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If Only
"If Only" is the story of Jim Talyor, a gifted young man who dreams of becoming a great musician, but tired of poverty and homelessness, gives up his vocation. "I want to enjoy life before I'm too old for it,' he says when he finds a well-paid job working with the first computers. He meets Lesley at a concert and they have a disastrous affair, but "each felt guilty, each felt the other was innocent - they were in love" and they get married. Lesley is the sun of Jim's life, the light of this otherwise dark story.
440 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 2016
3 people are currently reading
28 people want to read
About the author
Stephen Vizinczey
30 books72 followersHungarian author who studied under George Lukacs at the University of Budapest and graduated from the city's Academy of Theatre and Film Arts in 1956. Three of his plays were banned by the Hungarian Communist regime and in he took part in the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. After a short stay in Italy, he ended up in Canada speaking only 50 words of English, and eventually taking Canadian citizenship. He learned English writing scripts for Canada's National Film Board and the CBC. He edited Canada's short-lived literary magazine, Exchange. In 1966 he moved to London and acquired British citizenship.
His best-known works are the novels 'In Praise of Older Women' (1965) and 'An Innocent Millionaire' (1983).
Vizinczey has also written two books of literary, philosophical and political essays: 'The Rules of Chaos' (1969) and 'Truth and Lies in Literature' (1985).
His best-known works are the novels 'In Praise of Older Women' (1965) and 'An Innocent Millionaire' (1983).
Vizinczey has also written two books of literary, philosophical and political essays: 'The Rules of Chaos' (1969) and 'Truth and Lies in Literature' (1985).
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
April 6, 2018
Embarrassingly poor. The general plot outline was fine even if then hung on a cast of utterly cardboard cutout caricatures. Worse, the book was peppered with errors throughout. For example, the sun's gravitational field does not extend meaningfully to 1 million light years (well beyond the limit of our galaxy); for a second example, I got the feeling that Jim was recruited by the Microsoft executive sometime in the early 1970s, whereas actual Bill-Gates-Microsoft was only established in 1975; for another example, Jim was earning a million pounds a year in the early 80s and yet seemed unable to afford a house - what the hell was he spending all his money on?; for a fourth example, nobody refers to a friend or wife called Lady Margaret as "Lady Margaret" unless they're taking the p*ss; fifth, no school bully from South London circa 1980 was ever called Cedric; sixth, back to computers, Jim's brilliant world beating idea set to make gazillions of pounds was... wait for it... a "program" (actually, computer people call them "applications") which would stifle software updates - really, the author ought to have just learned how to click the button which says "don't automatically update" and not let it bug him to this extent; seventh, Jim makes a fortune building a search engine for ... well for what? ... he semms to have predated the internet by at least 15 years; eighth,the picture of life in a software company bore no relation to my life of ten years as a developer; and so it goes on.
February 25, 2017
First book I've read in months that I simply could not put down. The first novel from the author of in praise of older women since 1983. It seems he's considered so unknown these days that he had to self publish this book to get it out.
Real shame as it's a rollicking parable of the evils of modern corporations told through the eyes of Jim Taylor, a Canadian musician whose life takes several difficult turns and he ends of having to lay of thousands of people from the Microsoft like computer company he ends up working for. Not a spoiler as we learn this very early on. He decides to commit suicide (also learned very early on) and the first part of the book is the story of how he got to this point. It's told more as a fairy tale than as a realistic story, in the mode of candide, for example, with Jim as the innocent, and Vizinczey's prose is lovely and clean and eminently readable. As I said above, I almost could not put it down.
However, and it's a big however, how you feel about the book will largely depend how you feel about the bizarre twist that occurs that allows Jim to confront many of his life's "if onlys". If only he had done x instead of y etc. I won't give it away, but will say that given the books almost fairy tale like quality, after an initial snort, I loved it and it carries the tale through to an interesting and unexpected end.
Highly recommended. Maybe with a grain of salt.
Also hard to get unless you order on line. Anyone living in Toronto, you're welcome to borrow my copy which I ordered from the publishing house in the U.K.
Real shame as it's a rollicking parable of the evils of modern corporations told through the eyes of Jim Taylor, a Canadian musician whose life takes several difficult turns and he ends of having to lay of thousands of people from the Microsoft like computer company he ends up working for. Not a spoiler as we learn this very early on. He decides to commit suicide (also learned very early on) and the first part of the book is the story of how he got to this point. It's told more as a fairy tale than as a realistic story, in the mode of candide, for example, with Jim as the innocent, and Vizinczey's prose is lovely and clean and eminently readable. As I said above, I almost could not put it down.
However, and it's a big however, how you feel about the book will largely depend how you feel about the bizarre twist that occurs that allows Jim to confront many of his life's "if onlys". If only he had done x instead of y etc. I won't give it away, but will say that given the books almost fairy tale like quality, after an initial snort, I loved it and it carries the tale through to an interesting and unexpected end.
Highly recommended. Maybe with a grain of salt.
Also hard to get unless you order on line. Anyone living in Toronto, you're welcome to borrow my copy which I ordered from the publishing house in the U.K.
August 8, 2016
A fascinating book. Money, what one can buy, what one can't. Morals and money don't mix. Another twist on Vizinczey's previous novel An Innocent Millionaire. Well written, though liking the characters is not an easy task. Though I think Vizinczey would suggest that fiction is meant to challenge rather than simple placate.
Read
March 23, 2023This book is a fairytale. You won't know it for 278 pages but, in an instant, you'll understand what I mean when you get there. You likely still won't understand why it's a fairytale but by then it'll be too late. I first noticed hints, early on, when Jim (our main character) introduced us to his comically evil Bad-Dad but I'd never have guessed where things would end up.
At this point you must excuse me a little. I need to go on a bit of a tangent... (just like the many inexplicable tangents in the book)
I have a fondness for Stephen Vizinczey. I read In Praise of Older Women not long after I'd seriously committed to getting back into reading. I'd always liked reading, I just didn't do much of it because I was awfully lazy. In my late 20's I made an effort to change that. In Praise of Older Women caught me at just the right time and was one of those novels that keep the momentum going. It was an unexpectedly good book and it would seem that that's been the case with most folk who read it. A wonderful surprise. Apparently, no publisher wanted anything to do with it originally which caused Vizinczey to self-publish. Silly publishers. It sold a lot. That was back in 1966. His follow-up novel, An Innocent Millionaire, in 1983 also proved to be a surprise to me. More because of how different, how ridiculous it was. I think I enjoyed it but probably not for the right reasons. It had terrible sex scenes (which was weird considering his previous book did them so well) and revolved around tropical islands, scuba diving and a torrid love affair that confounded more than excited. Having said that I still enjoyed his writing style. He's always good at that. The story was just bananas enough to keep me going to the end even if I occasionally had to stop and re-read a page because I couldn't believe it. Seriously, those sex scenes...
I knew that he had some other fiction he was working on but it was always "coming soon" on his website. This would be, If Only. Turns out Stephen had to self-publish this book too. It came out in 2016. Now I've never written a fictional novel, never mind 3, so I can't judge too harshly but there's some huge distance between these 3 books and the gaps make me wonder how much each novel (and the process of writing of them) changed him over the years. The distance between Millionaire and If Only isn't nearly as far as the pair of them are from In Praise. I don't think If Only did big numbers. I remember it being expensive so I waited a while for a second-hand copy. That while turned into nine years. Then, the other week, I ordered it second-hand after Stephen popped into my head, out of the blue. When it arrived it was a copy previously owned by Liverpool Libraries. Curiously, this copy was signed by the author. I now own a little piece of history. Stephen Vizinczey passed away in 2021 so I'm not entirely sure what inspired him to write If Only. I don't expect any answers will be coming any time soon. It left me very confused.
I've seen this book described as 'magical realism'. It isn't. Part 2 could be 'magical realism' but Part 1 is all about the many rises and falls of one Jim Taylor, an upper middleclass Canadian, who falls out of the life he'd been expecting to live (in the arts) only to build a successful life in a field that he didn't (in business). Jim's moral compass leads him through a world of mostly awful people who only get worse. Jim, too, is awful more than a few times and we eventually follow him right back to where the book begins. Jim is in his mid-fifties, miserable, broken and skint. He's on an expensive holiday that he can't afford with a wife who, he feels, would be better off without him. Then Part 2 happens and it all goes a bit weird. I'll let you experience that for yourself. No spoilers.
Part 2 is considerably shorter than Part 1 and its "magical realism" only serves to make for the suspicion that you've maybe just had a massive stroke at some point and not noticed. Is that copper you can taste? You can't be reading what you're reading. But, no, you haven't had a stroke. This is real life. This was what the writer wrote.
I can't say that I disliked reading this even if I am doing a lot of, what seems like, complaining. Vizinczey writes in a very engaging style with a lot of skill and warmth. I'm just not sure what the point of it was. It's very bourgeois. Jim is never in any real danger or fix so it's hard to feel too sorry for him. And, as I mentioned, he can be an awful dick at times. Most of the time it's his own stupid fault when bad things happen to him but he's the 'hero' so we go with it. I'm not sure I can easily empathise with any CEO'ish characters or classical cello geniuses if they grew up in relative safety and comfort. I'm not saying these sorts of people aren't allowed to provoke empathy in you but they don't make for the sort of beaten down characters that tug at your heartstrings. Do they make you want them to succeed, to cheer for them? His wife isn't much better. They both make you want to shrug more than anything else. More "So What?" rather than If Only.
It's such an odd book. I can't state that enough. Have I stated that enough?!? The two parts together REALLY reminded me of The Count of Monte Cristo's culture shock gear change. Those of you who have climbed that particular fictional mountain will be clued into what to expect with this. At least Dumas had the excuse that he was writing an on-going, throwaway, tale for a newspaper and it sort of got out of hand. I don't know what Stephen Vizinczey's excuse was. Maybe he just felt weary in a cruel world that seemed to only get crueller the older he got. The older he got the less he cared about what other people might think and he just went "fuck it" and vented whatever he bloody well wanted to. I can also see how this might've been a hard sell to those evil publishers but I'm glad it managed to get out of his head and into the world. I'm bamboozled by it but glad he got it out of his system.
Can I recommend this? I don't know. It's a fine, comfortable, read that won't challenge you a whole lot (bar one weird "old man casually mentions rape out of nowhere" moment) but the setting and characters and story do have issues. Wonky issues. I can't see it as a satisfying trip but it is an interesting one. It's more like going to a modern art museum and thinking you understand an exhibit only to walk around to the other side of it and realise you don't. It feels like a trick has been played on you, only not a mean one. Just a silly trick. No harm done.
By the way, am I correct in thinking that "3 Wishes", also by Stephen Vizinczey (in 2020), is just this under a different title?
At this point you must excuse me a little. I need to go on a bit of a tangent... (just like the many inexplicable tangents in the book)
I have a fondness for Stephen Vizinczey. I read In Praise of Older Women not long after I'd seriously committed to getting back into reading. I'd always liked reading, I just didn't do much of it because I was awfully lazy. In my late 20's I made an effort to change that. In Praise of Older Women caught me at just the right time and was one of those novels that keep the momentum going. It was an unexpectedly good book and it would seem that that's been the case with most folk who read it. A wonderful surprise. Apparently, no publisher wanted anything to do with it originally which caused Vizinczey to self-publish. Silly publishers. It sold a lot. That was back in 1966. His follow-up novel, An Innocent Millionaire, in 1983 also proved to be a surprise to me. More because of how different, how ridiculous it was. I think I enjoyed it but probably not for the right reasons. It had terrible sex scenes (which was weird considering his previous book did them so well) and revolved around tropical islands, scuba diving and a torrid love affair that confounded more than excited. Having said that I still enjoyed his writing style. He's always good at that. The story was just bananas enough to keep me going to the end even if I occasionally had to stop and re-read a page because I couldn't believe it. Seriously, those sex scenes...
I knew that he had some other fiction he was working on but it was always "coming soon" on his website. This would be, If Only. Turns out Stephen had to self-publish this book too. It came out in 2016. Now I've never written a fictional novel, never mind 3, so I can't judge too harshly but there's some huge distance between these 3 books and the gaps make me wonder how much each novel (and the process of writing of them) changed him over the years. The distance between Millionaire and If Only isn't nearly as far as the pair of them are from In Praise. I don't think If Only did big numbers. I remember it being expensive so I waited a while for a second-hand copy. That while turned into nine years. Then, the other week, I ordered it second-hand after Stephen popped into my head, out of the blue. When it arrived it was a copy previously owned by Liverpool Libraries. Curiously, this copy was signed by the author. I now own a little piece of history. Stephen Vizinczey passed away in 2021 so I'm not entirely sure what inspired him to write If Only. I don't expect any answers will be coming any time soon. It left me very confused.
I've seen this book described as 'magical realism'. It isn't. Part 2 could be 'magical realism' but Part 1 is all about the many rises and falls of one Jim Taylor, an upper middleclass Canadian, who falls out of the life he'd been expecting to live (in the arts) only to build a successful life in a field that he didn't (in business). Jim's moral compass leads him through a world of mostly awful people who only get worse. Jim, too, is awful more than a few times and we eventually follow him right back to where the book begins. Jim is in his mid-fifties, miserable, broken and skint. He's on an expensive holiday that he can't afford with a wife who, he feels, would be better off without him. Then Part 2 happens and it all goes a bit weird. I'll let you experience that for yourself. No spoilers.
Part 2 is considerably shorter than Part 1 and its "magical realism" only serves to make for the suspicion that you've maybe just had a massive stroke at some point and not noticed. Is that copper you can taste? You can't be reading what you're reading. But, no, you haven't had a stroke. This is real life. This was what the writer wrote.
I can't say that I disliked reading this even if I am doing a lot of, what seems like, complaining. Vizinczey writes in a very engaging style with a lot of skill and warmth. I'm just not sure what the point of it was. It's very bourgeois. Jim is never in any real danger or fix so it's hard to feel too sorry for him. And, as I mentioned, he can be an awful dick at times. Most of the time it's his own stupid fault when bad things happen to him but he's the 'hero' so we go with it. I'm not sure I can easily empathise with any CEO'ish characters or classical cello geniuses if they grew up in relative safety and comfort. I'm not saying these sorts of people aren't allowed to provoke empathy in you but they don't make for the sort of beaten down characters that tug at your heartstrings. Do they make you want them to succeed, to cheer for them? His wife isn't much better. They both make you want to shrug more than anything else. More "So What?" rather than If Only.
It's such an odd book. I can't state that enough. Have I stated that enough?!? The two parts together REALLY reminded me of The Count of Monte Cristo's culture shock gear change. Those of you who have climbed that particular fictional mountain will be clued into what to expect with this. At least Dumas had the excuse that he was writing an on-going, throwaway, tale for a newspaper and it sort of got out of hand. I don't know what Stephen Vizinczey's excuse was. Maybe he just felt weary in a cruel world that seemed to only get crueller the older he got. The older he got the less he cared about what other people might think and he just went "fuck it" and vented whatever he bloody well wanted to. I can also see how this might've been a hard sell to those evil publishers but I'm glad it managed to get out of his head and into the world. I'm bamboozled by it but glad he got it out of his system.
Can I recommend this? I don't know. It's a fine, comfortable, read that won't challenge you a whole lot (bar one weird "old man casually mentions rape out of nowhere" moment) but the setting and characters and story do have issues. Wonky issues. I can't see it as a satisfying trip but it is an interesting one. It's more like going to a modern art museum and thinking you understand an exhibit only to walk around to the other side of it and realise you don't. It feels like a trick has been played on you, only not a mean one. Just a silly trick. No harm done.
By the way, am I correct in thinking that "3 Wishes", also by Stephen Vizinczey (in 2020), is just this under a different title?
January 8, 2019
Completely forgettable
I saw a copy of this novel in a hotel where I was staying. I read a few pages, which seemed interesting and bought it to read on my kindle.
What a mistake that turned out to be!
After setting up an interesting conflict between the main character's desire for a musical career and the need to earn a living, the narrative quickly degenerated into list of events, culminating in a fairy story which neither explained the previous few hundred pages nor developed the narrative further.
There is nothing memorable or worthwhile about this book.
I saw a copy of this novel in a hotel where I was staying. I read a few pages, which seemed interesting and bought it to read on my kindle.
What a mistake that turned out to be!
After setting up an interesting conflict between the main character's desire for a musical career and the need to earn a living, the narrative quickly degenerated into list of events, culminating in a fairy story which neither explained the previous few hundred pages nor developed the narrative further.
There is nothing memorable or worthwhile about this book.
March 26, 2017
It's a shame Vizinczey hasn't been more prolific - 3 novels in 50 years! All 3 are superb, although the fantastical elements in this one could put some readers off. It's a satirical fable for our times examining the corruption that invests our world and how impossible following a moral path can seem. I found it both an enjoyable romp and at times a moving indictment of the human condition.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews