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Hope
Gabriel Jones is an intelligent, charming, poetry-loving university graduate. He's also addicted to pornography--an obsession which threatens his relationship with the one woman he has ever loved.
322 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1997
7 people are currently reading
399 people want to read
About the author
Glen Duncan
25 books887 followersAka Saul Black.
Glen Duncan is a British author born in 1965 in Bolton, Lancashire, England to an Anglo-Indian family. He studied philosophy and literature at the universities of Lancaster and Exeter. In 1990 Duncan moved to London, where he worked as a bookseller for four years, writing in his spare time. In 1994 he visited India with his father (part roots odyssey, part research for a later work, The Bloodstone Papers) before continuing on to the United States, where he spent several months travelling the country by Amtrak train, writing much of what would become his first novel, Hope, published to critical acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic in 1997. Duncan lives in London. Recently, his 2002 novel I, Lucifer has had the film rights purchased, with actors such as Ewan Mcgregor, Jason Brescia, Jude Law, Vin Diesel, and Daniel Craig all being considered for roles in the forthcoming movie.
(from Wikipedia)
Glen Duncan is a British author born in 1965 in Bolton, Lancashire, England to an Anglo-Indian family. He studied philosophy and literature at the universities of Lancaster and Exeter. In 1990 Duncan moved to London, where he worked as a bookseller for four years, writing in his spare time. In 1994 he visited India with his father (part roots odyssey, part research for a later work, The Bloodstone Papers) before continuing on to the United States, where he spent several months travelling the country by Amtrak train, writing much of what would become his first novel, Hope, published to critical acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic in 1997. Duncan lives in London. Recently, his 2002 novel I, Lucifer has had the film rights purchased, with actors such as Ewan Mcgregor, Jason Brescia, Jude Law, Vin Diesel, and Daniel Craig all being considered for roles in the forthcoming movie.
(from Wikipedia)
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
March 24, 2009
God, so. What to say about a novel that left me emotionally exhausted every time I picked it up and desperately wanting to read just five more paragraphs every time I reluctantly put it down?
It's a love story, but not in the traditional sense. Love of another. Love of the self. Love of vices (namely pornography, prostitutes and booze, with some drugs and masturbation thrown in for the Yatzee). Love of one's own misery. Love of the past. Love of what could have been. Love of hope that hasn't been seen in years. Love without a home.
It's about how time changes everything and nothing at all, even the memory of the dark and dirty girl down the street who was a blip in time but a turning point in life.
It's an exercise in modern stream-of-consciousness writing. One minute you're wallowing in the protagonist's misery in the present, the next you're yanked back to the past where the only good thing is Gabriel's first love. "A Portrait of the Artist as a Floundering Individual"? Oh, God yes. And, like James Joyce so masterfully did so many years ago, you feel all the closer to the protagonist for it because you're forced to learn everything about him when you're forced that deeply into his head.
It's an exploration of regret and the necessity of an end, which is an issue Gabriel is fated to grapple with for eons beyond the book's final line.
The exploration of a first love is almost guaranteed to evoke near-tangible images of the reader's own experiences -- and those fondly recalled ghosts of past romances that were the right thing at the wrong time are almost gut-wrenching in how "Hope" gradually raises them to heartbreaking palpability. You learn about the psychological damage one faces by living in the past, and it's terrifying.
The supporting cast is almost as screwed up as Gabriel, and they're all just as compelling. His best friend (and most immediate foil) is one of the most tragic characters I've ever encountered in literature.
What's most remarkable about "Hope" is (aside from Glen Duncan's brilliant prose that leaves all aspiring writers trembling with the knowledge that they will never be able to pen a phrase with Mr. Duncan's profound beauty -- and being completely at peace with that realisation) how deftly it makes the reader feel every range of emotion the characters experience. I lived and died with everything Gabriel felt, right until the crashing climax. He's such a vividly depicted character that it's almost tragic to imagine a world where he's just a fictional player. He's far from perfect, which makes him brilliantly human.
An absolutely shattering, beautiful read. Like everything else of Mr. Duncan's I've devoured (and loved), this is one of those novels I just want to shove in someone's face and order them to read. Immediately.
It's a love story, but not in the traditional sense. Love of another. Love of the self. Love of vices (namely pornography, prostitutes and booze, with some drugs and masturbation thrown in for the Yatzee). Love of one's own misery. Love of the past. Love of what could have been. Love of hope that hasn't been seen in years. Love without a home.
It's about how time changes everything and nothing at all, even the memory of the dark and dirty girl down the street who was a blip in time but a turning point in life.
It's an exercise in modern stream-of-consciousness writing. One minute you're wallowing in the protagonist's misery in the present, the next you're yanked back to the past where the only good thing is Gabriel's first love. "A Portrait of the Artist as a Floundering Individual"? Oh, God yes. And, like James Joyce so masterfully did so many years ago, you feel all the closer to the protagonist for it because you're forced to learn everything about him when you're forced that deeply into his head.
It's an exploration of regret and the necessity of an end, which is an issue Gabriel is fated to grapple with for eons beyond the book's final line.
The exploration of a first love is almost guaranteed to evoke near-tangible images of the reader's own experiences -- and those fondly recalled ghosts of past romances that were the right thing at the wrong time are almost gut-wrenching in how "Hope" gradually raises them to heartbreaking palpability. You learn about the psychological damage one faces by living in the past, and it's terrifying.
The supporting cast is almost as screwed up as Gabriel, and they're all just as compelling. His best friend (and most immediate foil) is one of the most tragic characters I've ever encountered in literature.
What's most remarkable about "Hope" is (aside from Glen Duncan's brilliant prose that leaves all aspiring writers trembling with the knowledge that they will never be able to pen a phrase with Mr. Duncan's profound beauty -- and being completely at peace with that realisation) how deftly it makes the reader feel every range of emotion the characters experience. I lived and died with everything Gabriel felt, right until the crashing climax. He's such a vividly depicted character that it's almost tragic to imagine a world where he's just a fictional player. He's far from perfect, which makes him brilliantly human.
An absolutely shattering, beautiful read. Like everything else of Mr. Duncan's I've devoured (and loved), this is one of those novels I just want to shove in someone's face and order them to read. Immediately.
January 30, 2016
This was a fascinating read for me, but part of that fascination is something that the author probably couldn't have intended or even foreseen originally - that is, our very much changed relationship with pornography and how it compares to Gabriel's feelings about it. The novel is set in the late eighties or early nineties, I'm guessing, a time before internet was ubiquitous and easily accessible. The times changed, internet became ubiquitous and easily accessible, and can you guess what else did? That's right, pornography did. And that altered our relationship with pornography, I would argue - not because overnight we turned into inveterate consumers of porn but simply because it was just out there, as something you could look at whenever you liked, at the comfort of your own home, sofa, desk, whatever. Not the furtive business of going to a shop where they sell porn magazines and trying to pick one, all the while worrying that someone you know is going to see you and judge you, that whole ordeal Gabriel would have to go through. I get that difficult access to porn and society's stance towards it is not the only thing that defines his conflicts and problems, there's , there's his Catholic upbringing, and every little and big thing that goes into the making of a person with their fears and hang-ups and dysfunctions -- but it was a very central one, I thought.
And all the while I read, I kept asking myself just how much would things have turned out differently for him had Gabriel come of age in today's sexual (or maybe I should say pornographic) climate. This book made me ask the right kind of questions -- not of the "how the fuck does that happen, people don't behave like that" variety but of the much more engaging and interesting "OK then, but what if..." sort. And I don't have the answer to the question I'm asking, and that's fine by me.
And all the while I read, I kept asking myself just how much would things have turned out differently for him had Gabriel come of age in today's sexual (or maybe I should say pornographic) climate. This book made me ask the right kind of questions -- not of the "how the fuck does that happen, people don't behave like that" variety but of the much more engaging and interesting "OK then, but what if..." sort. And I don't have the answer to the question I'm asking, and that's fine by me.
May 17, 2016
This deserves five stars, despite not being perfect, for the dark powerfulness of the story. The novel is narrated by Gabriel, a young man apparently fucked up by lost love and his life's lust. A little like a darker 'High Fidelity', his introspection on past formative relationships (told with honesty, wit and a tantalising lack of linearity) takes us into the mind of a marginalised man, but a man with aspects true of most men. It's explicit rather than plainly erotic, sensual in a sensitive and nostalgic manner as opposed to merely being flowery, and the plot (what relatively little there was) kept me interested. I was left a little disappointed by the ending, but Glen Duncan has here written a challenging and compelling modern novel of men and their weaknesses.
April 18, 2014
The first novel from Glen Duncan, whose Last Werewolf series integrates an uncharacteristically adult sexuality into the burgeoning subgenre of supernatural romance. It's good to see that from the beginning, Duncan was willing to frankly grapple with uncomfortable subject matter in order to explore some of the more unsavory human desires, and able to write about sexuality without being pornographic or gratuitously titillating. Hope focuses well in particular on the after-effects of emotionally reckless intimate behavior between children, and the narrator's struggle here is to come to terms with his damage. But therein lies an unfortunate conventionality: the centrality of trauma and pathology feels a bit apologetic for a thorough investigation of the psychological contours of this particular man. I have yet to read a lot of Duncan, but his werewolf books suggest that he has learned to embrace his talent for unsettling raunch without needing to apologize. And that's a good thing.
November 23, 2008
I stumbled across this book at a dollar store, looking for something to read on my lunch break at work. From the first page, I was hooked -- not only on this story, but on Glen Duncan as an author. Every once in a while, when I start thinking to myself, "I could write novels..." I pick up one of Duncan's books and am convinced that I could never manage a feat like that. His stories break my heart, but I read them over and over again.
And, thanks to I, Lucifer, he introduced me to The Real Tuesday Weld. I owe this guy a lot.
And, thanks to I, Lucifer, he introduced me to The Real Tuesday Weld. I owe this guy a lot.
May 12, 2010
Gabriel Jones could be your boyfriend, your husband, or even yourself--he's an intelligent, charming, poetry-loving university graduate; he believes in love; he's capable of strong friendships--and he's been seeing a gorgeous high-priced call girl who picked him up in a London caf. He's also addicted to pornography. In fact, it's his attraction to pornography that causes the collapse of his relationship with the one woman he has ever loved.
Hope is a novel in the tradition of Philip Roth's Portnoy's Complaint, Nabokov's Lolita, and Dostoyevsky's Notes from the Underground--confessional novels that have at their centers a hyperintelligent protagonist who seductively draws the reader into an illicit world. Why would a young, attractive man, who has found the woman of his dreams, turn to pornography? Why do men in general turn to pornography? Welcome to the world of Hope. By turns disarmingly intelligent, hilariously funny, and deeply disturbing, Hope examines Gabriel Jones's numerous obsessions: love and friendship; behavior he recognizes as both ridiculous and self-destructive; and mortality. It signals the remarkable debut of a highly talented young writer.
Hope is a novel in the tradition of Philip Roth's Portnoy's Complaint, Nabokov's Lolita, and Dostoyevsky's Notes from the Underground--confessional novels that have at their centers a hyperintelligent protagonist who seductively draws the reader into an illicit world. Why would a young, attractive man, who has found the woman of his dreams, turn to pornography? Why do men in general turn to pornography? Welcome to the world of Hope. By turns disarmingly intelligent, hilariously funny, and deeply disturbing, Hope examines Gabriel Jones's numerous obsessions: love and friendship; behavior he recognizes as both ridiculous and self-destructive; and mortality. It signals the remarkable debut of a highly talented young writer.
May 19, 2009
This book was a struggle - not because of the subject matter but because of the way it was written: with smaller font, few chapters, and complex sentences/descriptions. Maybe it wasn't the best book to read while in an airport and on a plane.
The ending I could see coming a mile away. Points off for obviousness.
I found myself, once I finished the last chapter, wondering what the point of the book was. He didn't really stop looking at porn, but it wasn't really an issue he dwelt on in his present time. Most of the time he spent reminiscing and talking about a situation that could have been avoided.
I think I also might have missed something - who was Mr. Mink? Was Gabriel imagining himself to be the father? What was the skin in Mr. Holmes' Jag? I feel like there was some subtle plot points thrown in that, amidst all the heavy sentences, I missed.
I don't know if I'll read any more of Duncan's books ... this one was a little too much of an effort for the end result.
The ending I could see coming a mile away. Points off for obviousness.
I found myself, once I finished the last chapter, wondering what the point of the book was. He didn't really stop looking at porn, but it wasn't really an issue he dwelt on in his present time. Most of the time he spent reminiscing and talking about a situation that could have been avoided.
I think I also might have missed something - who was Mr. Mink? Was Gabriel imagining himself to be the father? What was the skin in Mr. Holmes' Jag? I feel like there was some subtle plot points thrown in that, amidst all the heavy sentences, I missed.
I don't know if I'll read any more of Duncan's books ... this one was a little too much of an effort for the end result.
October 29, 2015
Goodness, this is intense. Nasty, forcing the sometimes unwilling reader to listen to things she'd rather not hear about, told by a character for whom I felt less than fifty per cent liking for.
But so strong the writing, so able, as with 'Love Remains' (which I liked much better) to jolt me into remembering, realising, sometimes for the first time, things, feelings, awarenesses I had forgotten. And so full of tiny insights into the reality of Life, that it would be impossible to mark it down because I'd 'not enjoyed' it.
Nevertheless, I'll wait a few months before reading 'The Bloodstone Papers, also on my TBR shelf.
But so strong the writing, so able, as with 'Love Remains' (which I liked much better) to jolt me into remembering, realising, sometimes for the first time, things, feelings, awarenesses I had forgotten. And so full of tiny insights into the reality of Life, that it would be impossible to mark it down because I'd 'not enjoyed' it.
Nevertheless, I'll wait a few months before reading 'The Bloodstone Papers, also on my TBR shelf.
February 23, 2008
Picked this one up randomly from the bookstore one day. While Duncan can really write some amazing paragraphs, the character philosophizes way too much (and whines a lot too.) The plot was too disjointed. 100 pages or more could have easily been cut from this book to make it better. After reading this, I haven't read another Duncan book again and probably won't anytime in the future.
December 13, 2012
I agonized for the character...I kept reading. It made me depressed, but very well written.
February 23, 2013
My favourite book of all time ---- such a shame it's out of print
February 3, 2018
This was odd. The first time I had read this book I really liked it, thought it was a really good novel.
When I reread it in 2014, I was i disappointed. Maybe in the 6 years between reading it, I had changed as a person so the effect was that this book was a disappointing reread.
When I reread it in 2014, I was i disappointed. Maybe in the 6 years between reading it, I had changed as a person so the effect was that this book was a disappointing reread.
November 5, 2019
One week and two books later, and I am still quite seriously contemplating about HOPE, in turns. And you, who are reading this review right now, be solemnly aware of the following:
1. There is a sound reason for the variety of readers' opinions and grades awarded to this novel: HOPE is not just a book for anyone to read. It requires reader's affection and patience. It will irritate you, you may be frustrated as much as amazed with some of its parts. In other words, do not expect to read it unless you are prepared to invest your TIME and some LOVE into it. I did, and I adored it.
2. This novel IS about TIME and LOVE. Gabriel, Daniel, Alicia, Hope... All of their lives gently curve between their individual despairs over time lost and their rants on missing/wasted love.
3. Despair over whatever was lost. When desperation is in scope, in this novel I found the most serious, ultimate cocktail of perfectly worked-out insomnia laying hand-in-hand with alienation, all being brought forward by one of the greatest contemporary writers of today. HOPE is so much Duncan, no doubt about that, no dispute about him being one of the best magicians with words.
4. I love HOPE for being so quotable. "Welcome, then, pilgrims. Welcome to an embalmed monstrocity. Welcome to the one ring that rules them all. Welcome to the time of innocent seeing and prismatic revelation."
5. Love vs. lust, another mayor contemplation of the novel. Love equals the feeling of oneness with another person, bringing the soul-touching, recongizable, thoughtfull, peaceful, uniting, soulmating, ultimate feeling of loving another being. And then there is lust. When completely simplified and visualized through pornography - it almost becomes a counterpoint of love, with its background urges to own, rule, please oneself, go dirty, be rude and off limits, to play under emotionless urges by performing a naked, primal/bestial thing. When one loses oneself in lust, one thus betrays love. HOPE brings this as an interesting and thoroughly thought-through viewpoint.
6. You know that moment when you realize you have run out of TIME? Or that you had once had TIME for somenthing in particular, without realizing it at the time? Or the final fistfull of sand sliding inevitably through the neck of the sandwatch? The missed opportunities? Is it worth regretting; aren’t we just losing more TIME by ranting over the TIME lost? ">> (…) I want all the TIME back. Where does it all go, Gabriel? Where the fuck does all the time go?<< Nowhere. We piss it away, most of it, trying to decide what to do with it. That, or we piss it away doing things designed to avoid the question of what to do with it. Time goes on just the same. Time doesn't mind. Time's got all the time in the world."
7. Surely, the book is about HOPE, too. Then again, aren’t a great deal of our everyday lives pretty much about hope as well? About hope that TIME and LOVE have just been miraculously missplaced, but not gone.
HOPE will definitely come to my re-read list. So glad I have bought the book, like all of the rest of Duncan’s (or Saul Black’s) works...
1. There is a sound reason for the variety of readers' opinions and grades awarded to this novel: HOPE is not just a book for anyone to read. It requires reader's affection and patience. It will irritate you, you may be frustrated as much as amazed with some of its parts. In other words, do not expect to read it unless you are prepared to invest your TIME and some LOVE into it. I did, and I adored it.
2. This novel IS about TIME and LOVE. Gabriel, Daniel, Alicia, Hope... All of their lives gently curve between their individual despairs over time lost and their rants on missing/wasted love.
3. Despair over whatever was lost. When desperation is in scope, in this novel I found the most serious, ultimate cocktail of perfectly worked-out insomnia laying hand-in-hand with alienation, all being brought forward by one of the greatest contemporary writers of today. HOPE is so much Duncan, no doubt about that, no dispute about him being one of the best magicians with words.
4. I love HOPE for being so quotable. "Welcome, then, pilgrims. Welcome to an embalmed monstrocity. Welcome to the one ring that rules them all. Welcome to the time of innocent seeing and prismatic revelation."
5. Love vs. lust, another mayor contemplation of the novel. Love equals the feeling of oneness with another person, bringing the soul-touching, recongizable, thoughtfull, peaceful, uniting, soulmating, ultimate feeling of loving another being. And then there is lust. When completely simplified and visualized through pornography - it almost becomes a counterpoint of love, with its background urges to own, rule, please oneself, go dirty, be rude and off limits, to play under emotionless urges by performing a naked, primal/bestial thing. When one loses oneself in lust, one thus betrays love. HOPE brings this as an interesting and thoroughly thought-through viewpoint.
6. You know that moment when you realize you have run out of TIME? Or that you had once had TIME for somenthing in particular, without realizing it at the time? Or the final fistfull of sand sliding inevitably through the neck of the sandwatch? The missed opportunities? Is it worth regretting; aren’t we just losing more TIME by ranting over the TIME lost? ">> (…) I want all the TIME back. Where does it all go, Gabriel? Where the fuck does all the time go?<< Nowhere. We piss it away, most of it, trying to decide what to do with it. That, or we piss it away doing things designed to avoid the question of what to do with it. Time goes on just the same. Time doesn't mind. Time's got all the time in the world."
7. Surely, the book is about HOPE, too. Then again, aren’t a great deal of our everyday lives pretty much about hope as well? About hope that TIME and LOVE have just been miraculously missplaced, but not gone.
HOPE will definitely come to my re-read list. So glad I have bought the book, like all of the rest of Duncan’s (or Saul Black’s) works...
Want to read
September 12, 2011Only on page 7 so far. Got hooked on page 2 with this: "They travel through the city unopposed by contingency, because they have the universal contingency antidote: money. Their days don't go wrong, hings don't fuck up, their pockets don't sag with change."
My roommate left it on the table for me as a hint and said this is the first book he's ever read that he wanted to take a highlighter to & he does not do that.
Let someone borrow it before I finished ... it hasn't come back yet. :(
My roommate left it on the table for me as a hint and said this is the first book he's ever read that he wanted to take a highlighter to & he does not do that.
Let someone borrow it before I finished ... it hasn't come back yet. :(
August 27, 2012
I found this book to be really frustrating, but ultimately pretty rewarding if you can stick through the "cheer up emo kid" of the protagonist. It's like a cross between Nick Hornby and Chuck Palahniuk. The only thing that I'm still kinda confused about is the whole Mr. Mink subplot, which I think was Katherine's way of working out her prostituting with the psychological damage her father had done to her.
November 26, 2008
A dark, brooding book, which isn't reall like anything else I have ever read. I saw elements of myself in the book, which I expect most men will...
July 11, 2009
perhaps the ultimate "guy" book. every dude will understand.
January 25, 2012
nothing spectacular, but I was in fact surprised by the surprise ending, so that's something.
Want to read
October 22, 2013My current state of mind won't allow me to digest what I am reading. I tried but got stuck. However I know GD is brill so will retry later on. I will not abandon this one.
December 17, 2015
Painful. Exquisite. Beautifully written. Disturbing.
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews