OK Mr Field EXPORT

by Katharine Kilalea

A pianist has an accident and is forced to abandon his career. He and his wife move to South Africa to live in a house he has developed an obsession with-a house built by a South African architect inspired by Le Corbusier.

Within weeks of arriving, Mr Field's wife inexplicably leaves him, to which he has responds with curious lassitude. But in this house on the South African coast (Corbusier's 'machine for living'), some shifts are triggered in its sole occupant. The sequences of spaces in which he lives, which seem to lead towards and away from their destinations at once, mirror his feeling that the things he yearns for are always getting further and further out of reach. But the house's most potent effect on Mr Field is its conjuring up of Hannah Kallenbach, its prior inhabitant, whom he begins to stalk.

With a rare, scintillating and poetic eye, Katharine Kilalea conveys some of the deepest human emotion in the most curious of details. OK Mr Field is one of the most unusual and vital works of literature to be published on the Faber list in years.

Genres: Fiction, Literary Fiction, Contemporary, Music, South Africa, Adult Fiction, Novels

200 pages, Paperback

First published June 5, 2018

About the author

Katharine Kilalea grew up in South Africa and moved to London for an M.A. in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia. She has published a poetry collection, One Eye'd Leigh, which was shortlisted for the Costa Poetry Award and longlisted for the International Dylan Thomas Prize. She lives in London.

Reviews

[Diane S ☔]

I tried. Once, twice, I picked it up and read. The third time I did something that I often do when I have trouble getting into a novel. I read out loud. While this did allow me to recognize how outstanding the prose was, even this was not successful. A man loses his whole way of life, his ability to make music, he buys a house and slowly starts to lose his connection to reality. Slow is the operative word here, plus when s book is as introspective as this one, it is necessary, for me at least, to feel a connection with the character, or the situation. I felt nothing for either, and so halfway finished I am laying the book down, unrated. Don't like assigning a rating to s book I have not finished.

ARC from Goodreads and Crown publishers.

[Faith · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sorry to say I didn't enjoy this book. Mr. Field (no first name) is a pianist whose career is ended by an accident that permanently damages his wrist. He uses the compensation he receives for the accident to buy a decrepit house in Cape Town. The house is full of mosquitos and spiders the size of ping pong balls. At some point after the move from London to the new house, his wife Mim drives off, never to be heard from again. Since we learn nothing about Nim, and don't even get a physical description of her, it's hard to form an opinion of her leaving. However, my guess would be that it was because Mr Field is one of most boring people on the planet. "I thought of Mim, but not often. I missed her, but in an ordinary way. I didn't pine for her. I didn't miss her in the way you're meant to miss someone you love." Field doesn't try to find his wife, find useful employment or do anything at all except sink into insanity. He fixates on the elderly former owner of his house, imagines conversations with her and eventually stalks her. Then he gets a dog. Poor dog.

This book is so dull and pointless that I expect that it will start winning awards, because that's the way it seems to go with insufferable literature. I finished the book only because it is very short.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.

[Blair · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this novel, the protagonist and narrator is only ever known as 'Mr Field'. (The namelessness is apt, as the man never seems fully present or active in his own story.) He is a concert pianist who, after a train accident which shatters his wrist, uses his compensation to move – on an apparently random whim – from London to a house in Cape Town. His new home, known as the House for the Study of Water, is a replica of Le Corbusier's Villa Savoye built by the South African architect Jan Kallenbach. Field is accompanied by his wife Mim, but the little we see of her suggests she is unhappy there and feels disconnected from her life; eventually she departs. Field, meanwhile, exists in a state of what might be described as detail-orientated numbness. He fixates on small and inconsequential things while the fabric of his life disintegrates.

Alongside the tale of Field's decline, a number of subplots unspool. There's a local man, Curtis Touw, who has a plan to build his own 'House in the Sky' – a tower enclosing a series of small, modular homes – on the mountain behind Field's property. There's Field's burgeoning obsession with Kallenbach's elderly ex-wife, whose voice he often hears in his head, voicing his own thoughts. There's the appearance of a stray dog named Schubert. Like Le Corbusier, Touw says a house is a machine for living in – but in his version of the quote, it becomes 'a machine for living in together'. Left alone, Field begins to come apart.

Things were on the cusp of not being themselves. I had the idea that it wasn't my vision deteriorating but the very glue which held the objects of the world together growing old and weak.

In his loneliness, Field anthropomorphises animals, objects, even body parts. He takes to driving aimlessly each evening, and his wanderings lead him to spy on neighbours and, ultimately, to repeatedly revisit Hannah Kallenbach's home, crystallising an obsession with both the woman and a particular room in her house which seems, for him, to represent an agonising sort of comfort. (Such contradictions are rife here.) Field's excursions do little to disturb the ambience of the text.

Even the fragments of conversation which filtered out from the houses were less the intense and meaningful private exchanges I'd imagined people who knew each other well would have when they were alone than repetitions of well-worn phrases like Uh huh or Let's not argue about that overlaid – as in the rattle of film projectors accompanying old movies – by the tranquil, even-tempered beeps of fax machines and dishwashers finishing up their cycles.

What has happened to Mim – has she left or disappeared? If the latter, why isn't Field doing anything to find her? If the former, why does it seem she has abandoned all her possessions at the house? And does this point us to a sinister conclusion about our narrator? After all, Field himself says:

A person's absence always equates to death.

I always feel like South African novels have so much more going on than meets the eye. I was recently reading back over my notes on Eben Venter's Trencherman and was staggered by the sheer amount of layers a single reading pulled out of that book. I felt similarly about OK, Mr Field – it seethes with possible interpretations, and no doubt there were many nuances I missed. Is it intentional that Touw's design for his tower sounds a lot like a smaller version of Ponte City, or am I just putting unrelated bits of South African knowledge together and making five? As the panopticon-like Ponte and Touw's House in the Sky have their central void, Field's home has its ramp, visible from almost everywhere in the house. Perhaps Field stands for the passive consumption enacted by a wealthy outsider who decides to make his home in a place with the troubled history of Cape Town. Or perhaps that has nothing to do with anything and OK, Mr Field is just ('just') a story about a man's emotional disintegration and the terrifying unpredictability of that state.

If I was to be critical of anything in the novel, it wouldn't be its lack of willingness to provide explanations, but that I was not always convinced by our narrator as a man; there was something slightly off about many of the references to his body and desires. Strange as it may sound, I would have preferred the narrative to give away even less about him.

What is OK, Mr Field? Why is is OK, Mr Field? Maybe these questions aren't meant to be answered. This is a story to be shelved alongside narratives of alienation and delusion such as Keith Ridgway's Animals, Hugo Wilcken's The Execution and Paula Cocozza's How To Be Human. It's not going to work for everyone, but I loved Kilalea's fluid prose and appreciated the story's inscrutability.

I received an advance review copy of OK, Mr Field from the publisher through NetGalley.

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[Paul Fulcher · Rating 4 out of 5]

It seemed likely that, as in a story whose sequence of events is always forward-moving, my visits would either progress to some climax or conclusion, or that I, losing interest, would give up or move on. And yet the story of my time with Hannah Kallenbach - because it was a story, and it was about time - was impervious to the passing of time. Nothing happened.

I came to this 2018 novel by Katharine Kilalea (a first novel, from a South African poet) via the brilliant book of essays on writing Between the Word and the World by Anna MacDonald published by Splice: my review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

McDonald’s take can also be found at: https://www.thisissplice.co.uk/2018/0....

The first person narrator of the novel (presumably the eponymous Mr Field), a pianist, is travelling back from an unsuccessful concert in London, where he performed Chopin’s Raindrop Prelude, when he is involved in a train accident, shattering his wrist and (it is implied) halting his career. He uses his compensation payment to buy (or rent?) a house in South Africa, a reproduction of Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye.

The house was one of three Villa Savoye doppelgängers: there was the “shadow” version in Canberra, which was an exact copy but painted black; the “mini” Villa Savoye in Boston, in which every aspect of the original house had been shrunk by 10 percent to fit the client’s budget; and my house, the House for the Study of Water, which replicated Le Corbusier’s house in all aspects apart from its location, since whereas the original Villa Savoye overlooked the rural French landscape, the one in Cape Town overlooked the sea.

Everything I knew about Le Corbusier came from a South African academic who, like a number of so-called architourists, had turned up at the house one day as though it were a museum rather than a private residence. She wore a kaftan and jangly bracelets and was writing a book, she told me, on Le Corbusier and the third world.

The architect who’d designed the House for the Study of Water, Jan Kallenbach, had met Le Corbusier during a tour which he and several other architecture students had made of European ¬architecture. They’d turned up at Le Corbusier’s apartment one day, she said, and the old architect had invited them in and said, Okay, she mimicked his French accent, so now I will teach you the sisteme. The sisteme entailed a number of rules which Le Corbusier applied to all buildings, regardless of their size or use, like that all buildings should have moveable walls, a roof terrace, horizontal windows, and be raised off the ground on stilts. The architecture students—later known as the Johannesburg Group—published articles on Le Corbusier’s sisteme in the local journal South Africa Architectural Record and applied it to the design of a number of new houses, built mostly for German Jewish immigrants who’d developed a taste for modernism before the war. With their glass walls and external staircases, these houses typified what became known as the Johannesburg style. The point about the houses, she said—this must have been important because she repeated it several times—is that they were “à la Corbu” but not just meaningless copies. They took his system and synthesized it in a new way. Whereas Kallenbach, apparently, had been so seduced by the Master, as he’d called him, that he believed the practice of architecture post–Le Corbusier could offer nothing more than to replicate his buildings verbatim. We were standing at the strip of windows in the living room, looking at the sea. That’s why he was ostracized from the inner circle, she said. Then her voice trailed off and she turned away from the window. I feel queasy, she said, the way these windows cut off the ground makes me feel seasick. And for a moment she did look pale, but then, laughing, went on, Maybe that’s the reason Kallenbach’s wife left him. Because living here was like living on a raft.

It’s true, the windows did give one an odd perspective of the world. I’d often thought it perverse that a house overlooking the sea should have windows so narrow that they hid all but a sliver of it. It was a restrictive view, almost punitively so, so frustratingly partial that it seemed a kind of tease. Though the sense of something withheld—the sea was there, of course, you just couldn’t see it—was not entirely unpleasant.

Although the narrator’s wife, Mim, moves to the country with him, soon after the novel opens she disappears from the scene, presumably having left him although Mr Field seems remarkably incurious as to what has happened, other than feeling her absence. When attempting to play the Chopin piece once more, his injured left hand now no longer as responsive as his right he observes:

A relationship unfolding between two hands which were the two characters, one expressive, the other inexcitable, who’d once been together but were now detached.

This is far from a conventional plot driven novel. As Mr Field notes of himself:

I'd never liked crosswords or any kind of word games. It was a musician's sensibility, perhaps, which made me pay more attention to the sounds of words than to their meanings. I couldn't even read a novel since before long I'd always find myself in the middle of a sentence or a paragraph with no idea of where I was or what had come before. Tracing a plot or following a cast of characters required a mental gymnastics my mind seemed incapable of.

The Irish Times take on his style of narration expresses it well, although Mr Field lacks the misanthropy of some Bernhard narrators (https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/bo...

Mr Field himself has been compared by early reviewers to a Beckett character, but he might have more in common with the creations of Austrian writer Thomas Bernhard. These tend to be deeply cultured perfectionists who keep circling back, in their minds and in the movement of their sentences, to a single obsession or plangent regret. In Ok, Mr Field, a Berhardian air of repetition works nicely: a dullness of narration which is also beautiful and perfectly intentional.

Living on his own he develops an odd obsession with the architect’s estranged wife, Hannah Kallenbach, who he met only once when she handed over the keys to the house, carrying on an imaginary dialogue with her in his mind: said Hannah Kallenbach, whose voice had become the dark background of my days.

Meanwhile in the plot next door another modernist architect is embarking on a rather abstract and ambitious project, one that reminded me of The Folly by Ivan Vladislavic. Although this is perhaps a lazy comparison, as Kilalea has argued she has little affinity with South African literature, citing instead The Magic Mountain as perhaps her key inspiration (see https://www.thisissplice.co.uk/2018/0...)

This imaginary obsession then develops into a real one as he starts to stalk Hannah Kallenbach, spending his days hiding in her garden, although the narrator himself seems unaware of how creepy his behaviour has become.

Later on he strikes up a kinship with a stray dog, one that seems to have little need of companionship, human or otherwise, but spends its days playing incessantly with an old tennis ball: He seemed to want it to go on forever

And this lack of progress seems key to his world view. In another imagined dialogue:

It’s better than the alternative, said Hannah Kallenbach. What the alternative? I said.Erosion.

inspired by his disgust at coastal erosion and indeed entropy in general – strikingly the Villa, designed more for aesthetics than practicality, leaks when it rains and is, in general, is a state of decay. Whereas, as the opening quote suggests, Mr Field seems more trapped in statis, a sense of absence:

which was disconcerting, breaking as it did, the promise inherent in reading, that line by line, as one thing leads to another, one is all the time going somewhere, that if one keeps going one will eventually get somewhere, to some end or conclusion.

A truly striking and highly original novel – one I am surprised didn’t receive more prize attention. 4.5 stars.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

(3.5) Mr. Field is a concert pianist whose left wrist was shattered in a train crash outside London. With his career temporarily derailed, there’s little for him to do apart from wander his Cape Town house, a replica of Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye. Jan Kallenbach, the South African architect who oversaw the building of his copy, was killed in a shark attack. After his partner, Mim, leaves him, Mr. Field spends his time walking the coastal path, keeping an eye on the housing development going up on the empty plot by his home, and driving to spy on the architect’s widow, Hannah Kallenbach, with whom he’s obsessed. Prone to strange thinking and overly sensitive to sounds, he’s an aimless voyeur who’s more engaged with other people’s lives than with his own – until a dog follows him home from a graveyard and forces him to wake up to his circumstances.

This is a strangely detached little novel in which very little seems to happen, and what does happen you have to question because of the narrator’s unreliability. Like Asunder by Chloe Aridjis and Leaving the Atocha Station by Ben Lerner, it’s about someone who’s been coasting unfeelingly through life and has to stop to ask what’s gone wrong and what’s worth pursuing. But it’s so brilliantly written, with the pages flowing effortlessly on, that I had to admire Kilalea’s skill. Her descriptions of the scenery and of music are particularly good. In terms of the style, I was reminded of books I’ve read by Katie Kitamura and Henrietta Rose-Innes. Dialogue and thoughts are in italics, an interesting half-way house between having standard speech marks or none. (I picked up a proof copy at the Faber Spring Party.)

Favorite passages:

“I’d leave the car and make my way along the street, studying the activities of Hannah Kallenbach’s neighbours. I’d examine how, nightly, from between the large, gold, eagle-topped gates of the house beside hers, a red-lipsticked woman would appear[,] muttering, This way… This way… This way to the long-haired dachshund scuttling – so it appeared to me – like a windswept old wig along the pavement behind her.”

“How could I explain the nature of my problem when I was such a stranger to myself? How could I possibly grasp what was going on inside me when the inside of my body was hidden from me, walled in by my skin? … what kinds of things are worth investing one’s time and feelings in?”

[Roxanne]

The odd thing about an introvert like me reading through the mind of a self-reflective character is the meta conversation occurring in my head during many moments of the book. The upside is that as I judged my shyness to his, I came out looking exceptionally normal (insert smiley emoticon here).

Kilalea’s book is entertaining in that rainy day deep thought way. You relish Mr. Field’s time to just stare and think, and often giggle at his questioning and subsequent struggle to bond with those closest. The book is also a naturalist’s picnic as Mr. Field takes in the flora and fauna surrounding the home as he gazes out various windows. His walk turned into café excursion is a fun romp as he entangles himself with strangers and yet creates the perfect metaphor for who he is to himself.

[Dawnny · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mr. Field is a concert pianist from London. When he shatters his wrist in a train accident he becomes unhinged. He becomes obsessed with a house designed to look like LeCorbusier's Villa Savoye. Cutting himself off from everything. His wife leaves him and he becomes even more lost in his own thoughts. Thoughts of other people and his surroundings. It takes a minute to get into this but once I did I liked the strange narrative. Remarkable and very odd.

Thank You
Penguin
Tim Duggin Books

Dawn
BookGypsy
Novels N Latte
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[Federica Rampi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Il signor Field è un pianista, la cui carriera finisce quando si frattura il polso in un incidente ferroviario.
Con i soldi del risarcimento si trasferisce con la moglie Mim da Londra a Città del Capo dove acquista una casa sul modello del capolavoro modernista di Le Corbusier, Villa Savoye.
Field man mano instaura un rapporto complicato con quella grande casa che assume lo spessore di un personaggio silenzioso quanto attivo, capace di plasmargli gli stati d’animo.
Quella sequenza di finestre e spazi che sembrano prendersi gioco della prospettiva avvicinandosi e allontanandosi contemporaneamente, rispecchiano la sua sensazione di essere sempre più isolato dal mondo e dagli altri.

“Quante volte ho pensato che in una città non si ha il senso della prospettiva, e senza il senso della prospettiva non si ha lo spazio per pensare?”

Sin dall’inizio del loro soggiorno, tra la coppia non succede quasi nulla: Field e sua moglie si parlano a malapena, lui quasi non si accorge della sua presenza ma fugacemente ne percepisce l’assenza “perché una persona che esiste nella realtà deve pur trovarsi da qualche parte”
“Dov’è Mim?», domandai. A chi lo stavo chiedendo? A Dio? All’universo? E Dio, o l’universo”

Mim esce abbastanza rapidamente dalla narrazione, o per lo meno Field si rende conto che è scomparsa; di lei restano appunti pieni di descrizioni che paragonano l'oceano ai ritmi dell'esistenza umana.
Invece di cercarla, Field si ritira sempre più in se stesso, inseguendo i suoi pensieri attorno alle pareti bianche e vuote della casa; piomba in uno stato contemplativo solitario e senza direzione fissandosi su piccoli dettagli e immaginando le voci degli uccelli, di un cane o di Hannah Kallenbach, l'anziana vedova dell'architetto che ha progettato la casa.

La parte del romanzo che mi ha colpita di più riguarda le descrizioni del nuovo rapporto che il signor Field ha con la musica. Il suo vecchio pianoforte (che lo aveva sempre ispirato in passato) diventa oggetto di risentimento. Persino i Preludi di Chopin gli suscitano irritazione: “La goccia d’acqua”, con quel bemolle ricorrente, è un paradosso di ripetitività che senza il sentimento del pianista rischia di diventare noioso.
Ora ci riprova, ma il polso sinistro non risponde più, non reagisce alla melodia come dovrebbe, le mani sono asincrone, come fossero sconosciute l'una all'altra.
La musica non riesce più a tenerlo distante dai pensieri ma diventa chiusura: quella stanchezza interiore, più la scaccia, più se la sente accanto.


Strano e accattivante, “Va tutto bene, signor Field” con la sua narrazione lenta e la prosa musicale, è una meditazione intorno alla solitudine.
La tensione tra ordine e disordine, tra silenzio e parola, sono a mio parere i punti forti di questo romanzo.

[Joy · Rating 4 out of 5]

OK, Mr Field is an astonishingly accomplished experimental debut by Katharine Kilalea. I alighted on this short novel from another (Is Mother Dead) that was bleeding emotion from out the pages and it was cool relief. As this Guardian review points out, it's rare for a debut female writer not to include some autofiction or self-identifying elements into the fictional characters. As it was, I spent part of the time feeling a little quizzical about the author's intention at times. For example, there is a bizarre section where the male protagonist is at the beach with his wife who has taken off her top and he suddenly imagines the areola to be eyes. Suddenly everywhere he looks, the women's breasts are winking at him. Is Kilalea toying with the idea of male gaze or is this a surreal hallucination betraying his mental state? The same goes for even the title. Depending on the inflection and tone, is it meant to be read as exasperation or condescension in the vein of 'Ok, boomer' or in a concerned manner as the protagonist keeps being asked by a hallucinatory voice of his landlady whether he is ok.

Mr Field is decidedly not ok. He is a concert pianist who after a somewhat disastrous performance in London, England gets into a train accident requiring surgery on his hand due to fractures. With the compensation money, he decides to rent a villa in Durban, South Africa with his wife Mim. At some point in the narrative, Mim leaves him.

Without looking at the author's bio, it is evident that she is a poet. The choice of words and sentence structure is very deliberate with wordplay and recurrent motifs. As the protagonist is a classical musician, he is sensitive to the rhythm of his surroundings such as the sounds of nearby construction and raindrops. Certain scenes such as that of the room of the landlady he stalks are presented as if beholding a still life painting. Architecture, classical music with particular emphasis on Chopin's works, art and the plumbing of loneliness blend to present an intriguing intellectual puzzle for the reader.

One of the more memorable passages was the one where he is attempting to play Chopin's Raindrop Prelude after his surgery. Due to the particular requirements of the piece requiring the striking of the same note with varying degrees of strength, his post-surgery hand is unable to accomplish the effect. The non-injured hand becomes independent, decouples from the other hand and seemingly Mr Field's control, and proceeds to musically concernedly seduce the injured hand. Another surreal scene includes a rider on a horse with the author prepping us beforehand about the similarity in sound between writer and rider. Whole swaths of time appear to pass by even with important events cloaking the novel in a dreamlike state.

In some ways, OK, Mr Field is opaque in contrast to contemporary novels which are quite upfront about their themes and foci. After reading some reviews like this and this, I went back to reread the first section, in particular paying more attention to the architectural description of the house he rented and noting the motif of doppelgänger, not only with buildings but later on with another character. I also asked myself why I wasn't reacting more strongly to some elements of the story that I would normally find objectionable. Being a piano player myself (though not at concert performance level), I enjoyed the descriptions of classical music and digressions such as speculation of the emotion that Chopin had waiting for George Sand in the piece. Are there Bernhardian influences with repetition and an obsessed male character displaying little self-insight? Two books that come to my mind which may be comparables are Saint Sebastian's Abyss and Peaces: A Novel.

All in all, this is a thought-provoking cleverly constructed novel that has gone under the radar.

[od1_40reads · Rating 5 out of 5]

Katharine Kilalea is an absolute master wordsmith. The writing here is stunning.

An accomplished poet, her literary genius dazzles throughout this beautiful, subtle and strange novel.

[Desiree · Rating 1 out of 5]

This week I read Ok, Mr. Field by Katharien Kilalea. I was provided a copy of this book to read by Penguin Random House. This does not effect my review in any way, as always my thoughts on this book are my own and not influenced by the publisher.

Ok, Mr. Field is about a concert pianist who gets injured in a car accident and is unable to continue to play the piano. After the accident Mr. Field purchases a house by the sea and then proceeds to do absolutely nothing. For the entirety of this book Mr. Field wanders around his house, watches some construction that is taking place next door, and goes for drives. He does creepily stalk the prior owner of his house but it's the most uneventful stalking ever written because all he does is stand around outside her window. I kept expecting something, anything to happen but nothing does. Since there's no conflict, there's also no resolution and I walked away from this book feeling like I had just wasted my time. Luckily it was pretty short so there wasn't a lot of time involved.

Some of the author's descriptions and prose are truly beautiful. She certainly has a way with words, but all the beautiful phrasing in the world can't make up for a book in which nothing occurs. Not that there weren't opportunities for conflict (Mr. Field's wife leaves him, he stalks his home's former owner) but the author doesn't take the opportunity to use them. The most exciting thing that happens in the novel happens near the end when Mr. Field chases his dog around the house becuase it chewed up a notebook. *snore*

If you're looking for something to help put you to sleep Okay, Mr. Field is going to be available on shelves July 17th. I recommend looking elsewhere for something to take with you on vacation.

[J.D. DeHart · Rating 5 out of 5]

In a sea of other books, OK, Mr. Field is notable primarily for the way it treats language. Author Katharine Kilalea knows how to use language in a poetic and artistic way. She paints a portrait of a character in this book that fills the space of a working plot. Using her words, this author takes us inside the mind of her major character in a way that is accomplished and unique.

[LauraT · Rating 2 out of 5]

Confused

[Robert Wechsler · Rating 5 out of 5]

This novella is one of those books where my Goodreads friends appreciated it far more than the average reader (even the average reader of an experimental fiction). The eponymous narrator’s first-person voice is what carries this complex, but simply told, work by a South African writer who seems to have put South Africa far behind her, at least in terms of content (although it takes place there). The voice captured my attention and wouldn’t let go. Just the right amounts of oddness, repetition, obscurity, description, and feeling (including coldness and numbness). Highly recommended.

[Terris · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well...that was quite a ride -- and weird. I'm not even sure where I came up with book or why I decided to read it. I'm just glad it wasn't long!

[Kate Vocke (bookapotamus) · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not really sure how to describe this book. It's very odd, a bit sad, somewhat quirky, extremely claustrophobic, and very unnerving. It made me feel uncomfortable, and I do believe that may have been it's intention.

Mr. Field is losing his mind. He's a trained concert pianist in London until horrible train accident shatters his wrist and he can no longer play as he did. He becomes a recluse, his partner leaves him, and the entire story told from inside a mind that is slowly losing it's grip on reality. There aren't really many other characters aside from Mim, who left, and an odd obsession he has with his new home's former owner, but again, it's all in his head. Any interactions, conversations, are stemmed from a mind gone mad.

There's a big deal about the house he purchases, a character in itself, one that is designed like LeCorbusier's Villa Savoye (if you google it, you'll probably recognize it if you know art and architecture at all). I found this part interesting though, being an artist, but I didn't really connect with the house as I believe intended. The house is sort of the beginning of the end, as he's first introduced to it's architectural uniqueness staring at a photo in a newspaper, just minutes before the train accident.

I thought the writing was exquisite, but the musings of a mad man were rambling and obsessive (understandably - the point I suppose) and I didn't like feeling uncomfortable, and thought it was a bit uninteresting and somewhat boring at a times.

[Sugarrr · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm not sure why there are many 4 star ratings for this book. Maybe because the author is really good at making the language sound good . But nothing really happens here, I do t think I've read such a pointless book in years..... There could have been some action or drama but it just didn't happen.

[RP · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't think I'm in the right place to enjoy this right now. It's so quiet. It didn't hold my interest. My brain is mush. The writing is, of course, STUNNING. I love the atmospheric, haunted quality of the book, but I was bored about 80% of the time.

[Sorrel Hanlon · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received this book as part of a subscription box by A Box of Stories.

I approached this with an open mind, considering the amount of negative reviews in recent weeks on the group. And I have to say, I didn't dislike it! I can't say it will be a book I'll read again, but by no means do I think this was a "bad" book.

It takes some getting used to, the writing is very stream of consciousness, very introspective and stylistic. Mr Field (Max?) is a man teetering on the edge of mental collapse. A pianist who's career is abruptly cut short by an accident where his left wrist is broken, he escapes to a house in South Africa, and his mental state worsens as he succumbs to loneliness.

It's quite a tragic read. There were moments where my mind was doing what the character describes, unable to fully focus on a passage and absorb the events as the writing made unusual leaps and non sequiturs. I think personally that was quite a clever feat of the author, though there are certainly ways in which this book could have been so much more.

There was a lot of the writing that I recognised as an expression of poor mental health, depression, and anxiety. The incapacity to do anything but sleep, and barely eat. The fascination and obsession on minor details and routine tasks.

I would approach this as a commentary, almost an artistic expression rather than your typical fictional novel.

3/5 stars, just.

[Jo · Rating 1 out of 5]

The main problem, for me, was that Mr Field did not have a first name however his wife did so I could not connect with him. I was attracted by the content, a concert pianist, who broke his arm. I felt this could be interesting, show perspection or perhaps explore his feelings? No, he just wandered around the house, on his own, stalking (if you could call it that as there was no emotion in it) the previous owner. An extremely slow book. Not for me!

[Brianna · Rating 1 out of 5]

I am sure I am missing something here but... what did I just read? I picked up this book from my library in an experiment to read something that I had heard nothing about (two more book experiments to come!) I picked this book because it sounded like something I could love, particularly with its themes of obsession, and a weird house being involved.

The 2.66 average rating I discovered upon finishing the book made my jaw drop, though I don't think I was actually surprised at the rating - moreso shocked at how poorly I picked a book at random LOL

My library had this on a recommended shelf for its prose and I could understand why it was there because this is written by a South African poet (which I just recently learned). Perhaps that is why this feels so out of my reach. I genuinely can't tell you what happened or have any desire to figure it out. I am disappointed because I wanted this experiment to go well, and the synopsis set me up to like it, but unfortunately, it just did not go to plan.

[Byron · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is as abstract as a book can be. While the writing is beautiful the purpose is lost in the density of confusing prose.
I would recommend it to people with an open mind and a broad spectrum of book experience. I unfortunately feel it was lost on me.

[Marc Nash · Rating 4 out of 5]

Video review https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7Is6...

[Julianna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mr. Fields is slowly disintegrating . There is construction outside his new house but throughout the book he describes it mostly as de-construction. His thoughts and feeling move like a mist, coming in and out of focus. This book is like a dream where strange things pop out of nowhere and nothing much happens but there is a strange feeling of dread or uneasiness. Yet the writing is superb and well worth the trip , unless you are depressed.
If this were made into a film I could see bringing back Tarkovsky ( shorter than his usual films) or Antonioni. Yes, "Blow Up" meets Mr. Fields.....was there a murder or not? hmmm......

[Lu Wilson · Rating 1 out of 5]

"Being in the dark is like being on the inside of one’s own body"

A man is involved in an accident in London and uses the compensation pay-out to buy a house in South Africa. He moves into said house with his wife, who goes on to leave him (I don’t blame her). That is pretty much it. He sits around, occasionally plays the piano and ponders about strange, random things. Oh wait, he does eventually start stalking the woman who sold him the house, but even that was uneventful. Yawn.

I accept this book was intentionally based around loneliness and depression, with the protagonist quickly losing his connection with reality and becoming obsessive. I doubt anyone suffering from these inflictions would want to read about them and those that don’t certainly would not feel any better for doing so. This story was depressing, slow and extremely dull. There was a large amount of reflection by the main protagonist, but it never led anywhere. The rumination was too long-winded to be remarkable with no accomplishment, no conflict and no point. The author conveyed isolation and misery well, but the majority of the story felt meaningless.

I honestly could not provide a detailed description of the plot. After reading a paragraph, a page, a chapter, I could hardly recall exactly what had happened, I was completely indifferent. At only 200 pages this should have been a quick read, but it took me almost a week to wade through. I did however have 3 enjoyable afternoon naps thanks to this book! I guess this was meant to be a philosophical work about the humdrum of the everyday, and some people (you know the type) will wax lyrical about this being a masterpiece. I however feel like I have just lost a chunk of my life.

[m. neral · Rating 2 out of 5]

I feel like nothing happened in this book and that it was more of a vibe. A sandy, windy, empty, ghostly vibe.

Sometimes I would catch onto the prose and think "oh, yes, I'm getting into this now", but then it would fade away and I would get lost again, consuming the paragraphs but not knowing what was happening.

What I understood: The narrator is extremely depressed. His front windows in his new house are busted out- just one window? I think he busted it out himself? Or maybe he just enjoys that it is busted out. He plays piano sometimes, but mostly he does nothing and feels empty. His wife left him- or died? He's obsessed with this woman Hannah who he met like two times and spies on her and her maybe husband who had a (pretty interesting- one of the better parts of the book) happening in which a man that might have been himself was in an accident and his horse got his legs cut off or completely skinned or something. It often trails outside of reality and feels more like a dream. The protagonist also thinks about fucking animals a lot.

If someone asked me if they should read this book I would say no.

[Isobel · Rating 4 out of 5]

After Mr Field damages his wrist in a train accident, he has to give up his career as a concert pianist. Using his compensation payout he buys a home on the coast of South Africa, a villa modelled after Le Corbusier's Villa Savoye. Some time afterwards, his wife leaves him. His days are spent in the house alone, his nights spying on Hannah Kallenbach, the house's previous owner, with whom he has become infatuated.

This is a short, strange, dreamlike novel; a study of desperate loneliness and slow deterioration. You can tell it has been written by a poet as the story reveals itself in a collection of images that show the protagonist's state of mind. It's a sad book and the ubiquity of the sea throughout makes it somehow numbing, and yet there are still flashes of humour in it.

It's a mesmerising read; finishing it felt like coming out of a trance.

[Frankie · Rating 1 out of 5]

I don't even know what I just read that was so weird.

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ok, Mr. Field is an odd little book, one that takes awhile to fully impart its meaning. The Mr. Field of the title is a concert pianist whose career is upended when he’s involved in a train accident. Devastated and at loose ends, he uses his settlement money to buy a house in Cape Town, South Africa. The house is oddly structured, the windows are set up high and limit the view they would naturally provide, which sets the tone for Mr. Field’s slow descent into grief and loneliness. Shortly after they move into the house, Field’s wife leaves him, which causes him to come even more unhinged and separated from reality. The book is full of descriptions of the sea, and of the areas surrounding the house, all poetically written, but the reader is never sure whether what Field sees and hears are real. After overhearing a strangely violent story, Mr. Field is at last able to acknowledge that something is missing, in his life, in himself, and we are left with the feeling that he just might be ok, and the bits of insight this book contains keep coming long after the last page is turned.

[Jeffrey Bumiller · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a great companion for a bus ride up to NYC yesterday. I read half on the way up, half on the way back. Ok, Mr. Field is weird and ghostly, elegantly written, yet still playful. On the way up I took breaks in between chapters to pause and stare out the window at the grey sky and pouring rain. It was a long exhausting day and on the way back I was fading in and out of sleep, making this surreal reading experience even more wonderful.