Senseless

by Paul Golding

Set against the backdrop of 1980s London, Senseless chronicles, through the jaded faculties of George, its narrator, a world which veers from dancing to desiring, from laughter to disaster, from recreational drugs to prescribed ones.At its core lie George's two principal relationships - with his brother, Kelly, whom he cannot seem to love; and with his best friend, Matthew, whom he loves like a true brother.Together George and Matthew confront shame and ignorance with indomitable spirit and dignity. Delivered with brutal elegance, Paul Golding's narrative is a search for sense itself.

Genres: LGBT, Fiction

544 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 12, 2004

Reviews

[Doug · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5, rounded up.

Hard for me to rate or review this, because it took me such a long time to get through it, which was as much a factor of the chaos of the times and an inability to focus, as to the longueurs of the book itself. As with Golding's only other book (The Abomination) the language is gorgeous, but also sometimes a bit overly intricate. The story itself is basically a reminiscence of the early days of the AIDS crisis, s0 necessarily follows a lot of the familiar tropes, and doesn't really add a lot to the discourse. Strangely, this was oddly comforting, since it showed that one CAN survive a pandemic and come out the other side. Ultimately though, any goodwill that Golding engenders is undone by the final ten pages, which becomes a somewhat revolting paean to the virtues of coprophilia, as well as the shockingly downbeat final sentences. :-( Still, the 520 pages before that unfortunate detour are every bit as satisfying as his first novel.

[Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm glad I owned this book because it took me a long time to get through it. It was hard for me to read continuously because it's so verbose and there are no chapters. Golding's books kept me reaching for my phone so I could Google all of the British-isms and vocabulary terms I just wasn't familiar with. Senseless is particularly strong when it deals with George's relationship with his brother Kelly and his relationship with his dying friend Matthew. The parts with Matthew's deterioration are painful to read, yet Golding still manages to inject some humor into a humorless situation. I wish there had been more emphasis on Kelly's return to the novel near the end because I wanted more interaction between the brothers and felt disappointed that their estrangement carried on in spite of their reunion.

[Marlie Verheggen · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Het feest der zinnen”, ik las het in het Nederlands, misschien net geen 4⭐️ maar ach.
Na Roze Woensdag, regenboogsokken en een half uitstapje naar de Gay Pride dacht ik deze dikke homo-roman maar eens te lijf te gaan. Door de bomvolle maar toch vloeiende zinnen ging dat een stuk makkelijker dan verwacht. De beschreven ‘scene’ is echter toch wel moeilijk om me mee te indentificeren en de delen van het boek waar dat wel gebeurde waren behoorlijk heftig om te lezen.
Al met al een pageturner en dus een mooie prestatie.

[Yocko · Rating 5 out of 5]

I cannot praise this book enough. It's in my all time top ten. It's such a brutally honest description of time, the aids crisis, growing up in London in the eighties. It's funny, shocking thought provoking, but above all... true...

not many books i reread but this I did. genius