Hesperides Tree

by Nicholas Mosley

Reminiscent in theme and style to his Whitbread Award-winning?"Hopeful Monsters," Nicholas Mosley's?"The Hesperides Tree"?tells of a young man frustrated by the inability of his two chosen courses of study--biology and literature--to adequately define the world. Baffled by several life-shaping coincidences that seem to be part of life itself, he embarks on a physical and intellectual journey in search of a girl he fell in love with years earlier. This journey leads him to a deserted island off the coast of Ireland and, perhaps, to the mythical Garden of the Hesperides, home of the Tree of Life.

Genres: Fiction, British Literature, Novels

320 pages, Paperback

First published April 24, 2001

About the author

Nicholas Mosley was educated at Eton and Oxford. He served in Italy during World War II, and published his first novel, Spaces of the Dark, in 1951. His book Hopeful Monsters won the 1990 Whitbread Award.

Mosley was the author of several works of nonfiction, most notably the autobiography Efforts at Truth and a biography of his father, Sir Oswald Mosley, entitled Rules of the Game/Beyond the Pale.

Reviews

[Adam · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mosley lived almost forever and published twenty novels; it happens that this one, written as he pushed toward 80 years old, will be the first I’ve read. I intend to read others despite the underwhelming experience with this one, primarily because it did not begin underwhelmingly: a cursory glance suffices to demonstrate Mosley’s perspicacity and a bittersweet jadedness and detachment I find sympathetic. Although our narrator is a twenty-something in search of a soul, the aging Mosley abstains from any lachrymose nostalgia, instead allowing the kid to be too clever by half, whether due to his precociousness or Mosley’s ventriloquism matters little. He is not too improbable a pretext upon whom to build a Bildungsroman, especially one less dedicated to the protagonist’s fledgling efforts to “find himself” (ugh) than to the ideas/concepts/tropes we use to create meaningful parameters/periods/moments in our lives. The novel’s humdrum plot—upon which too much print is wasted—is a sort of necessary disguise for an aphoristic ensemble of genuinely intriguing thoughts on chance, fate, myth, and ultimately subjective agency. Thankfully, Mosley does not elide the complexity involved in situating ourselves somewhere within the whirling before and after of what happens and what we think. He settles for neither the delusional omnipotence of the classical hero who makes his way and discovers who he IS , nor for the specious, fatalistic quiescence of pawn-of-chance bullshit. I look forward to finding out what of this is peculiar to this novel and what else is within Mosley’s métier.

[Dadoo · Rating 2 out of 5]

I liked the idea of a book about ideas but this book I found to be a trudge. The characters are paperboard thin and and uninteresting and boring. The book is written in first person which is fine except the description of relationships between people and events which happen are all filtered through this lens of an over riding idea that the book is about. It's like going to an art museum and seeing only the blue paint in the paintings, no matter how fascinating and exciting the different shades of blue are there is so much more to see.
And pacing? Well there isn't any. It drags on pages and pages to get anywhere while everything is lifelessly explained ad nauseum.

[Lauren Albert · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love philosophical fiction. I'm not as fond of fictional philosophy. What I mean is that the philosophy should support the story; the story shouldn't just support the philosophy. I gave this three stars instead of two in case I was missing something--like if I was too slow to "get it." But I spent a lot of my time while reading this feeling lost.

[Rob Walter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brilliant! There are so few innovative stylists with something interesting to say. Mosley's message might be "I don't know," but he says it like no-one else has.

[Rick Seery · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5.

[Marc Nash · Rating 3 out of 5]

Video review https://youtu.be/r_xnoaTb0ks

[Henry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Somehow the mix of metaphysics and a sort of bildungsroman doesn't work here.
The story takes us on a voyage from England to Ireland, where the
protagonist finds an island that is supposedly magical. Before that, he has dropped out of uni because science deals with reality and literature also deals with things-as-they-are, instead of being
a form of idealism. He has had an affair with a lesbian and gotten
her pregnant but he promises her to look after the child if she will not abort it, in his mother's ramshackle cottage on the coast of Ireland. He falls in love with a beautiful blonde colleen and they
go to the island where monks had divorced themselves from the real world.

[Melissa Schorn · Rating 4 out of 5]

"And what was time except that which prevents everything happening all at once?"

[Brett · Rating 1 out of 5]

Possibly the worst book I've ever finished reading.