Still

by Adam Thorpe

' outwardly the unfilmable script of a would-be English cineste, one Richard Arthur Thornby currently lecturing in Texas on the cinema. He airs a hypothetical movie of both his own American present and his middle-class English families past. . ' John Fowles

Genres: Fiction, 20th Century

718 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 26, 1996

About the author

Adam Thorpe is a British poet, novelist, and playwright whose works also include short stories and radio dramas.

Adam Thorpe was born in Paris and grew up in India, Cameroon, and England. Graduating from Magdalen College, Oxford in 1979, he founded a touring theatre company, then settled in London to teach drama and English literature.

His first collection of poetry, Mornings in the Baltic (1988), was shortlisted for the Whitbread Poetry Award. His first novel, Ulverton (1992), an episodic work covering 350 years of English rural history, won great critical acclaim worldwide, including that of novelist John Fowles, who reviewed it in The Guardian, calling it "(...) the most interesting first novel I have read these last years". The novel was awarded the Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize for 1992.

Adam Thorpe lives in France with his wife and three children.

-Wikipedia

Reviews

[Nick Garbutt · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was sent a review copy of this when it was published. I’d been looking forward to it because I’d absolutely loved both Ulverton and Pieces of Light.
I did not write a review because I could not force myself to get past the first paragraph which begins mid-sentence.
Still is one of those stream of consciousness works that surface from time to time amongst writers who have forgotten that the point of writing is to communicate to others, and, it should be obvious, to be read.
Reading should not be like navigating an obstacle course however cleverly constructed.
For that reason this book has lain unread on my shelves until now.
I’m older and more tolerant than I used to be and so I decided to return to it, and give it a chance.
This time I got to about page 320 before I gave up.
Still does contain some fantastic passages – at times there is a superb rhythm and poetry to the prose.
However the jaunty narrative style is just too irritating to tolerate and Thorpe often takes many pages to say anything at all. This is, ultimately, a frustrating, confusing and frankly pretentious read.

[Joe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Absolutely stunning book. The story was incredibly compelling and written in such an involving and atmospheric way. This is the first book I have read that is written in the stream of consciousness style and I find the style truly intriguing and entertaining. More so than any other book, 'Still' made me feel as though a movie was playing out in my mind.

[Don · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tristam Shandy-ish sort of read in which the life of a massively-underachieving film director is splattered over 580-odd pages. Our hero looks on from the vantage of a teaching post at an obscure college in Houston, Texas. He seems to be directing the film that he'd always planned to make - the one that would secure his place as a genius. The basic plot is the short life of a great uncle who we meet in 1913 just as he is expelled from public school for sketching pictures of naked men. We are told at an early point that said great uncle will end his life in the mud of a trench during one of the battles of Ypres, but it is going to take us quite a while to get there.
In the meantime Ricky (the authorial voice) has to jam in the impressions of his own life passing through many disappointments, including his treatment at the hands of Zelda, a librarian in his Houston college. He also has backstories with his film crew which are hinted at as he snowballs through his story.
Bits of this are very funny - the telephone mix-up between great uncle's father and the head of the public school in which the fact that the wayward youth is either (a) dead, or (b) merely on his way home by train, becomes marvellously obscure - is a particular highlight. Other than that it can be a chore to get onto the next pinnacle. But I made it!

[Liam Ostermann · Rating 5 out of 5]

A one of a kind dazzling book - not an easy read, but a compelling one that I could not stop reading. I can compare it to nothing but as something unique beg you to read it.

I might also point out that Adam Thorpe is one of many authors who provide challenges to my simplistic shelving categories:

'Adam Thorpe was born in Paris and grew up in India, Cameroon, and England. Graduating from Magdalen College, Oxford in 1979, he founded a touring theatre company, then settled in London to teach drama and English literature.'

So I know he isn't, English, but I refuse to create a new literature-UK shelf.

[Stuart Lutzenhiser · Rating 2 out of 5]

Stream of consciousness narrative. Wasn’t really a plot per se but the characters were interesting to hold me for 584 pages. However the lack of plot or narrative structure made it almost unreadable. Like a prose long form poem where the beauty and rhythm of the language are the prime focus. If so, then this is your book. If you are looking for a standard narration, look elsewhere.

[Diarmaid · Rating 1 out of 5]

What a thankless chore.