All Quiet on the Orient Express

by Magnus Mills

As the wet Lakeland fells grow misty and the holiday season draws to a close; as the tourists trickle away from the campsite, along with the sunshine, and the hot water, and the last of the good beer - a man accidentally spills a tin of green paint, and thereby condemns himself to death.

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary, Novels, Humor, Literature, Literary Fiction, British Literature

240 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

Reviews

[Leah · Rating 4 out of 5]

If Evelyn Waugh and Alan Garner had collaborated on the book on which the script for Wicker Man was based, this may be the result.

A hard one to shelve, as it turns out. Gothic, but modern and quite light. Funny, but not in a humorous way. Weird, but not fantastic, eerie but without anything sinister.

I've rarely come across an author who can so successfully create an atmosphere without ever showing a concrete reason for it. The book that was tugging at the edges of my memory the most was Evelyn Waugh's A Handful of Dust.

A long, thin thread of inevitability ran through this narrative, a distant thrumming hint of something's not right. But what?

The tradition of sinister English villages and their tight-lipped, staring inhabitants is an old one, and a classic gothic crutch. Here, our somewhat gormless hero (or is he?) slides beneath the surface of life in this place as easily as another man might slide beneath the surface of a lake. The chain of obligation, of nothing else to do, drags him under, and he finds himself staying on, and on, for a week, then another, then 'just until Christmas'. He ceases to be a tourist, an oddity, a burden to bear, and begins to be a member of the crowd, a teammate, an odd-job man, a friend.

There is sinister implication everywhere, but none of it ever rises up to meet him, and he, for the most part, does not seem to notice it at all. It is a quiet genius of a book, and I will definitely be seeking out more of Magnus Mills's work to inhale in one quick gulp.

[Alan · Rating 4 out of 5]

another on my daughter's Uni list which I fancy reading before she goes back (this Sunday)..

funny, unsettling, strange and mundane at the same time..

I don't think I'm giving too much away to say that it starts with our hero about to embark on a trip to India, possibly on the Orient express, but he never actually leaves the area he's been camping in, the UK Lake District. The campsite owner asks him if he'd like to do a paint job for him, and as he's not in a hurry he accepts. From then on he gets caught up in other jobs, and in the life of the village and never leaves.

It's very British, and it's this Britishness, the protagaonist's politeness - a fear of causing offence - that powers the plot. How can darts, real ale, malted milk biscuits, baked beans, green paint, a cardboard crown and a milk round be so sinister? How can dialogue centred around delivering groceries or sawing wood be so utterly disturbing? Mills manages to throw you off balance with the most banal sequence of events.

Loved it.

[Peter · Rating 2 out of 5]

It’s the end of summer in the Lake District, England and as the sun is now abandoning Cumbria's valleys all the tourists have packed up and gone home – except one. One lone camper, the unnamed narrator of this book, remains, enjoying the piece and quiet intending to hang on for another week before heading to India on a backpacking adventure.

But then Tommy Parker, who owns the land our narrator is camping on, asks him to paint a gate he innocently agrees. Soon he is given a succession of other odd jobs to do. The jobs become more and more time-consuming and before long our narrator finds himself ensnared in the local community, with its strange, sinister, quirky characters.

There's a certain amount of dark humour as we see a young man seemingly unable to say 'no' and yet still struggles to do 'right' become accepted in the ominous 'out of season' community. The book’s greatest strength lies in its simplicity. Mills’s prose is completely stripped back, he spends absolutely no time on descriptions– all the scenery, all the action, all the characterisation is painted via dialogue and he's a proves an adept listener.

Many of the characters are wonderfully eccentric and whilst I did break out into a smile occasionally, I generally found the whole story so inane and childish that it just didn't really work for me. A generous 2 star.

[Mark Bailey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Masterpiece of the surreal and absurd.
Mills is hard to place genre and style wise, but somewhere between Camus and Mortimer is about right. Genius.

[Jon Zelazny · Rating 4 out of 5]

Spiritual update of the classic "Woman in the Dunes" offers provincial British working class neo-realism instead of absurdist existentialism, but the effect is much the same as Mills' amiable, passive, and unnamed Everybloke settles into a life of country labor he never knew he wanted, even as most readers will shudder in dread that something heinous awaits the poor fellow on every coming page.

[Kathrin Passig · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beim zweiten Lesen noch so gut wie beim ersten. Vielleicht das beste Buch, um mit Magnus Mills anzufangen, es geht nicht so düster zu wie in "The Restraint of Beasts". Ich wüsste wirklich gern, wie das gemacht ist. Ich habe jetzt, glaube ich, alles von ihm gelesen und verstehe es immer noch nicht, würde das aber gern können. (Aus diesem Grund auch Upgrade auf 5 Sterne.)

[Jeff · Rating 3 out of 5]

A book where the whole point is that nothing really happens—and it's absolutely irresistible because of it.

[Lubov Yakovleva · Rating 4 out of 5]

Дневной переход, и с книгой покончено — быстро, легко, спокойно, с одним лишь звучным всплеском.
Он длится миг.
А до и после — засасывает, засасывает, засасывает.

После пришло — роман об атрофии внутреннего голоса, а вместе с ним и смысла.
Не знаю, кто как устроен, допускаю, что мы, люди, человеки, — все разные, но у меня внутри происходит постоянное вопрошание: "где я? что со мной? почему я здесь? что я хочу? а чего не хочу? что я чувствую?". Может, и тяжко, и трудоёмко, и нудно постоянно сверять себя с реальностью, но возвращусь к оговорке: все мы — разные, я — такая. А герой — другой.

В монотонном повествовании от первого лица не звучит этот голос, не существует "я–осознающее".
Поток. Да, поток действий — упорядоченных и заданных внешней волей.
Герой принимает, соглашается и соглашается, и соглашается и отдаёт всё больше и больше свободы. И тут вопрос: а была ли свобода вообще предусмотрена в реальности романа, умело слепленного, шаржирующего, отображающего и воспроизводящего собственно реальность первого порядка? И продолжение вопроса: а в нашей реальности первого порядка свобода-то есть, наличествует?

Герой приезжает летом в озёрный край, живёт в палатке на берегу какое-то время — неделю-две, надеясь уехать скоро-скоро в путешествие на Восток — в Индию, берётся помочь хозяину кемпинга, где разбит его лагерь, ходит пить пиво по вечерам в паб, живёт и дышит полной грудью, а дальше он всё больше должен хозяину работы, а дальше — недели уже месяцы, и вот Рождество, а дальше...
Герой действует — он трудится, он не трутень. Он делает многое.
Но делает ли он? Или делают им? У героя отнята (сразу или постепенно) субъектность, он — единица силы, даже не лошадиной, но таки на что-то годный. Пусть живёт. Пусть приносит пользу. Как все в этом прекрасном озёрном краю.

Страшно. Поразительно. И страшно.
Обыденно страшно.

Миллз рассказал ещё раз про ужас экзистенции, лишённой осознания самоё себя, цели и смысла.
Про этот ужас можно найти много у кого ещё, даже перечислять не стану, но чаще всего в текстах будет слышен надрыв и несогласие, вопль душ, стремящихся вырваться, а в тексте Миллза и такого нет. Сплошная благость и умиротворение.
Потому-то и не отпускает текст.

Так и живём. Обыденно и просто. Не задавая вопросы...

(NB. Ирония, конечно, в том, что войти в поток, остановить "внутренний голос", отпустить себя, отказаться от желаний, не размышлять и не оценивать, а действовать — это новые ценности. Относительно новые, относительно. Но да, это предмет желания многих, стремящихся усовершенствовать себя, изменить своё место в мире. Ну вот да, подобный подход на практике может и в такое оборачиваться. Что воля, что не воля. Лишь бы дело.
Понятно, что разница есть, но в этом месте скользко и тонко, и рвётся.)

[Cheryl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Could think of nothing but the song "Hotel California" while reading this. If I hadn't read the blurb & jacket I'd have thought it a 'nice' story. Kept waiting for the horror or other Kafkaesque elements to come along and give me nightmares, but they never came. Mills doesn't need to disgust the reader or to describe, or even include, brutalities. And yet, the novel does reveal the horrifying nature of a closed community, and the horrifying behaviors that men* are capable of.

It also kinda reminds me of an O' Henry story. But darker in theme of course. I need to read more Saki... it's been years but I think he did stuff like this. Do you know??

I will try to read more by Mills. Engaging and insightful, showing me a perspective on human nature that illuminates the unfamiliar.**

*I could say mankind, but I think that Mills and I agree that women tend to establish their pecking orders and to achieve their personal goals in different ways. The only two women here were certainly outliers/ eccentrics.

**Or is it all that unfamiliar? In some ways the community very much resembles the one I grew up in, farms and villages in rural NW Wisconsin, jack-of-all trades patriarchs, plenty of bars, lots of use of the barter system instead of cash, male dominated, etc. I'll be musing on this for awhile.

[Fiona MacDonald · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bizarre book. I had an almost constant feeling of existential dread enveloping me the entire time I read, and as I got closer to the end this didn’t let up. At the same time it was pretty amusing and I enjoyed it, it’s just a strange one to classify!

[Robert Day · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked the characters in this novel. This is my favourite set out of the three tomes I have read by this author. Having said that - I can see a trend emerging here. There are the workers, who tend to be deadpan, exploited by management, living in caravans, short of money, prone to killing people, hardworking and pub dwelling. Then there are the managers who tend to be exploitative, money-focused, gregarious and sinister. Then we have the minor characters, who are a mixed bunch but tend to be private, obfuscated, blocking, suspicious people with the exception of the kind ones who nevertheless tend to have their own agenda. Most of them are believable - apart from one or two minor characters who seem to have hidden agendas that the reader has to guess or imply from actions. I don't think this author sets out to make his characters likeable - he seems to leave it up the reader to decide this on the basis of their own prejudices. The main character / protagonist (worker) tends to be the most rounded - apart from the obfuscated parts; the antagonist (is that the right word?) is not rounded out at all in the sense that we hardly at all get to know why he is the way he is and acts the way he does; and the minor characters are mainly stereotypes designed to get in the way. Having said that, this author's stereotypes are kind of twisted, e.g. the shopkeeper who will not sell baked beans or let on that he has a wide range of biscuits. Why? Who knows!

The book is rather nicely plotted in that it seems to be well thought through, with each scene contributing well to the ultimate resolution of the plot. I've never really read a story like this (with the possible exception of other Magnus Mills stories. The plotting is therefore original in that it occupies a realm of the authors own design that is almost, but not quite like the Lake District in England. It's like a shadow realm occupied by reptiles masquerading as people.

The narrative structure is clear and logical, but seems to have its own logic that is slightly different to the one we use in this world. For example - no-one seems to bat an eyelid if someone dies. There is no evidence of a police force (or, come to think of it - a fire department or ambulance service). It is as if each town in a Magnus Mills novel is a self-sufficient unit where law is monitored and administered by the people within it, who have their own ideas of right and wrong and don't need anyone to tell them any different. There's a bit of a 'Stepford Wives' feel to these places. Having said that - everything that is meant to be clear is clear and if it is not clear then the author probably intended it to be so.

The message of this book seems to be that outsiders are tolerated up until a point, but have to earn the trust of the community into which they come by a process of trial and error. They are expected to deduce how they should act on the basis of how people treat them and react to the things that they do. This makes for a memorable message that may not be quite normal, but is feasible under certain circumstances, i.e. the ones in this novel. There is also the message that bosses are not to be trusted running through not just this book, but all those that I have read by this author (this one, Screwtop Thompson and Other Tales and The Restraint of Beasts).

The language in this book is simple, as is the narrative style. There are no long words, imaginative metaphors or made up verbs here. Everything is pitched towards the average reader. Having said that, the style is original in that there are no clichés employed. This is a slightly different world from that which we normally occupy and although it is described in normal words, they combine to produce something quite unique and extraordinary. Magnus Mills has a style all of his own. There's no poetry here. The dialogue does not employ colloquial words to make us think of people in a particular region. The style is rather neutral; deadpan even. Very subtle and understated. Yes.

Spelling, grammar and punctuation is impeccable.

None of the above expresses whether I enjoyed the novel or not. I did. Very much.

I read this book as part of a Book Club thing and that is why this review is such a departure for me.

I've recorded everything under distinct headings so that I can remember all of this when the rest of the Book Club members get around to reading this. The headings are:
1. Characters (round? believable? likeable?)
2. Plot (original? well thought-through?)
3. Narrative structure (logical? clear?)
4. Message (clear? memorable?)
5. Language and style (simple vs. complicated; original vs. cliched; poetic vs. neutral vs. colloquial)
6. Grammar, spelling and punctuation.

[Dr.excelsior · Rating 5 out of 5]

It isn't true to say, as the blurb does, that Mills invented the "Kafkaesque novel of work" singlehandedly. Paul Auster might feasibly claim this, specifically the burdensome wall-building in "The Music of Chance." I suspect that Kafka would regard his own handling of "work" in something like The Castle to be an earlier origin still, and that would leave "Kafkaesque novel of work" as a tautology. Mills' debt to Auster is evident in his constant use of first person picaresque narrators, usually "innocents" in a vaguely threatening and tenuous "fish out of water" circumstances involving pressing personal obligations, the ever-present unspoken danger of causing offence, and so on.

From Auster we could trace a line back to Beckett and the Absurdists, including Borges and even Donald Barthelme. However, the major difference in all this is Mills use of the anti-romantic, anti-pastoral scenario set in England, and his intimate familiarity with the puzzle pieces he employs. If there's a breeze block involved, Mills knows the heft, the price in pounds and pennies, the casting, the material and the place that sells it. His dialog is a beautifully British brand of the deadpan used so effectively by Richard Brautigan. In this Britishness his work is closest to the sinister Moorland passages of the film "An American Werewolf in London" or the lake-district inhabited by Jake the poacher in "Withnail and I," rather than, as some have suggested, the gothic burlesque of the League of Gentlemen.

While it cannot claim a priceless comic double-act to compare with the wonderfully, desperately futile Tam and Richie in "The Restraint of Beasts," "All Quiet..." is the perfectly balanced extension of this unique style in early Mills: a kind of grim caravan-park from which Mills now seems to be struggling to discover an exit.

[Danny Mcphillips · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best books I`ve ever read and I don`t know why. It`s a story where nothing really happens but it keeps you entertained. The last chapter is great. LOVED IT.

[Georg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review after first reading (December 2008)

When I read this book I never knew if it was just a funny and well written slapstick or a deep, profound and meaningful analogy for life, the universe and the rest. I still don't know. So I got two really good books for the price of one. Consequently I would have to give ten stars.

Review after second reading (August 2011)

Sometimes the usual “praises” on the first pages of a novel are worth reading. Like in this case:

“Mills has the skill to make his dialogue ring completely true and at the same time to freight the most apparently banal comment with surreal overtones. His transparent, elegant prose is deceptively simple and a pleasure to read.”
(Kate Owen, Evening Standard)
(page IV)


“Mills has the skill to make his dialogue ring completely true and at the same time to freight the most apparently banal comment with surreal overtones. His transparent, elegant prose is deceptively simple and a pleasure to read.”
(Yorkshire Post)
(page V)

Or – in my own words - :

Mills does have the skill to make his dialogue ring completely true and at the same time to freight the most apparently banal comment with surreal overtones. His transparent, elegant prose is deceptively simple and a pleasure to read.

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

A masterpiece. Kafka would have been proud. Wondering why I was reading this bizarre tale of everyday Lake District life, I kept waiting for something substantive to happen and when it did, it hit like a sledgehammer. Rarely has a book had that impact: A collision with my sensibilities and my world perception which lingered for an age afterwards. I simply could not stop thinking about it. Parable, metaphor, allegory, or shaggy dog story. I simply don't know. I spent the following month wondering how he did it.

Magnus, whoever you are, whether magus, magician or writer, however you did what you did to me, I salute you.

[Allie Riley · Rating 5 out of 5]

The usual brilliantly dark comedy we have come to expect from Magnus Mills. He has a knack for building up tension without you realising how he's doing it right up to the last sinister sentence. Fabulous stuff.

[Tony · Rating 4 out of 5]

Without a doubt, this is a modern masterpiece. An unnamed narrator on a camping holiday in England's Lake District gets entangled in an extended Kafkaesque morass. What starts as a simple trade of painting a gate in exchange for a week's free camping turns into what looks to be a lifetime in purgatory thanks in great part to the narrator's own weakness of character and the town's perpetual barter economy. One menial job in trade begets another as he gets further and further immersed in the small town's weird male culture (there are only two females in the whole book: the Lolita-like daughter of his boss, and the captain of a darts team from another town). Like many of us, the narrator has grand plans (he's saved up to take a trip on the Orient Express), but falters in the execution. This everyman nature is makes him an extremely appealing and yet frustrating character. It's a deadpan, darkly humorous book, somewhat akin to one the Coen Brothers' films. Just to give a taste: someone drowns in the lake while with the narrator and his boss. Once they realize he's drowned, that's it-there's no more mention made of him, the authorities are never called, etc. Don't even get me started on the groceries. Whether you read this straight, or as some kind of allegorical work, it's enjoyable.

[Крістіна Золотарьова · Rating 3 out of 5]

коли починала читати, не очікувала, що це буде настільки абсурдно. доволі іронічний калейдоскоп подій + некомфортне тривожне нагнітання. цікавий вийшов мікс. якось воно і сподобалось, і задовбало одночасно.

[Rachel England-Brassy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just as wonderful and wry as I’d hoped for.
Highly recommended.

[Bigminipig · Rating 5 out of 5]

Кайф морозиво, цілий фургон.

[✵ Kas · Rating 2 out of 5]

3 stars.

Well this book was a bit of an oddball. I don't usually read this kind of fiction but this was lent out to me as a recommended read so I gave it my full attention.

I've got to say it was strangely readable despite the intentionally sparse dialogue and simple narrative style. The author had a clever way of putting little odd things in here and there that made me want to keep reading till the end- to find out if there were answers (and there were. At the very, very end. To a few questions anyway).

The strange townsfolk were all very intriguing yet half the time I was thinking 'you cheeky bugger!'. I feel like there was an odd theme of manipulation and advantage taking. And at the same time I wanted the lovely narrator of the story to stop letting people walk all over him! Yet I couldn't be annoyed at him because he was just too lovely.

Despite my low rating, it wasn't necessarily a 'meh' read as it managed to give a sense of unease and lingering darkness that kept my attention. Less of a 'meh' and more of a 'hm'. Good, quick, curious read.

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer · Rating 3 out of 5]

More Kafkaesque than Mills first novel – a key theme is the English desire not to cause a fuss, and perhaps more subtlety the gap between people’s declared plans and ambitions and the humdrum of their daily life that they are prepared to accept. Interestingly at the end the main character find many of his tasks have been the result of a bet while his predecessor returns (“Marco” instead of Mark implying a Southern cockier form of Englishness, and a very different character taking advantage of the locals rather than the other way round).

[Dara B · Rating 2 out of 5]

It is a well-written book and it started well. Then it went further on until I wanted every person in the story to die a painful death. Then it went on some more. All in the space of 200 pages.

On the other hand, if you find yourself frequently saying yes to others even when it inconveniences you, skip the self-help section and read this one. Kind of makes you never want to do that again.

Also, I have a strange feeling that if you like Kafka you might like this one. I very much don’t like Kafka, so.

[Andy · Rating 4 out of 5]

unusual story of young man holidaying in rural lakeside community, before a planned trip to India, when he seems to be subsumed into the local community through strange mix of compulsion and social obligation, a community and group of characters that blend the sinister and the surreal - Hotel California

[Clare · Rating 3 out of 5]

The protagonist in this story is an interesting character. He stays on at a vacation spot well past the season and ends up taking on odd jobs for the owner. He seems to need some direction in his life and apparently hopes to find it in this small town.

[Chrystal · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had so much fun re-reading this one. Even though I vaguely remembered the stunner at the end, it was much funnier than I recalled. Very similar to The Restraint of Beasts, but much more light-hearted. Loved it.

[Rick Seery · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wonder if Mills wrote this before The Restraint of Beasts?

Mills slyly works in more of a Northern rural British soap opera feel whilst keeping his trademark deadpan, oblique Kafka-isms - in both plot and character - in place.

[Gareth · Rating 3 out of 5]

This pastoral oddity bobs along very readably, as an unnamed protagonist’s Northern camping holiday gradually becomes permanent. He’s a very passive hero: he overlooks just about any slight or annoyance, content to pick up work and do favours with the promise of eventually getting paid and moving on. But the finish line keeps creeping away from him. Never in an overtly unsettling way - it’s seemingly just a bunch of odd jobs with any form of payment deferred until some vague later date. Nevertheless there’s a hint of something creepy in his situation, and despite making himself extremely useful he seems to have few friends and little reward to show for it.

There’s a clever satire about working life here, which comes to a darkly funny conclusion that I wish we dwelt on for longer. The surface level pleasantness makes for a book that’s easy to devour, but for me the punchline was a little too quick to make such a lackadaisical trip seem like much more than a nice, subtly sardonic anecdote.

[Jim Puskas · Rating 1 out of 5]

Indeed the operative word is "quiet". 55 pages in and so far nothing is happening. Character development virtually nil. The protagonist, pursuing an aimless existence, allows himself to get roped into a succession of odd jobs in return for a break on the rental of a campsite. I gather there's supposed to be humor in this but I've yet to discover it. Time to move on. I lemmed it. There are so many more worthwhile books I want to read and life is short.
(Ref. Lem: v. t. A term coined by the Sword and Laser podcast when they tried to do a group read of one of Stanislaw Lem's books. Basically means you can't bring yourself to finish the book, you just give up. Thanks to fellow Goodreads reader Forrest Aguierra for introducing me to this useful verb.)

[Kristina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Мужик приезжает на мотике в Озёрный край, чтобы отдохнуть и набраться сил перед большим путешествием-приключением в Индию, да н̶и̶ч̶е̶г̶о̶ ̶н̶е̶ ̶п̶р̶о̶и̶с̶х̶о̶д̶и̶т̶ так и утопает в и̶д̶и̶л̶л̶и̶ч̶е̶с̶к̶о̶м̶ болоте конформности. Детали вроде криповатого хозяина кемпинга и не менее странных обитателей окрестностей прилагаются.

Невинный на первый взгляд и смешной в процессе чтения, а на деле страшнейший роман о том, насколько адекватным и продуманным может казаться нам наше отнюдь не независимое существование и как быстро мы поддаемся среде, улью, общему, обществу.