Habitus: A Novel

by James Flint

A woman born in an asylum, a son of Hasidic Jews, and a mathematical genius find their lives converging in a brief but earth-shattering encounter that will leave the woman pregnant with a very unusual child.

Genres: Fiction, Novels

415 pages, Hardcover

First published August 6, 1998

About the author

Born in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1968, James Flint is the author of three novels and one book of short stories. In 1998 Time Out magazine called his first book, Habitus, "probably the best British fiction début of the last five years," and when it was published in France it was judged one of the top five foreign novels of 2002. His second novel, 52 Ways to Magic America, claimed the Amazon.co.uk award for the year 2000, and his third, The Book of Ash, won an Arts Council Writers Award and was described by the Independent's leading literary critic as "a bold British counterpart to DeLillo's Underworld."

In 2002 his short story The Nuclear Train was adapted for Channel 4 television; he has had a long involvement with Port Eliot Festival and curated the film tent there for several years; and his journalism has appeared in The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, The Observer, Sight & Sound, Time Out, The Times, The Independent, Arena, The Economist, Dazed & Confused and many others. From 2009-2012 he was Editor-in-Chief of the Telegraph Weekly World Edition, and he is currently the co-founder and CEO of the health communications start-up Hospify.

Reviews

[Stephanie Berth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tracer une histoire mondiale entre les hommes et les ordinateurs en partant du voyage spatial de la chienne Laïka dans son Spoutnik jusque dans les années 2000 est un projet ambitieux. Ce livre a vu le jour en 1998 et a été traduit en français en 2002. Rien que d’un point de vue historique c’est une lecture intéressante et enrichissante. Ce que j’ai particulièrement apprécié est l’inspiration scientifique et philosophique dans cet histoire. Ce n’est pas un livre pour des âmes sensibles si je peux dire, il faut même disposer d’un esprit assez large pour suivre ces délires bien travaillés et détaillés. James Flint s’est laissé guidé par son intuition et c’est ça qui fait le charme de ce livre. J’ai reconnu une façon d’écrire typiquement anglaise – on prend son temps à la Doris Lessing ou Dickens.
Je vais garder ce livre sous mon coude pour des idées de lectures philosophiques par exemple. Dans les notes de l’écrivain à la fin du roman on trouve des bonnes références comme par exemple : « Esthétique de la disparition » de Howard Hughes.
Ce livre a largement réussi à me surprendre et combien même j’aime la sensation d’être dépassée par certains sujets. Je trouve ça stimulant. Voilà tout l’intérêt d’une lecture profitable.

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

On the whole I like plot - and although this book had a good one it was more suited to a long short story than a book this size (544 pages). And I have to admit after the first two thirds I was counting them. The flights of fantasy were fairly good, I like a bit of weirdness, but again there was too much. Science and history of science I love and seemed to me to be the heart of the book but here I feel I have read the book too late. Written in 1998 both the science and history feel outdated in 2011. The benefit of reading the New Scientist is that you get the same sort of interesting information in the same sort of small chunks, but you can treat them as chunks, skip bits if you feel like it, and the chunks are pretty up to date. So I am not keeping this book or recommending it but it was his first novel and I still like the author on the strength of 'The Book of Ash'. However I think I'll skip '52 Ways to Magic America' which was his second and maybe get the later short stories from the library although if they are only in french I'll have some work to do.

[Jeni Treehugger · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having just finished this book I was eager to see what other people had to say about it. I was not surprised to see this book getting 5 stars but zero reviews!
Just read it.