, this will help to draw it to the attention of a wider readership.
"The Yips" refers to the disabling twitch which some golfers develop when attempting short putts, usually a sign of anxiety or psychological stress. In order to deal with this they will frequently switch from a standard putter to a long “belly putter” in an effort to compensate. The central character of this novel, Stuart Ransom, has such an affliction, although it is one of the least of his many problems. He has a colourful (and unrealistic) back story, but has become a flamboyant and successful professional golfer, greatly loved by the tabloid press and forever embroiled in one scandal or another. As we meet him, his golfing career seems to be on downward trajectory to disaster. The development of The Yips is symptomatic of this, but in the context of the novel provides a metaphor for the many other flaws possessed by him and by almost all of the other characters with whom he interacts.
Among these are a man who has had cancer seven times, his wife (a priest given to outbursts of bizarre and erratic behaviour) and the family of a notorious local fascist. On a previous visit to the town, Ransom managed to hit the fascist’s wife on the head with a stray golf ball, leading to an ongoing public feud with her son. Meanwhile, her daughter has become an agoraphobic recluse, making a living as a hyperrealist tattooist of pubic hair for mainly far Eastern clients. Mixed in with these eccentrics is an ever-present barmaid with multiple personas, a freethinking Islamic sex therapist and his family and Ransom’s long-suffering entourage. It is a heady mix which works more successfully than you might expect from my descriptions.
Towards the end of the novel there is a section where two of the characters discuss what life is like. Mainly consisting of stuff they conclude. All sorts of stuff, piled up fairly randomly and sometimes threatening to fall over, at which point everyone starts to build it up again. To an extent, this sums up Barker’s writing style and in particular the plot development in this novel. But it works - it made me laugh in places and provoked a few ideas and thoughts worth pursuing. It represents an easier introduction to her work than her previous Booker prize listed novel (Darkmans). Recommended.
"The Yips" refers to the disabling twitch which some golfers develop when attempting short putts, usually a sign of anxiety or psychological stress. In order to deal with this they will frequently switch from a standard putter to a long “belly putter” in an effort to compensate. The central character of this novel, Stuart Ransom, has such an affliction, although it is one of the least of his many problems. He has a colourful (and unrealistic) back story, but has become a flamboyant and successful professional golfer, greatly loved by the tabloid press and forever embroiled in one scandal or another. As we meet him, his golfing career seems to be on downward trajectory to disaster. The development of The Yips is symptomatic of this, but in the context of the novel provides a metaphor for the many other flaws possessed by him and by almost all of the other characters with whom he interacts.
Among these are a man who has had cancer seven times, his wife (a priest given to outbursts of bizarre and erratic behaviour) and the family of a notorious local fascist. On a previous visit to the town, Ransom managed to hit the fascist’s wife on the head with a stray golf ball, leading to an ongoing public feud with her son. Meanwhile, her daughter has become an agoraphobic recluse, making a living as a hyperrealist tattooist of pubic hair for mainly far Eastern clients. Mixed in with these eccentrics is an ever-present barmaid with multiple personas, a freethinking Islamic sex therapist and his family and Ransom’s long-suffering entourage. It is a heady mix which works more successfully than you might expect from my descriptions.
Towards the end of the novel there is a section where two of the characters discuss what life is like. Mainly consisting of stuff they conclude. All sorts of stuff, piled up fairly randomly and sometimes threatening to fall over, at which point everyone starts to build it up again. To an extent, this sums up Barker’s writing style and in particular the plot development in this novel. But it works - it made me laugh in places and provoked a few ideas and thoughts worth pursuing. It represents an easier introduction to her work than her previous Booker prize listed novel (Darkmans). Recommended.
April 9, 2013
You know when you see a book in the bookshop and its cover makes it stand out a bit, so you pick it up, read the blurb - which sounds interesting (notwithstanding the reference to scatological humour) and is chock-full of great reviews - then turn to a random page and it's ok, readable enough, so you think I'll take a punt and you lash out eight quid, get it home and read the first page and think, well, the page I read in the bookshop was ok, so maybe it'll pick up, and then you reach that page and you realise that, in context, it's actually absolute shit like the rest of it?
That.
Self-indulgent, witless, cartoonish, dull. No wonder it's so difficult to get published when agents, publishers and reviewers think drivel like this should be gracing our shelves. I despair.
That.
Self-indulgent, witless, cartoonish, dull. No wonder it's so difficult to get published when agents, publishers and reviewers think drivel like this should be gracing our shelves. I despair.
August 24, 2012
What waste of time. Too many characters in which there is no emotional involvement, a plot that is so idiotic and convoluted that it's not worth the bother with. Booker contender? Don't make me laugh! Not only that, it was so crap it killed my Kindle!
July 21, 2017
As much as I enjoyed the style of writing, the story itself really seemed to go nowhere, and I found it going on and on by the end. Still, a charming read.
April 17, 2021
A good antidote against the crushing loneliness: 548 pages in the company of another bunch of weird Nicola Barker characters. Probably couldn't stand an hour with them irl, though.
April 10, 2013
An enjoyable fun read.
It has been interesting to compare my experience with other reviewers, both here an on Amazon, especially those who have rated the book poorly. Part way through, I realised that the book I was most reminded of was Gormenghast. Nicola Baker may seem to set her books in the real world, e.g. Luton, but it isn't our world. Her characters are not real people but often grotesques, with exaggerated qualities (and faults). You either decide to dive in and live in the world of her imagination or you don't. I suspect that trying to fit her world into your idea of the real Luton would never work. How could there ever be a meter reader who only ever seems to visit one house and then never needs to clock on and read more meters the next day? In an unreal world that isn't a problem.
I read Darkmans, her last but one novel, on holiday a few years ago and enjoyed it, but I remember it's strangeness and struggling slightly with it. I might have to get it off the shelf and see how it compares to The Yips.
Barker deliberately keeps important information from the reader and then drops it into a conversation pages later, so about 200 pages in, you suddenly discover why things happened, or were said, in the early pages. But, as I said, if you have decided to accept Baker's world, this isn't a problem. Gradually the different threads begin to pull together, and gradually the reader begins to know more than the characters, who continue to misunderstand and misinterpret each other.
I quite enjoyed the fact that there is no clean ending with all loose ends tied neatly - the rest of the book isn't neat, why should the ending be? However, there is a sense of conclusion with various moments of crisis passed, but whether any of the proposed futures given for any of the characters would actually transpire is left for the reader to guess.
There is much silliness and almost farce within the pages of The Yips, but what lifts it onto Booker longlists is the darkness it also contains. There is monstrous egotism, rage, fear, faith, doubt and, above all, struggling with life and death.
If I could, I would give it 4.5 stars.
It has been interesting to compare my experience with other reviewers, both here an on Amazon, especially those who have rated the book poorly. Part way through, I realised that the book I was most reminded of was Gormenghast. Nicola Baker may seem to set her books in the real world, e.g. Luton, but it isn't our world. Her characters are not real people but often grotesques, with exaggerated qualities (and faults). You either decide to dive in and live in the world of her imagination or you don't. I suspect that trying to fit her world into your idea of the real Luton would never work. How could there ever be a meter reader who only ever seems to visit one house and then never needs to clock on and read more meters the next day? In an unreal world that isn't a problem.
I read Darkmans, her last but one novel, on holiday a few years ago and enjoyed it, but I remember it's strangeness and struggling slightly with it. I might have to get it off the shelf and see how it compares to The Yips.
Barker deliberately keeps important information from the reader and then drops it into a conversation pages later, so about 200 pages in, you suddenly discover why things happened, or were said, in the early pages. But, as I said, if you have decided to accept Baker's world, this isn't a problem. Gradually the different threads begin to pull together, and gradually the reader begins to know more than the characters, who continue to misunderstand and misinterpret each other.
I quite enjoyed the fact that there is no clean ending with all loose ends tied neatly - the rest of the book isn't neat, why should the ending be? However, there is a sense of conclusion with various moments of crisis passed, but whether any of the proposed futures given for any of the characters would actually transpire is left for the reader to guess.
There is much silliness and almost farce within the pages of The Yips, but what lifts it onto Booker longlists is the darkness it also contains. There is monstrous egotism, rage, fear, faith, doubt and, above all, struggling with life and death.
If I could, I would give it 4.5 stars.
August 25, 2012
I did not like this book, although that does not mean it is not a good book or worth reading.....and I did catch myself laughing out loud several times, to the point where tears were running down my face. It is difficult for me to pinpoint, why I didn't like The Yips. I did not mind the sense of "huh" at the end, the foul language, the apparent randomness. In fact, I think one of the characters (Jen) summarises The Yips quite well: "Most of it is just ideas, just chatter. This big, stupid, inane conversation blaring in your ear which is determined to draw you in. And either you despise it or you embrace it. That's entirely up to you, of course."
What is intriguing, (and why I think the book has merit) is that underneath and in between the crudeness and lunacy, Barker quite insightfully discusses the human condition, particularly the identity, psychology and relationships of women. Despite the fact that on the face of it, the book is about or at least revolves around men, particularly an ageing golfer, The Yips is about women — and not simply women defining themselves in terms of men, but women struggling to shape and reshape themselves as powerful leaders, daughters, spiritual beings, mothers, lovers, sisters, people........
Perhaps what is so disconcerting about the book, for me at least, is the way I unexpectedly confronted myself (the good, the bad and the ugly). Without realising it. Almost by accident. I found myself in each of the women......and this is why I give four stars to a book I did not, necessarily "like".
I suspect The Yips will continue to grow on me or me from it.
What is intriguing, (and why I think the book has merit) is that underneath and in between the crudeness and lunacy, Barker quite insightfully discusses the human condition, particularly the identity, psychology and relationships of women. Despite the fact that on the face of it, the book is about or at least revolves around men, particularly an ageing golfer, The Yips is about women — and not simply women defining themselves in terms of men, but women struggling to shape and reshape themselves as powerful leaders, daughters, spiritual beings, mothers, lovers, sisters, people........
Perhaps what is so disconcerting about the book, for me at least, is the way I unexpectedly confronted myself (the good, the bad and the ugly). Without realising it. Almost by accident. I found myself in each of the women......and this is why I give four stars to a book I did not, necessarily "like".
I suspect The Yips will continue to grow on me or me from it.
August 7, 2012
Nicola Barker’s ninth novel The Yips takes its title from the slang word used to describe the medical term focal dystonia which basically boils down to a loss of the control over fine motor skills without any explainable reason. Most notably in sports such as golf (goll-oll-llolf!) it causes shaky hands which can lead to an inability to perform, forcing some players to readjust their game to compensate for the deficiency and others still to throw in the towel and call it a day. Stuart Ransom, he’s recently developed a nasty case of the yips.
Ransom is a crude ex-surfer turned professional golfer who’s no stranger to controversy. Nearly bankrupt and on a downward slide, he finds himself thirty miles north of London in the town of Luton (claim to fame: hat making!) where he’s getting ready to take part in an upcoming tournament. As the novel opens he finds himself in a hotel bar conversing with Gene, a seven time cancer survivor – to be fair it was only ever terminal the one time – and the teenage Jen who possesses the uncanny ability to effortlessly bullshit anyone about anything at any time. As the novel progresses it’s hard to ascertain exactly what Jen’s playing at, but her character is in many ways the glue that binds the novel together and she is far and away the most over the top, amusing member of the bunch.
READ MORE:
http://www.opinionless.com/book-revie...
Ransom is a crude ex-surfer turned professional golfer who’s no stranger to controversy. Nearly bankrupt and on a downward slide, he finds himself thirty miles north of London in the town of Luton (claim to fame: hat making!) where he’s getting ready to take part in an upcoming tournament. As the novel opens he finds himself in a hotel bar conversing with Gene, a seven time cancer survivor – to be fair it was only ever terminal the one time – and the teenage Jen who possesses the uncanny ability to effortlessly bullshit anyone about anything at any time. As the novel progresses it’s hard to ascertain exactly what Jen’s playing at, but her character is in many ways the glue that binds the novel together and she is far and away the most over the top, amusing member of the bunch.
READ MORE:
http://www.opinionless.com/book-revie...
December 6, 2014
[2.5]
The second book I've read recently with a golfing theme. Only, in contrast with the last one, where I skipped all the bits about golf, I found the washed up egomaniac professional golfer, Stuart Ransom, about the most interesting and believable character in this book. There's always going to be something funny and sad about a man who develops the self-importance that must come so easily to anyone who reaches the top of professional sport, and who then fails to adjust to how the world now sees them when they stop winning.
The book is intermittently funny, but it's far, far too long and I wasn't convinced that the vast array of implausible characters that gather around him really need to be there. Gene, the some-time caddy who has had terminal cancer seven times; Valentine, the agoraphobic tattoo artist obsessed with the memory of her neo-Nazi father; Karim the Muslim sex-therapist with the deeply pious wife; Esther, Ransom's long-suffering (and heavily pregnant) Jamaican coach/manager. I know it's intended to be a comic, rather than a realist, novel, but there were too many longeurs between the comic scenes, and the book disappeared down an awful lot of dead-ends and side-roads over its 550 pages.
On the plus side, even by the end of the 550 pages, I don't think a single game of golf had been played...
The second book I've read recently with a golfing theme. Only, in contrast with the last one, where I skipped all the bits about golf, I found the washed up egomaniac professional golfer, Stuart Ransom, about the most interesting and believable character in this book. There's always going to be something funny and sad about a man who develops the self-importance that must come so easily to anyone who reaches the top of professional sport, and who then fails to adjust to how the world now sees them when they stop winning.
The book is intermittently funny, but it's far, far too long and I wasn't convinced that the vast array of implausible characters that gather around him really need to be there. Gene, the some-time caddy who has had terminal cancer seven times; Valentine, the agoraphobic tattoo artist obsessed with the memory of her neo-Nazi father; Karim the Muslim sex-therapist with the deeply pious wife; Esther, Ransom's long-suffering (and heavily pregnant) Jamaican coach/manager. I know it's intended to be a comic, rather than a realist, novel, but there were too many longeurs between the comic scenes, and the book disappeared down an awful lot of dead-ends and side-roads over its 550 pages.
On the plus side, even by the end of the 550 pages, I don't think a single game of golf had been played...
May 20, 2013
I got far far too emotionally engaged with this book - something that happened to me with Darkmans too (I also really like Wide Open and Behindlings but don't remember having the same sense of involvement with them). It is a good thing but also makes reading a bit stressful. There was a lot of picking it up and putting down as I read this. Barker is good at making engaging characters, and a sense of oddly light-hearted adventure merge with and come out of mundane and slightly depressing situations and settings. It's all a bit hyper and I like the way it takes you straight in and then spits you out at the end - the story doesn't start or finish with the reader.
August 25, 2012
Really struggling to say anything positive about this book. Only positive is that I've finished it. Total waste of time, over written, trying too hard and simply not the slightest bit funny.
September 21, 2012
Didn't finish this book - read 114 pages of it, and couldn't bear to waste any more of my life on it. I'm sure it's well-written, but definitely not to my taste.
August 30, 2014
I can't think of a book I have enjoyed less.....we'll not for a very long time. Shambolic not comedic.
September 28, 2020
I really didn't like this one. Another book promising to be hilarious but I rarely laughed I am sorry to say. I know the author has written some other novels which are highly rated and I think they might well be good but this one was really not for me. It is not a short book either.
I honestly couldn't tell you what this novel is about, it certainly doesn't seem to have any particular focus or target (except maybe that golf is rather ridiculous?). There are a load of characters, including a washed-up golfer, his pregnant West Indian manager, an agoraphobic tattooist, a woman vicar, a mother who has started talking French due to a brain injury, a barmaid who can't stop making up stories and a guy who has suffered numerous bouts of cancer. A random series of interactions happen between these people to no ostensible purpose I could make out with what seem to be lots of unpleasant jibes made at their expense. I didn't like any of of these people but some of the things they are made to go through seem harsh and made me feeling sorry for them which I don't think was the intention.
I think the idea was to create a picturesque series of amusing sketches and then somehow tie them all together in a funny way. There are some brilliantly effective bits of description and some well observed dialogue (a lot of unfinished sentences) which show me that this is clearly a talented writer. I just didn't really get it and I didn't find it funny. Is an agoraphobic woman going out in a hijab a good joke? Am I supposed to laugh if someone has hidden away a concentration camp wallet made out of human skin? Or if someone kidnaps a woman by trapping them in their car boot? Maybe these things could be humorous in the right hands, but I just felt like it was all in quite bad taste, and in no way funny enough to get away with being so.
I don't know if this made more sense back in 2012 before social media took off but my sense is it was probably still a bad idea even then. Apparently it was long-listed for the Booker Prize back then so clearly some clever people got it and liked it more than me. I think Nicola Barker may well be a really good author, and while I can see her abilities here, there must be some other books of hers which are a better reflection of her talent and have a clearer purpose. I would be happy to try those but I wouldn't recommend this one.
I honestly couldn't tell you what this novel is about, it certainly doesn't seem to have any particular focus or target (except maybe that golf is rather ridiculous?). There are a load of characters, including a washed-up golfer, his pregnant West Indian manager, an agoraphobic tattooist, a woman vicar, a mother who has started talking French due to a brain injury, a barmaid who can't stop making up stories and a guy who has suffered numerous bouts of cancer. A random series of interactions happen between these people to no ostensible purpose I could make out with what seem to be lots of unpleasant jibes made at their expense. I didn't like any of of these people but some of the things they are made to go through seem harsh and made me feeling sorry for them which I don't think was the intention.
I think the idea was to create a picturesque series of amusing sketches and then somehow tie them all together in a funny way. There are some brilliantly effective bits of description and some well observed dialogue (a lot of unfinished sentences) which show me that this is clearly a talented writer. I just didn't really get it and I didn't find it funny. Is an agoraphobic woman going out in a hijab a good joke? Am I supposed to laugh if someone has hidden away a concentration camp wallet made out of human skin? Or if someone kidnaps a woman by trapping them in their car boot? Maybe these things could be humorous in the right hands, but I just felt like it was all in quite bad taste, and in no way funny enough to get away with being so.
I don't know if this made more sense back in 2012 before social media took off but my sense is it was probably still a bad idea even then. Apparently it was long-listed for the Booker Prize back then so clearly some clever people got it and liked it more than me. I think Nicola Barker may well be a really good author, and while I can see her abilities here, there must be some other books of hers which are a better reflection of her talent and have a clearer purpose. I would be happy to try those but I wouldn't recommend this one.
October 13, 2022
Probably some sort of halfway point between the other two Barkers I've read: more lively and less grating than In the Approaches, but lacking that other unnameable quality that made Darkmans stand out.
Barker's work is anarchic, rollicking you might say, and here we have a ludicrous array of ludicrous characters, too many by any standard judgement, but we spend so much time with their words and thoughts and more of their words, that there's never any problem distinguishing between them. One of Barker's great gifts really is bringing characters to life amidst the rapid-fire back-and-forth dialogue that takes up most of the book.
I don't know that it's a "historical novel of the pre-Twitter moment," as the back copy claims, whatever that means, but it is an immense lot of fun, speeding along at a great pace, lewd and biting and taking everything and nothing not seriously at all. Every time I was reminded that the whole five hundred and something pages take place over a couple of days I was taken aback, but really it makes perfect sense, what with how much mileage Barker gets out of every conversation, presenting them all in full start to finish like a coked-up Dostoyevsky.
Further back copy calls her "a demon miniaturist," which, yeah, that one I can agree with.
Barker's work is anarchic, rollicking you might say, and here we have a ludicrous array of ludicrous characters, too many by any standard judgement, but we spend so much time with their words and thoughts and more of their words, that there's never any problem distinguishing between them. One of Barker's great gifts really is bringing characters to life amidst the rapid-fire back-and-forth dialogue that takes up most of the book.
I don't know that it's a "historical novel of the pre-Twitter moment," as the back copy claims, whatever that means, but it is an immense lot of fun, speeding along at a great pace, lewd and biting and taking everything and nothing not seriously at all. Every time I was reminded that the whole five hundred and something pages take place over a couple of days I was taken aback, but really it makes perfect sense, what with how much mileage Barker gets out of every conversation, presenting them all in full start to finish like a coked-up Dostoyevsky.
Further back copy calls her "a demon miniaturist," which, yeah, that one I can agree with.
September 3, 2020
No idea why Nicola Barker feels the need to break out the thesaurus any time she is describing someone speaking - “she grimaces”, “he confirms”, “she confides” etc. I remember firmly being told not to write like this at a young age. Annoying characters, lots of capital letters to show people are shouting, and not funny in the slightest.
November 18, 2020
Loved Darkmans to bits but couldn't get to grips with the zany characters in the Yips. Not in the right mood? Having trouble imagining tattooed pubic hair? Uncaring about sociopathic golfers? One or more of the above. Will still try to read more by Barker and hope her satyrical eye and off-the-wall humour will work better for me in a different setting.
September 16, 2025
The first 100 pages of this were brilliant: hilarious, outrageous, and so smart. Then it fell off a cliff, each character becoming insufferable more quickly than the previous. Disappointed in the end with this
March 8, 2018
Great characters. Uninteresting story line.
April 23, 2024
This book was a straight up assault. Every sentence is an escalation knocking the characters around, and I loved it.
February 5, 2021
Abandoned after only a few pages because I couldn't take the style of writing with every single thing, action or thought being written down, a few words usually followed by parenthesis gets incredibly tiring to read incredibly quick.
So I cannot comment on the storyline, tell you if it was funny or not, because I don't care to find out. But THIS is how that sentence would have been written in The Yips:
"so I cannot comment on the storyline (she types on her laptop which is now quite old and sometimes very slow), tell you if it was funny enough (as she wishes it wasn't so bloody hot and knows tomorrow is going to be hotter), because I don't care to find out (as she looks out the window and thinks I wonder if that breeze is cool and I can open the windows yet, but her bum seems to be too lazy to get up to find out) - yep, tiring isn't it?
I do have another of Ms Barker's books in my library which I am now kind of dreading, lol
So I cannot comment on the storyline, tell you if it was funny or not, because I don't care to find out. But THIS is how that sentence would have been written in The Yips:
"so I cannot comment on the storyline (she types on her laptop which is now quite old and sometimes very slow), tell you if it was funny enough (as she wishes it wasn't so bloody hot and knows tomorrow is going to be hotter), because I don't care to find out (as she looks out the window and thinks I wonder if that breeze is cool and I can open the windows yet, but her bum seems to be too lazy to get up to find out) - yep, tiring isn't it?
I do have another of Ms Barker's books in my library which I am now kind of dreading, lol
November 13, 2012
My very first Nicola Barker. For all the slogging through Booker lists I do, I've somehow never read her. I'm no golf fan, so I had no idea what "The Yips" meant when I went into this book. I also don't read synopses of books I mean to absolutely read, so I think I can be excused for thinking I would find a dark and sordid tale of pathetic humanity. (This is probably because Barker wrote a book called Darkmans. Yeah, I know she also wrote a book called Clear, but I'm weird that way). Surprise! This book is unrelentingly kooky! If you have no sense for the absurd, you have no business reading this! For all that, it's still sordid and filled with rather pathetic humans.
Let's take a count of said kooky characters, shall we? A golfer way past his prime, but doesn't want to believe it. A ditzy bartender, with a remarkable capacity for bullshit. Her boss, who also doubles as a part-time electric meter reader, a caddy, a blood donor, a stand-in owner of a Hummer and a stand-in husband for the Hummer's real owner's wife (it's about exactly as this sounds), eight times fighter of cancer (once terminal), a general human of saintly proportions. His wife (who used to be his best friend's wife), a do-gooder vicar of the Church of England, who has trouble with practicing her faith as well as sleeping with her husband.
Continuing, a drop dead gorgeous tattoo artist, who has crippling agoraphobia and who engages in a one night stand with the saint (who isn't that saintly after all, snicker). Her mother, a woman whose brain has been damaged by a stray golf ball hit by none other than our pathetic golfer. Her brother, engaged in litigation with said golfer when he's not also stoned. The mother's Muslim sex therapist, his orthodox (but slightly insane) wife and her sister, the golfer's pregnant manager who may or may not have an agenda, the manager's political activist sister and genius nephew (both of who are related to the golfer) round out the cast.
The order of the day is that none of the characters are what might be called stable. All of them are quirky, all of them are unbalanced. The nearest thing to a straight man is Gene (the saint), but he has his troubles as well. It reads like a farcical play, this can be put on stage or screen with few changes. There are laugh out loud moments, and some of the characters are brilliant. The action, the pacing, is manic. It reminds me of the Hollywood screwball comedies of 30s and 40s, where people spoke nineteen to the dozen, and I say that in a good way.
But, the downside to this energy is that it's exhausting. The book is over 500 pages, and the madness just doesn't sustain your interest for that long. Indeed, the book fizzles out rather than ending with a bang, as though the characters have just run out of things to say and do. They all have real issues, but none of them are really addressed. There are no satisfying resolutions - only haphazard, "this madness shall end now because I really can't write anymore" type ones. It's still a good, fun book, but it would have been greater still if there were a lesser number of characters (some of the characters are just padding, and didn't need their own scenes), and a tighter rein on the length this was allowed to run. Alternately, I would have loved a 500 page book with some meat in it, rather than just a random series of stuff.
I got a copy of this book via NetGalley for review.
Let's take a count of said kooky characters, shall we? A golfer way past his prime, but doesn't want to believe it. A ditzy bartender, with a remarkable capacity for bullshit. Her boss, who also doubles as a part-time electric meter reader, a caddy, a blood donor, a stand-in owner of a Hummer and a stand-in husband for the Hummer's real owner's wife (it's about exactly as this sounds), eight times fighter of cancer (once terminal), a general human of saintly proportions. His wife (who used to be his best friend's wife), a do-gooder vicar of the Church of England, who has trouble with practicing her faith as well as sleeping with her husband.
Continuing, a drop dead gorgeous tattoo artist, who has crippling agoraphobia and who engages in a one night stand with the saint (who isn't that saintly after all, snicker). Her mother, a woman whose brain has been damaged by a stray golf ball hit by none other than our pathetic golfer. Her brother, engaged in litigation with said golfer when he's not also stoned. The mother's Muslim sex therapist, his orthodox (but slightly insane) wife and her sister, the golfer's pregnant manager who may or may not have an agenda, the manager's political activist sister and genius nephew (both of who are related to the golfer) round out the cast.
The order of the day is that none of the characters are what might be called stable. All of them are quirky, all of them are unbalanced. The nearest thing to a straight man is Gene (the saint), but he has his troubles as well. It reads like a farcical play, this can be put on stage or screen with few changes. There are laugh out loud moments, and some of the characters are brilliant. The action, the pacing, is manic. It reminds me of the Hollywood screwball comedies of 30s and 40s, where people spoke nineteen to the dozen, and I say that in a good way.
But, the downside to this energy is that it's exhausting. The book is over 500 pages, and the madness just doesn't sustain your interest for that long. Indeed, the book fizzles out rather than ending with a bang, as though the characters have just run out of things to say and do. They all have real issues, but none of them are really addressed. There are no satisfying resolutions - only haphazard, "this madness shall end now because I really can't write anymore" type ones. It's still a good, fun book, but it would have been greater still if there were a lesser number of characters (some of the characters are just padding, and didn't need their own scenes), and a tighter rein on the length this was allowed to run. Alternately, I would have loved a 500 page book with some meat in it, rather than just a random series of stuff.
I got a copy of this book via NetGalley for review.
January 16, 2013
This is the story of a washed-up golfer who has slightly lost sight of his place in the universe, or rather refuses to acknowledge that he is not its centre. Yet this is not a story about golf, this is a story about people. In Luton.
Nicola Barker can write, this is clear for the first page of this somewhat sport-related tale. In a few sentences she is able to set up places, situations and characters. Particularly the dialogue in this novel is involving, full of personality and fun. Unfortunately, this is not enough to make this a stand out novel. There are a few bigger issues at hand. Firstly, the novel is overlong. The reader is introduced to quite a large cast of characters who, over the course of the story, are or become involved in each other’s lives. While this at times feels a little too neatly pulled together, this is not strictly a problem. However, the novel’s length means that certain scenes drag on for too long and characters’ ‘quirky behaviour’ is unnecessarily repeated in scenes that feel too similar.
This leads into the second issue: the credibility of these characters. Barker introduces us to a wide selection of voices who rarely feature centre stage in fiction. Here, Luton plays host to the biggest bunch of misfits folded into the pages of a book in a long time. Certainly Barker is daring in her approach and in the characters she chooses to portray. The problem is that none of these characters seem real. Their motivation is muddled at best: this seems to get lost in a desire to create amusing dialogues and set pieces.
It should be said, however, that Barker’s female characters are distinctive and diverse. At first sight perhaps easy stereotypes they are revealed to be much more than that. Their voices are fresh and in this we find the novel’s biggest asset. For example the introduction of the young Muslim woman Milah. Her conversations with Valentine come as a surprise and are genuinely something new and enjoyably non-clichéd. Barker should be praised for finding the poignancy and fun in the everyday qualities and conversations shared between these two young women. The way Barker weaves these two sides of the coin together means there are brief flickers of something genuinely daring and thought provoking. Yet, it would be equally true to say that these exchanges come off more as a fine bit of imagination than a realistic portrayal.
Perhaps we should simply take this novel to be a satirical look at the (fleeting) nature of fame, the romanticisation of the past and an exposé on the seedy awfulness that is golf. The novel is not without merit: there is enjoyment to be had, undoubtedly more if it had been ruthlessly edited down. The lingering thought is that Barker is a writer with heaps of qualities and ideas and that this novel doesn’t quite do them justice.
Nicola Barker can write, this is clear for the first page of this somewhat sport-related tale. In a few sentences she is able to set up places, situations and characters. Particularly the dialogue in this novel is involving, full of personality and fun. Unfortunately, this is not enough to make this a stand out novel. There are a few bigger issues at hand. Firstly, the novel is overlong. The reader is introduced to quite a large cast of characters who, over the course of the story, are or become involved in each other’s lives. While this at times feels a little too neatly pulled together, this is not strictly a problem. However, the novel’s length means that certain scenes drag on for too long and characters’ ‘quirky behaviour’ is unnecessarily repeated in scenes that feel too similar.
This leads into the second issue: the credibility of these characters. Barker introduces us to a wide selection of voices who rarely feature centre stage in fiction. Here, Luton plays host to the biggest bunch of misfits folded into the pages of a book in a long time. Certainly Barker is daring in her approach and in the characters she chooses to portray. The problem is that none of these characters seem real. Their motivation is muddled at best: this seems to get lost in a desire to create amusing dialogues and set pieces.
It should be said, however, that Barker’s female characters are distinctive and diverse. At first sight perhaps easy stereotypes they are revealed to be much more than that. Their voices are fresh and in this we find the novel’s biggest asset. For example the introduction of the young Muslim woman Milah. Her conversations with Valentine come as a surprise and are genuinely something new and enjoyably non-clichéd. Barker should be praised for finding the poignancy and fun in the everyday qualities and conversations shared between these two young women. The way Barker weaves these two sides of the coin together means there are brief flickers of something genuinely daring and thought provoking. Yet, it would be equally true to say that these exchanges come off more as a fine bit of imagination than a realistic portrayal.
Perhaps we should simply take this novel to be a satirical look at the (fleeting) nature of fame, the romanticisation of the past and an exposé on the seedy awfulness that is golf. The novel is not without merit: there is enjoyment to be had, undoubtedly more if it had been ruthlessly edited down. The lingering thought is that Barker is a writer with heaps of qualities and ideas and that this novel doesn’t quite do them justice.
August 30, 2012
Nicola Barker is no stranger to the Man Booker lists – she was shortlisted for Darkmans and longlisted for Clear – and yet she is one of those novelists that I’ve never gotten around to reading. I should have come to her sooner, for on the basis of The Yips, she is bloody brilliant.
It seems, to me, that Barker’s fiction is all about the characters – the plot is almost incidental – and in The Yips the cast of characters is broad and all well drawn. There’s Shelia, a vicar, who is married to Gene, who works three jobs and has survived cancer seven times. He works with Jen, who is a barmaid with a PhD in bullshit. Together they meet Stuart Ransom, a golfing legend whose life is in freefall. Then there’s a tattooist who specialises in genital tattooing, and a free-thinking Muslim sex therapist. Their lives collide, again and again, quite often in comic fashion. There is a plot behind all this manic energy, but it’s best not to summarise it, but to ride it, like a wave. It is the sheer momentum, the fizzle-crack of Barker’s dialogue, and the often hilarious asides that carry you through the 550 page doorstop of book. It really doesn’t feel that long.
Barker’s novel is certainly outside the realist tradition favoured by most novelists working in English today (myself included), and is closer to a ribald sex comedy of the Elizabethan age. There are secret identities, lost children, trickster figures, a punch-up on a giant chess-board. It has a manic, almost magical, energy. The formatting of her pages is odd as well, deliberately so – reading it I found I couldn’t quite recall how a page was supposed to look, that this was odd, but that it was also distinctly pleasing. It made the familiar strange again.
In this kind of novel it is easy to develop a favourite character as well, and for me it was a toss-up between Ransom and Jen – is Jen a genius or just a clever flirt? Is Ransom actually so full of bullshit or is there a real man hiding inside? Nicola Barker would never deign to give you answers, but she’ll thoroughly entertain you as you try and work it out.
The Yips has been longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2012.
Will it win?
I have read, a while ago, that it is one of the favourites to take the prize this year. Having not read her other novels, I can’t say if this is her best, but it is certainly very good, very fresh, and very funny. The Booker has, in previous years, been given some criticism for not awarding to comic novels (until Howard Jacobson), and it’s sheer manic energy might see it booted off the longlist, but I doubt it. I’m almost certain it will be shortlisted. Will it win though? It might. I’ll hold off judgement until I’ve read the rest of the longlist.
It seems, to me, that Barker’s fiction is all about the characters – the plot is almost incidental – and in The Yips the cast of characters is broad and all well drawn. There’s Shelia, a vicar, who is married to Gene, who works three jobs and has survived cancer seven times. He works with Jen, who is a barmaid with a PhD in bullshit. Together they meet Stuart Ransom, a golfing legend whose life is in freefall. Then there’s a tattooist who specialises in genital tattooing, and a free-thinking Muslim sex therapist. Their lives collide, again and again, quite often in comic fashion. There is a plot behind all this manic energy, but it’s best not to summarise it, but to ride it, like a wave. It is the sheer momentum, the fizzle-crack of Barker’s dialogue, and the often hilarious asides that carry you through the 550 page doorstop of book. It really doesn’t feel that long.
Barker’s novel is certainly outside the realist tradition favoured by most novelists working in English today (myself included), and is closer to a ribald sex comedy of the Elizabethan age. There are secret identities, lost children, trickster figures, a punch-up on a giant chess-board. It has a manic, almost magical, energy. The formatting of her pages is odd as well, deliberately so – reading it I found I couldn’t quite recall how a page was supposed to look, that this was odd, but that it was also distinctly pleasing. It made the familiar strange again.
In this kind of novel it is easy to develop a favourite character as well, and for me it was a toss-up between Ransom and Jen – is Jen a genius or just a clever flirt? Is Ransom actually so full of bullshit or is there a real man hiding inside? Nicola Barker would never deign to give you answers, but she’ll thoroughly entertain you as you try and work it out.
The Yips has been longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2012.
Will it win?
I have read, a while ago, that it is one of the favourites to take the prize this year. Having not read her other novels, I can’t say if this is her best, but it is certainly very good, very fresh, and very funny. The Booker has, in previous years, been given some criticism for not awarding to comic novels (until Howard Jacobson), and it’s sheer manic energy might see it booted off the longlist, but I doubt it. I’m almost certain it will be shortlisted. Will it win though? It might. I’ll hold off judgement until I’ve read the rest of the longlist.
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