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Utopljeni
Jonathan je engleski privatni istražitelj koji sa ženom i kćeri živi u neimenovanu suvremenom gradu čije se koordinate nalaze negdje na ugarskom dijelu nekadašnje Austro-Ugarske. Upravo u vrijeme u koje u tom gradu započinju socijalni nemiri, prosvjedi i val nasilja, on istražuje slučaj davno nestale djevojke i, proganjan bračnom i životnom krizom, polako se počinje gubiti u kolopletu kaosa, anarhije, onirizma i manirizma...
Roman Utopljeni poznatoga prozaika i još poznatijega scenarista i redatelja Neila Jordana izrazito je uspjela slitina različitih filmskih i književnih žanrova, tendencija i odlika. Nalik na filmove Šesto čulo, Vrtoglavica i Prozor u dvorište, ovo djelospaja noir, psihološki triler, horor, filmove detekcije, filmove proganjanja i misterij gubitka kontrole.
Nalik na esteticističke romane Mrtvi Bruges, Petrograd i Smrt u Veneciji, ovo je djelo u svojoj izvedbi pripadno prozama simbolizma, secesije, fin de sieclea. Sve je tu: maglovitost, mutnoća, koprena, somnambulizam, opijenost gradom, arhitekturom, ulicama i dvorištima, (barokna) glazba, atmosfera zalaska i propadanja, fantastika, odrazi i obrisi, simboli, lik društvenog autsajdera kojega nešto metafizičko progoni i nadilazi njegove spoznajne dosege...
Jordanov roman pisan je jednostavnim, preciznim i lijepim jezikom, ispunjen je sjajnim lirskim pasažima, sadrži zanimljivu priču kojoj ne škodi ni učinak déja vua, nego podcrtava citatnost, a osobita su vrijednost filmični, brzi i živi dijalozi, oslobođeni okova navodnika. Ukratko: misterij, ali misterij dobro pisane književnosti.
Roman Utopljeni poznatoga prozaika i još poznatijega scenarista i redatelja Neila Jordana izrazito je uspjela slitina različitih filmskih i književnih žanrova, tendencija i odlika. Nalik na filmove Šesto čulo, Vrtoglavica i Prozor u dvorište, ovo djelospaja noir, psihološki triler, horor, filmove detekcije, filmove proganjanja i misterij gubitka kontrole.
Nalik na esteticističke romane Mrtvi Bruges, Petrograd i Smrt u Veneciji, ovo je djelo u svojoj izvedbi pripadno prozama simbolizma, secesije, fin de sieclea. Sve je tu: maglovitost, mutnoća, koprena, somnambulizam, opijenost gradom, arhitekturom, ulicama i dvorištima, (barokna) glazba, atmosfera zalaska i propadanja, fantastika, odrazi i obrisi, simboli, lik društvenog autsajdera kojega nešto metafizičko progoni i nadilazi njegove spoznajne dosege...
Jordanov roman pisan je jednostavnim, preciznim i lijepim jezikom, ispunjen je sjajnim lirskim pasažima, sadrži zanimljivu priču kojoj ne škodi ni učinak déja vua, nego podcrtava citatnost, a osobita su vrijednost filmični, brzi i živi dijalozi, oslobođeni okova navodnika. Ukratko: misterij, ali misterij dobro pisane književnosti.
280 pages, Hardcover
First published May 10, 2016
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 109 reviews
February 8, 2017
”’What is it about this place?’ I asked him. ‘They do things the old-fashioned way. They fall in love, they kiss in metros, they hire detectives to follow errant spouses and psychics to find lost children.’
‘You could call it retro,’ he said.”
The city was built in an era of stone. The passage of centuries and the climatic weather are slowly crumbling the edges, eroding the foundations. There are cell phones and computers, but they don’t dominate people’s lives. Music is a bigger part of their lives, either listening and/or playing, not mindless notes, but the ethereal tones of Bach and other masters. We know it is a European city, but it remains nameless. It is a place suspended in time, as if the city is caught in a 1940s black and white noir film with cracks in the celluloid which allow color from the present to bleed into the edges of the frames.
Jonathan owns a small private investigation firm. Most of their cases involve following adulterous spouses, but when a couple brings him a picture of their missing daughter, who was the same age as his daughter is now when she disappeared, he decides to do what he can to find out what happened to her. The case is stone cold, so when the mother suggests using a psychic, Jonathan is leary but at the same time wants any help he can get to find a string that he can start tugging on.
Jonathan’s first impression of the psychic is of grandness in the waning days of her elegance.
”She looked like an ageing Marlene Dietrich and she knew it. All she was missing was the eye-patch, the one Dietrich wore as she gazed through a wisp of curling smoke at the sagging hulk that was Orson Welles. They were both old then, and almost past it, and they knew it, too.”
In the moonlight, she is still glamorous, but in the harsh truth of daylight, there are breaches in her beauty revealing more of what she has lost than what she has retained.
To add flavor to the plot, Jonathan finds a man’s cufflinks in his wife’s purse. He doesn’t have to be a good detective to figure out who they belong to. Enhancing his own problems, the city is in chaos with people in Balaclavas racing around the streets and metros clashing with the police and leaving shattered glass in their wake.
Jonathan meets a woman on a bridge adorned with eyeless gargoyles. It bothers him, these protectors without sight. He chats with her and, sensing the pain,
Asks
Her
Not
To
Jump.
She jumps.
He jumps in after her.
If you save a life, you are responsible for him/her for the rest of your life. Or so the proverb says, but for Jonathan, this act is going to have bigger ramifications than he can ever comprehend.
We always try to understand what motivates people to do rash things, or maybe their actions just look rash to us. Maybe they are acting on thoughts they have rolled around their minds until the rough edges are worn off, and now those brooding notions move smoothly from side to side, and the only way to get it to stop is to….
What do investigators do? They investigate, and sometimes they discover things that are baffling and nonsensical, but sometimes they discover things that allow all the pieces to fall into place. Jonathan meets a predator who is very candid about what he does.
”She had the extraordinary need, you see, for contact, that only comes from the damaged ones. And they can be exquisite, the damaged ones.”
These sparsely written, elegant prose are a perfect example of how less can create more. This city might be crumbling, but the dignified, atmospheric beauty of the streets and buildings make me love this place as if it is a fantasyland built for my pleasure. Neil Jordan is best known as a director, but lucky for us, he also writes books. He shocked the world with his film The Crying Game, but he has also proven to me that his cinematic vision or his gift of expression is not narrowed to just a lense in a camera. If you like enthralling, moody, ethereal noir with a dash of supernatural, then this is the perfect book for you.
If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com
I also have a Facebook blogger page at:https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten
‘You could call it retro,’ he said.”
The city was built in an era of stone. The passage of centuries and the climatic weather are slowly crumbling the edges, eroding the foundations. There are cell phones and computers, but they don’t dominate people’s lives. Music is a bigger part of their lives, either listening and/or playing, not mindless notes, but the ethereal tones of Bach and other masters. We know it is a European city, but it remains nameless. It is a place suspended in time, as if the city is caught in a 1940s black and white noir film with cracks in the celluloid which allow color from the present to bleed into the edges of the frames.
Jonathan owns a small private investigation firm. Most of their cases involve following adulterous spouses, but when a couple brings him a picture of their missing daughter, who was the same age as his daughter is now when she disappeared, he decides to do what he can to find out what happened to her. The case is stone cold, so when the mother suggests using a psychic, Jonathan is leary but at the same time wants any help he can get to find a string that he can start tugging on.
Jonathan’s first impression of the psychic is of grandness in the waning days of her elegance.
”She looked like an ageing Marlene Dietrich and she knew it. All she was missing was the eye-patch, the one Dietrich wore as she gazed through a wisp of curling smoke at the sagging hulk that was Orson Welles. They were both old then, and almost past it, and they knew it, too.”
In the moonlight, she is still glamorous, but in the harsh truth of daylight, there are breaches in her beauty revealing more of what she has lost than what she has retained.
To add flavor to the plot, Jonathan finds a man’s cufflinks in his wife’s purse. He doesn’t have to be a good detective to figure out who they belong to. Enhancing his own problems, the city is in chaos with people in Balaclavas racing around the streets and metros clashing with the police and leaving shattered glass in their wake.
Jonathan meets a woman on a bridge adorned with eyeless gargoyles. It bothers him, these protectors without sight. He chats with her and, sensing the pain,
Asks
Her
Not
To
Jump.
She jumps.
He jumps in after her.
If you save a life, you are responsible for him/her for the rest of your life. Or so the proverb says, but for Jonathan, this act is going to have bigger ramifications than he can ever comprehend.
We always try to understand what motivates people to do rash things, or maybe their actions just look rash to us. Maybe they are acting on thoughts they have rolled around their minds until the rough edges are worn off, and now those brooding notions move smoothly from side to side, and the only way to get it to stop is to….
What do investigators do? They investigate, and sometimes they discover things that are baffling and nonsensical, but sometimes they discover things that allow all the pieces to fall into place. Jonathan meets a predator who is very candid about what he does.
”She had the extraordinary need, you see, for contact, that only comes from the damaged ones. And they can be exquisite, the damaged ones.”
These sparsely written, elegant prose are a perfect example of how less can create more. This city might be crumbling, but the dignified, atmospheric beauty of the streets and buildings make me love this place as if it is a fantasyland built for my pleasure. Neil Jordan is best known as a director, but lucky for us, he also writes books. He shocked the world with his film The Crying Game, but he has also proven to me that his cinematic vision or his gift of expression is not narrowed to just a lense in a camera. If you like enthralling, moody, ethereal noir with a dash of supernatural, then this is the perfect book for you.
If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com
I also have a Facebook blogger page at:https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten
March 13, 2016
Thank you Netgalley for my digital copy in exchange for a fair and honest review.
I was a bit disappointed in this one; it read more like a romance noir than a thriller of any type. I have no issue with those types of books, but this one wasn't marketed as such and was not what I was expecting when I requested it. The plot was enjoyable for me but it did take me about 25% to get into it. The characters were pleasant enough but nothing memorable. This one had more grammatical errors and missing punctuation than most unedited copies I've received; I tried not to consider this in my overall rating as I expect this in a galley, but it did make it difficult to read and discern who was speaking at times.
I think there is an audience for this, I just think it wasn't the right book for me. I did enjoy it enough to give it 3 stars though, so give it a try if this sounds like your type of read!
I was a bit disappointed in this one; it read more like a romance noir than a thriller of any type. I have no issue with those types of books, but this one wasn't marketed as such and was not what I was expecting when I requested it. The plot was enjoyable for me but it did take me about 25% to get into it. The characters were pleasant enough but nothing memorable. This one had more grammatical errors and missing punctuation than most unedited copies I've received; I tried not to consider this in my overall rating as I expect this in a galley, but it did make it difficult to read and discern who was speaking at times.
I think there is an audience for this, I just think it wasn't the right book for me. I did enjoy it enough to give it 3 stars though, so give it a try if this sounds like your type of read!
August 19, 2016
The first fifty pages of this mystery were perfectly composed to trap the reader with its sense of menace and uncertainty. The tight construction and lack of explanation forces the reader to contemplate coincidence, involving us completely in the drama unfolding. A private investigator living in an unnamed Eastern European country is trained to look for inconsistencies and clues wherever he looks, and when he discovers a man’s cufflink in his wife’s handbag, the lives in his circle of family and colleagues are thrown into disarray.
There is far more to the story, including a parents’ search for a girl gone missing years ago and who, in an old photograph, is the same age as the detective’s daughter. Petra. That is her name. The daughter. Whose daughter?
Jordan draws us deep into the complex turnings of a mind under duress, circling back time and again to images and memories that haunt the subconscious. It is a fabulous examination of how the mind rids itself of a terror that it cannot examine directly. Supernatural elements are introduced, but somehow they seem perfectly at home with what is happening on the streets and in the opera houses of this European city on the edge of civil implosion and external invasion.
Neil Jordan’s work has been memorable since his first collection of stories, Night in Tunisia, won the 1979 Guardian Fiction Prize. Most everyone will remember his film, The Crying Game, which won an Academy Award and a BAFTA. His other work has been likewise critically acclaimed. Published this year by Bloomsbury, Jordan’s latest detective novel puts the genre to shame by the intensity of its writing and the closely written examination of a marriage under pressure. The language makes it cinematic, atmospheric, and painfully realistic.
This is a short novel, though the language makes one want to pause. Writers anxious to see a master at work could do worse than read this for what it shows about brevity. One doesn’t need more words to get one’s point across. One needs what this man has.
There is far more to the story, including a parents’ search for a girl gone missing years ago and who, in an old photograph, is the same age as the detective’s daughter. Petra. That is her name. The daughter. Whose daughter?
Jordan draws us deep into the complex turnings of a mind under duress, circling back time and again to images and memories that haunt the subconscious. It is a fabulous examination of how the mind rids itself of a terror that it cannot examine directly. Supernatural elements are introduced, but somehow they seem perfectly at home with what is happening on the streets and in the opera houses of this European city on the edge of civil implosion and external invasion.
Neil Jordan’s work has been memorable since his first collection of stories, Night in Tunisia, won the 1979 Guardian Fiction Prize. Most everyone will remember his film, The Crying Game, which won an Academy Award and a BAFTA. His other work has been likewise critically acclaimed. Published this year by Bloomsbury, Jordan’s latest detective novel puts the genre to shame by the intensity of its writing and the closely written examination of a marriage under pressure. The language makes it cinematic, atmospheric, and painfully realistic.
This is a short novel, though the language makes one want to pause. Writers anxious to see a master at work could do worse than read this for what it shows about brevity. One doesn’t need more words to get one’s point across. One needs what this man has.
June 9, 2016
Originally from England, Jonathan has moved his family to an unspecified former Soviet Republic because of his wife’s archaeology job. Jonathan operates his own “tracing” agency with the help of a photographer and another investigator, Frank. The agency takes small cases of following errant husbands, seeking out fake designer handbag sellers, that type of thing. They don’t really do missing persons. But when a middle-aged couple comes to the agency for help in finding their missing daughter, Jonathan takes one look at the child’s picture and he can’t say no.
Jonathan is married to Sarah and they have a young daughter of their own. Jonathan spends each day drowning in jealousy and anger over the discovery that his wife and his partner Frank have had an affair. Each night when he goes home to Sarah, he is at a loss to face her betrayal of their marriage. When he goes back to work in the morning, he’s confronted with the infuriating visage of Frank.
Then Jonathan rescues a woman who jumps off a bridge into the river. As the days go by, he finds himself drawn back to this woman again and again to listen to her play her cello. Her cello music continues to haunt him even when he’s not with her. The woman’s sadness somehow echoes Jonathan’s own feelings of confusion and despair.
Told against a backdrop of Eastern European protests, this is a haunting story of a man’s loss of identity, the tumultuous results of one spouse’s affair, and whether or not this couple can find their way back to each other.
When I first started this book, the language and writing style threw me off a bit and I was sure it wasn’t for me. I almost never pick up a book without finishing it though, and I am so glad I didn’t put this down! I gulped down this book in a just a few hours and it was well worth it. When I read that the author was in filmmaking it didn’t surprise me, as the story is told as if it were a series of scenes from Hollywood’s classic film noir period. The dreamlike landscape unfolds beautifully and it will leave you chilled.
I want to thank the publisher (Bloomsbury USA) for providing me with the ARC through Netgalley for an honest review.
Jonathan is married to Sarah and they have a young daughter of their own. Jonathan spends each day drowning in jealousy and anger over the discovery that his wife and his partner Frank have had an affair. Each night when he goes home to Sarah, he is at a loss to face her betrayal of their marriage. When he goes back to work in the morning, he’s confronted with the infuriating visage of Frank.
Then Jonathan rescues a woman who jumps off a bridge into the river. As the days go by, he finds himself drawn back to this woman again and again to listen to her play her cello. Her cello music continues to haunt him even when he’s not with her. The woman’s sadness somehow echoes Jonathan’s own feelings of confusion and despair.
Told against a backdrop of Eastern European protests, this is a haunting story of a man’s loss of identity, the tumultuous results of one spouse’s affair, and whether or not this couple can find their way back to each other.
When I first started this book, the language and writing style threw me off a bit and I was sure it wasn’t for me. I almost never pick up a book without finishing it though, and I am so glad I didn’t put this down! I gulped down this book in a just a few hours and it was well worth it. When I read that the author was in filmmaking it didn’t surprise me, as the story is told as if it were a series of scenes from Hollywood’s classic film noir period. The dreamlike landscape unfolds beautifully and it will leave you chilled.
I want to thank the publisher (Bloomsbury USA) for providing me with the ARC through Netgalley for an honest review.
March 5, 2016
I feel bad having given this such a low rating, but it just wasn't my thing. I was perpetually annoyed with the lack of talking marks when people were speaking and I found the whole thing a little hard to follow. Having said that I think the concept is original and the whole Eastern European setting was perfect for the whole situation.
March 27, 2016
The dinner was in the oven. It burnt. I finished reading the book, and realised I was starving.
Brilliant!
Brilliant!
October 28, 2015
Although this novel seems like a thriller at first, it has elements of the supernatural and horror fiction. Jonathan is an English detective living in an unnamed Eastern European city, with his wife Sarah and young daughter Jenny. His marriage is on the rocks as he suspects that his colleague, Frank, is having an affair with his wife. He agrees to try and find a girl, Petra, who disappeared many years earlier, and he turns to a psychic for help. But he soon becomes entangled in the life of a mysterious cellist who he rescues from drowning herself one night. A novel about revolution, music and mystery, it had me rapt.
August 15, 2017
Très heureuse de retrouver un Neil Jordan en grande forme littéraire après la semi-déception de ses deux précédents romans. Certes, il y a aborde à nouveau ses thèmes favoris (jalousie, envie, incursion de l'étrange dans le réel, ami(s) imaginaire(s)) mais sans se perdre. En plus, la musique (le violoncelle et les suites de Bach en particulier) y joue un beau rôle - comme un catalyseur des événements.
November 12, 2016
This is not another missing person detective story. Far from it. And I did really love the fact that this book was different from the norm
It was written in poetic almost dreamlike prose which suited the genre of the book. At times quite beautiful.
However I really struggled to work out who was speaking and when. It seems that speech marks were not required in this book, or in fact any indicators to tell you who was speaking
I also felt that the story was supposed to revolve around love - tainted and tiring in the case of Jonathan the detective and his wife, and obsessive and uncontrollable in the case of Jonathan and the missing girl Petra. However I just wasn't drawn into the relationships. I didn't feel any real passion or sadness. I spent much of the time confused about what was actually happening
This would have been a 4 star read if the storyline had been a little crisper and the dialogue more understandable. It could have been a 5 star if I had been drawn into the relationships and felt the sharp pain of love, both new and old.
It was written in poetic almost dreamlike prose which suited the genre of the book. At times quite beautiful.
However I really struggled to work out who was speaking and when. It seems that speech marks were not required in this book, or in fact any indicators to tell you who was speaking
I also felt that the story was supposed to revolve around love - tainted and tiring in the case of Jonathan the detective and his wife, and obsessive and uncontrollable in the case of Jonathan and the missing girl Petra. However I just wasn't drawn into the relationships. I didn't feel any real passion or sadness. I spent much of the time confused about what was actually happening
This would have been a 4 star read if the storyline had been a little crisper and the dialogue more understandable. It could have been a 5 star if I had been drawn into the relationships and felt the sharp pain of love, both new and old.
March 29, 2016
Jonathan runs a small detective agency with another investigator and a photographer. They spend most of their days following cheating husbands so even though this is not their typical case when the parents of a missing child ask him to help find their missing daughter he cannot say no when they show him her picture. Jonathan and Sarah have a young daughter and he takes one look at the child’s picture and he can’t say no. He suspects his wife of having an affair and he cannot quite get past that idea and it leads him to develop a relationship with a woman he rescues when she jumps off a bridge. He finds himself drawn to her and her music. This is a story about loss, the death of a marriage and trying to find your way back to the ones you love and a mystery thrown in for good measure. It started slow and at times it was hard to know which character was speaking but all in all a good read. I would like to thank the Publisher and Net Galley for the chance to read this ARC.
December 15, 2020
Received this book as a first reads giveaway from goodreads. This review is based entirely on my own thoughts and feelings.
Overall rating : 3*
Characters : 4*
Plot : 3*
Writing : 2*
After taking a while to get in the story I found the plot enjoyable. The writing however I really struggled with. I'm not sure if it was because it was an unfinished, unedited version, but it didn't flow very well, and between chapters it was a bit disconnected. Also punctuation was missing from speech, making it hard to distinguish who was talking, and whether it was normal text. The main character was interesting and made the book for me.
Overall rating : 3*
Characters : 4*
Plot : 3*
Writing : 2*
After taking a while to get in the story I found the plot enjoyable. The writing however I really struggled with. I'm not sure if it was because it was an unfinished, unedited version, but it didn't flow very well, and between chapters it was a bit disconnected. Also punctuation was missing from speech, making it hard to distinguish who was talking, and whether it was normal text. The main character was interesting and made the book for me.
July 7, 2017
I'm confused. This book is a total mess to me. The characters and the setting aren't introduced well or at all. The lack of quotation marks makes it all the more difficult to figure out who is speaking and when. Every conversation has "witty" talk—quick, confusing quips back and forth as if the characters don't know how to talk like regular humans. The storyline doesn't keep my interest as it bounces between loosely drawn points that the author tried to make into one interesting plot. The only reason I'd want to finish this book is so that I could say I did. I don't like abandoning books, but I feel like I'd just be wasting my time trying to read this "mystery."
October 6, 2016
What a curious book and not exactly my cup of tea. Jonathan, our one named narrator, is an Englishman living with his wife and daughter in an unnamed Eastern European city. He is a detective, a finder of lost persons, and his marriage is in trouble. After he accepts a case from an older couple--find their daughter who disappeared 12 years earlier--he rescues a young woman who has jumped off a bridge. She's a cellist, and he becomes obsessed with her, visiting her whenever he can. Bach's cello suites pervade the novel. And this is when he goes off the rails and the story becomes, as one reviewer put it, "ghostly and mesmerizing." Certainly the language is image rich and the style hypnotic, the tone melancholy and rather hallucinatory. The story becomes more and more surreal, and while there are clear nods to Vertigo, it reminded me of Synecdoche, New York, Magnolia, Mulholland Drive. Not really enough plot for my taste.
December 19, 2021
It starts as a good story, nicely written, with rich sentences, and the atmosphere is good - an unhappy investigator, dark streets, fog, water, mysterious woman.... something like a film noir. But somewhere on the second third the novel becomes a cliche, the story is no longer consistent, as if the author himself was not quite sure is this a mystery, a detective story, horror... It is a shame, this could have been a fine story with a better editor.
April 9, 2017
In an unspecified post-Communist Eastern European city, an English private detective named Jonathan makes a living by taking on assignments from ordinary citizens desperate to find lost loved ones. He lives in the city’s suburbs with his wife Sarah, an archaeologist working at a dig in the city, and their young daughter Jenny. Jonathan and Sarah’s marriage is going badly: the couple is seeing a therapist. In the course of previous investigations, Jonathan has (in unorthodox and highly questionable fashion) consulted an elderly psychic named Gertrude, whose advice has proved helpful. Early in the novel Jonathan and his associates Istvan and Frank are approached by a couple from the countryside who, 12 years after she went missing, are still looking for their daughter Petra. They are convinced she disappeared somewhere in the city. But before Jonathan can get the search for Petra underway, as he’s walking near the river one evening, he sees a young woman on the bridge who seems about to jump. He goes to her and tries to talk her down, but she jumps anyway, and he jumps in after her and pulls her to safety. She leads him along the twisting twilit city streets to an apartment, where they dry off, and soon he hears her playing one of Bach’s Suites for Cello. He leaves, and when he arrives home Sarah has the Casals recording of Bach’s Cello Suites on the CD player. From here, the story of Jonathan’s search for Petra and for some measure of peace of mind grows complex and layers mystery upon mystery: the city descends into a state of unrest, he discovers things about Sarah he would rather not know, the conundrums and inexplicable events pile up. Neil Jordan’s writing is brilliantly atmospheric. The unnamed Slavic city where the action takes place remains enticingly out of focus, and one can almost smell the steam rising from the cobblestones as the sun emerges after a sudden rain shower. The Drowned Detective is billed as a crime novel, but Jordan incorporates elements of other genres into an occasionally awkward mix that makes it difficult to place the book in any single category without caveats. The purist reader of detective thrillers will probably be disappointed, perhaps even frustrated. But for anyone who doesn’t mind spending a few hours with a novel that doesn’t necessarily answer all of the questions it asks, The Drowned Detective is not the worst choice you can make.
March 2, 2017
Easy read. I read this book in one day. It wasn't really what I was expecting, and the lack of quotation marks bothered me and made it difficult to know who was talking at times. But interesting concept and was definitely a page turner for me
Read
June 8, 2023A fascinating narrative which suddenly leaps ontological boundaries and throws its apparently realistic grounds into a speculative mixer, producing a story which is simultaneously very realistic, even prosaic, yet ethereal and eschatological.
never-finished
October 30, 2022DNF. Too confusing with the lack of speech marks, to tell who’s saying what. I slogged through about 34 pages and wasn’t enjoying it.
October 15, 2017
I've always been a general fan of Neil Jordan's books, from his early stories to the late ghost-mysteries and life-stories of his more recent work. Still, one never knows who he is writing to and, the more that his films and television work has developed, the more cinematic his imagination has turned its gaze. Correspondingly, what was once a dense psychological texture of language engaging with memory and death has become a visual extravaganza of surfaces and textures, architectures and geography. That sometimes works, but here in The Drowned Detective it does not.
Instead, this coy-detective "thriller" (is it?) relocates from Ireland to an imagined Eastern European town riven by political crisis, with Pussy Rioters dressed in bright balaclavas running and dancing aimlessly before dark, pseudo-fascist nationalist crowds. Yet this background curiously never interacts with the ghost story itself: it feels window-dressing, untethered from the plot. So too the musical moments which are and are not relevant to the plot: they are both hammered into the reader as important but also not delicately interworked with the thoughtful simplicity of lace, the way a great theme should be.
What we're left with is a vaguely drawn security man, haunted by the past, who fights with his wife, falls for a psychic, encounters a ghost, and doesn't relate well with men. If it was more prosaic, it would be a good study in contemporary security politics and toxic masculinity. As it is, there's a marriage plot and a ghost story. I'll let the characters tell the rest of it themselves:
There are perhaps fifty to one hundred pages of rapid anticipation and haunting wonder here; the rest is mediocre prose. The best comes at the end, of course, and make a breathless and slightly too-neat finish. The question is, are those pages worth the dubious investment in coy-noir? Presumably, Jordain carefully aimed this book at a large popular audience. I do not think that it has lodged in its target. It might be ungrateful to wish for more thoughtful, pensive books in the future, a return to Sunrise with Sea Monster days.
Instead, this coy-detective "thriller" (is it?) relocates from Ireland to an imagined Eastern European town riven by political crisis, with Pussy Rioters dressed in bright balaclavas running and dancing aimlessly before dark, pseudo-fascist nationalist crowds. Yet this background curiously never interacts with the ghost story itself: it feels window-dressing, untethered from the plot. So too the musical moments which are and are not relevant to the plot: they are both hammered into the reader as important but also not delicately interworked with the thoughtful simplicity of lace, the way a great theme should be.
What we're left with is a vaguely drawn security man, haunted by the past, who fights with his wife, falls for a psychic, encounters a ghost, and doesn't relate well with men. If it was more prosaic, it would be a good study in contemporary security politics and toxic masculinity. As it is, there's a marriage plot and a ghost story. I'll let the characters tell the rest of it themselves:
Should we divorce? she asked me.
Is that the only option? I replied. And it was hardly a question. It was a statement that hung in the air, like invisible smoke.
Well, she said. We both seem to have made a mess of things.
And is it the kind of mess that ends in divorce?
It is the conventional option, she told me. Isn't that what one does?
One, I thought. I could never think of her as one.
You would never survive it, I said stupidly.
You mean life without you? I had a life without you once. It was at least coherent.
I thought of razor wire and the burning tyres and the dull crumping sound of another car bomb and wondered what was coherent about that. But she had always been oddly composed, and I supposed, coherent, in that burning world.
And this isn't?
No, she said. This has become an incoherent mess.
Maybe life, I murmured, is an incoherent mess.
Do you love this woman? she asked.
There was no answer to that question. But I gave the only one that had a hope of being understood.
She's dead, I said.
Oh God, she said. Please. What have you got us into?
There are perhaps fifty to one hundred pages of rapid anticipation and haunting wonder here; the rest is mediocre prose. The best comes at the end, of course, and make a breathless and slightly too-neat finish. The question is, are those pages worth the dubious investment in coy-noir? Presumably, Jordain carefully aimed this book at a large popular audience. I do not think that it has lodged in its target. It might be ungrateful to wish for more thoughtful, pensive books in the future, a return to Sunrise with Sea Monster days.
September 8, 2016
Jonathan is an English investigator in an east European city. He searches for a young woman who has been missing for many years. All conventional means of tracing her have been exhausted, Jonathan is drawn to the psychic Gertrude: the girl is somewhere in the city - in a small room she cannot leave.
In other hands this may have been a run-of-the-mill abduction/rescue story but Jordan doesn't do run-of-the-mill, he has a lot more to offer.
Jonathan is consumed by jealousy, a rogue cuff-link confirms that his wife has slept with his assistant investigator, but Jordan doesn't use this betrayal as a mere construct to add relief from the main business of saving the missing girl. For The Drowned Detective, his inner turmoil IS the main business.
He rescues a young woman, a cello player, from the river and knows he should focus on repairing his own marriage but "Some things are just too strange. They should be left in the realm of possibility, or imagination. I had pulled her from the river, yes. I had helped her home. But the thought of some ultimate responsibility, some promise, like the promise of her tongue, darting between her lips, was too much, much too much. I felt I couldn't breathe, in that heat; I felt I was drowning in warm water."
And so Jonathan contrives to make his complicated life more complicated. He becomes ever more emotionally involved with the case of the missing girl, his relationship with his wife frays towards breaking point, the young woman he has saved offers respite, and maybe revenge, from his failing marriage, and the old woman, the psychic, offers redemption, at times through her supernatural powers, and at times through her worldly wisdom.
In an effort to reboot his failing marriage, he buys a set of Black Japanese pearls ( a symbol of hope for wounded hearts) for his wife but his life is already on a trajectory he can't control and he ends up buying her a fish instead.
"And I realised she was right. That the thing about people who know each other is that they know each other. Whatever love may exist between them has already been mediated by what they know of each other. The unexpected action, the wanted or unwanted gesture, happens on a landscape of anticipated sameness, so the simple and safe course of their day must now be interrupted by some obstacle they have to climb. And while the unexpected is so often what is demanded - by self-help books, magazine articles and marriage therapists - it causes problems of its own. And I wondered, was I going quietly mad? The pearls were a worry. But the fish was an absurdity."
Jonathan's painful search for the missing girl continues, it seems he knows less about the people he thinks he knows, or loves, and the further his life spirals out of control the more it seems Jonathan is also in a small room he cannot leave.
In other hands this may have been a run-of-the-mill abduction/rescue story but Jordan doesn't do run-of-the-mill, he has a lot more to offer.
Jonathan is consumed by jealousy, a rogue cuff-link confirms that his wife has slept with his assistant investigator, but Jordan doesn't use this betrayal as a mere construct to add relief from the main business of saving the missing girl. For The Drowned Detective, his inner turmoil IS the main business.
He rescues a young woman, a cello player, from the river and knows he should focus on repairing his own marriage but "Some things are just too strange. They should be left in the realm of possibility, or imagination. I had pulled her from the river, yes. I had helped her home. But the thought of some ultimate responsibility, some promise, like the promise of her tongue, darting between her lips, was too much, much too much. I felt I couldn't breathe, in that heat; I felt I was drowning in warm water."
And so Jonathan contrives to make his complicated life more complicated. He becomes ever more emotionally involved with the case of the missing girl, his relationship with his wife frays towards breaking point, the young woman he has saved offers respite, and maybe revenge, from his failing marriage, and the old woman, the psychic, offers redemption, at times through her supernatural powers, and at times through her worldly wisdom.
In an effort to reboot his failing marriage, he buys a set of Black Japanese pearls ( a symbol of hope for wounded hearts) for his wife but his life is already on a trajectory he can't control and he ends up buying her a fish instead.
"And I realised she was right. That the thing about people who know each other is that they know each other. Whatever love may exist between them has already been mediated by what they know of each other. The unexpected action, the wanted or unwanted gesture, happens on a landscape of anticipated sameness, so the simple and safe course of their day must now be interrupted by some obstacle they have to climb. And while the unexpected is so often what is demanded - by self-help books, magazine articles and marriage therapists - it causes problems of its own. And I wondered, was I going quietly mad? The pearls were a worry. But the fish was an absurdity."
Jonathan's painful search for the missing girl continues, it seems he knows less about the people he thinks he knows, or loves, and the further his life spirals out of control the more it seems Jonathan is also in a small room he cannot leave.
October 9, 2016
Sometimes there is no closure.
This has never been more true than in The Drowned Detective.
This novel is a strange one. It is primarily a dialogue-based novel, with little of what could traditionally be identified as "dialogue". It is a detective novel, with little of what could traditionally be identified as "detective-ing". And it is most importantly a human novel... with perhaps little of what could traditionally be identified as "human". It tells the story of Jonathan, a private investigator in an Eastern European city that seems always stranded on the brink of mass violence, as he tries to track a couple's daughter who disappeared years previously. In the course of his investigation, he impulsively saves a woman from drowning, but soon discovers that such a heroic act can change lives, relationships, and even the definition of reality for both better and worse.
This book has an awful lot going for it. Neil Jordan has got the cynical, dry tone of the detective first-person narrator absolutely perfect, and it is a joy to read.
This main character, Jonathan, is one of the most intriguing protagonists - if indeed he is a protagonist - that I have read about in a very long time. It is his novel, entirely. He is the novel. Literally.
As previously mentioned, he does odd things with his dialogue which require a slightly higher degree of concentration to understand, but nevertheless it works, and works extremely well.
Many details that one could take for granted in other books are omitted here. I won't go into them, simply because of the curious thrill that one experiences when one reaches the end of the book and realises, "Wait a minute, we never found that out!"
The setting is exceptionally realised, with a chilling Gothic atmosphere throughout. It's easy to spot tropes and vague clichés, but this is the great filmmaker Neil Jordan after all - they have been used for their artistic and atmospheric merit and not simply to bootleg the detective genre.
As for the plot - immensely thought-provoking. I think a side-effect of "thought-provoking" is a noticeable lack of explanation for some things, and that is certainly the case here - I had many unanswered questions at the end - but the ideas presented by the author are fascinating, and I personally think it was a very wise choice to let the reader interpret most of it for themselves. There is enough unravelling of the mystery, though, to keep the reader gripped throughout the whole second half of the book.
Overall, a wonderfully intriguing book, with a brilliantly creepy atmosphere, unique dialogue and a very engaging protagonist. Read and enjoy.
This has never been more true than in The Drowned Detective.
This novel is a strange one. It is primarily a dialogue-based novel, with little of what could traditionally be identified as "dialogue". It is a detective novel, with little of what could traditionally be identified as "detective-ing". And it is most importantly a human novel... with perhaps little of what could traditionally be identified as "human". It tells the story of Jonathan, a private investigator in an Eastern European city that seems always stranded on the brink of mass violence, as he tries to track a couple's daughter who disappeared years previously. In the course of his investigation, he impulsively saves a woman from drowning, but soon discovers that such a heroic act can change lives, relationships, and even the definition of reality for both better and worse.
This book has an awful lot going for it. Neil Jordan has got the cynical, dry tone of the detective first-person narrator absolutely perfect, and it is a joy to read.
This main character, Jonathan, is one of the most intriguing protagonists - if indeed he is a protagonist - that I have read about in a very long time. It is his novel, entirely. He is the novel. Literally.
As previously mentioned, he does odd things with his dialogue which require a slightly higher degree of concentration to understand, but nevertheless it works, and works extremely well.
Many details that one could take for granted in other books are omitted here. I won't go into them, simply because of the curious thrill that one experiences when one reaches the end of the book and realises, "Wait a minute, we never found that out!"
The setting is exceptionally realised, with a chilling Gothic atmosphere throughout. It's easy to spot tropes and vague clichés, but this is the great filmmaker Neil Jordan after all - they have been used for their artistic and atmospheric merit and not simply to bootleg the detective genre.
As for the plot - immensely thought-provoking. I think a side-effect of "thought-provoking" is a noticeable lack of explanation for some things, and that is certainly the case here - I had many unanswered questions at the end - but the ideas presented by the author are fascinating, and I personally think it was a very wise choice to let the reader interpret most of it for themselves. There is enough unravelling of the mystery, though, to keep the reader gripped throughout the whole second half of the book.
Overall, a wonderfully intriguing book, with a brilliantly creepy atmosphere, unique dialogue and a very engaging protagonist. Read and enjoy.
August 29, 2019
Really just absolutely bizarre and jumbled
August 19, 2016
Neil Jordan's spooky mystery, The Drowned Detective, is part detective novel and part ghost story. I kind of wish he would have just picked one or the other, because as a combination he only moderately succeeds in each genre.
Jonathan is a private detective living in what is probably a former Soviet state with his archaeologist wife who he suspects has recently been sleeping with his business partner. His tortured emotional condition over his unraveling marriage gets all tangled up in his search for a long-missing girl, and there's a maybe-psychic with quirky dog and a cello-playing beauty who both lead and follow him at various twists along the way.
Jordan is a respected writer but I found this book a challenge to read. The characters remained murky - and perhaps that was his intent, keep them foggy - and the plot was so humdrum at times that by the time The Big Reveal came along I didn't care as much as I would have liked to. It's not very long yet took me forever to read, but I think if I'd not been so busy the last few weeks I could have dedicated more time to it and enjoyed it more. 2.5 to 3 stars. So 2.75.
Jonathan is a private detective living in what is probably a former Soviet state with his archaeologist wife who he suspects has recently been sleeping with his business partner. His tortured emotional condition over his unraveling marriage gets all tangled up in his search for a long-missing girl, and there's a maybe-psychic with quirky dog and a cello-playing beauty who both lead and follow him at various twists along the way.
Jordan is a respected writer but I found this book a challenge to read. The characters remained murky - and perhaps that was his intent, keep them foggy - and the plot was so humdrum at times that by the time The Big Reveal came along I didn't care as much as I would have liked to. It's not very long yet took me forever to read, but I think if I'd not been so busy the last few weeks I could have dedicated more time to it and enjoyed it more. 2.5 to 3 stars. So 2.75.
July 14, 2019
I'd have thought Neil Jordan was successful enough that he could afford a keyboard with quotation marks. Maybe he just doesn't know how to make them appear. It's usually shift+2, Neil. Hope that helps.
Beyond that, oh, I don't know. The story didn't grab me, the characters seemed unending and unreal. I'm not sure what the point was, it seemed to be neither one thing nor the other, never quite to make its mind to on what it was going to be.
But, heavens, struggling through that whilst trying to keep tabs on what was narrative and what was dialogue, and if dialogue said by whom, or thought it written... it was exhausting and annoying. Quotation marks are pretty useful, it turns out. I can do without the needless affectation of dropping them.
Beyond that, oh, I don't know. The story didn't grab me, the characters seemed unending and unreal. I'm not sure what the point was, it seemed to be neither one thing nor the other, never quite to make its mind to on what it was going to be.
But, heavens, struggling through that whilst trying to keep tabs on what was narrative and what was dialogue, and if dialogue said by whom, or thought it written... it was exhausting and annoying. Quotation marks are pretty useful, it turns out. I can do without the needless affectation of dropping them.
October 4, 2016
Sorry, I did not get this book at all. Too much symbolism
or whatever. Paradoxically, I was entertained reading
it and wanted to (hoped to) find out if there was
something I would understand in the conclusion.
...
Did not happen. The book remains a puzzle in
my head even given other reviews and interpretations.
or whatever. Paradoxically, I was entertained reading
it and wanted to (hoped to) find out if there was
something I would understand in the conclusion.
...
Did not happen. The book remains a puzzle in
my head even given other reviews and interpretations.
October 18, 2016
This book begins with all the energy of a hand vacuum near the end of its battery life, and the pace doesn't quicken much from there. Unless choppy dialogue, no quotation marks, and short chapters grab your literary attention, this thin tome is not likely to end up in your year's end list of favorites. It is going in my "Lend - No Return Necessary" pile.
December 4, 2016
I lost patience with this book and its' odd style, but I did finish it. The shift from reality to time warp/fantasy was disconcerting, to say the least. The lack of quotations in conversations caused me to back up and count exchanges to figure out who was speaking. Not a pleasant read.
August 17, 2021
Not a detective novel, not a ghost story, not a love story..... A bit of a mishmash, rather slight, but quite elegant. Characters too bland, talking in a way no real person talks. A few gothically spooky moments, and a memorable clairvoyant with a dog. It didn't really come together until the end.
Read
May 23, 2016okay read, not one of the better ones i read in the past few years, the write up was better than the actual book
June 4, 2018
Beautifully written at times with themes, Bach, music, riots, water, detective yarn, crumbling civilisations and supernatural undercurrents reminding me of that film set in Venice with Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie "Don't Look Now".
Set in an Eastern European city, a family, husband, detective, Jonathan, wife, archaeologist, Sarah, young daughter with imaginary friends, Jenny. The husband and wife are close, in love even, but their intimacy is disrupted by the wife's affair with the husband's business partner and then by the husband's necrophiliac attachment to a musician who he meets when trying unsuccessfully to save her from drowning. This woman went missing when she was a child and the husband has been assigned by her parents to find her. The woman, Petra. was a cellist and the detective's daughter miraculously starts playing on her violin, which she is only learning to play, the Bachian suites which Petra used play. These supernatural associations are added to by other characters, a psychic, a therapist, and more mundane types such as Istavan, Jonathan's work colleague and Frank, his partner, who becomes involved with Sarah, his wife. So there is a confusion of purposes where Jonathan is trying to resolve at the same time, through the same means, the psychic, his search for the missing girl and his marital difficulties. Everything becomes intertwined and complicated particularly by the supernatural ingredient. And then there are the pussy riots between the androgynous rioters dressed in yellow pastel with yellow ski masks and the police in black which is a continual backdrop to the action.
Set in an Eastern European city, a family, husband, detective, Jonathan, wife, archaeologist, Sarah, young daughter with imaginary friends, Jenny. The husband and wife are close, in love even, but their intimacy is disrupted by the wife's affair with the husband's business partner and then by the husband's necrophiliac attachment to a musician who he meets when trying unsuccessfully to save her from drowning. This woman went missing when she was a child and the husband has been assigned by her parents to find her. The woman, Petra. was a cellist and the detective's daughter miraculously starts playing on her violin, which she is only learning to play, the Bachian suites which Petra used play. These supernatural associations are added to by other characters, a psychic, a therapist, and more mundane types such as Istavan, Jonathan's work colleague and Frank, his partner, who becomes involved with Sarah, his wife. So there is a confusion of purposes where Jonathan is trying to resolve at the same time, through the same means, the psychic, his search for the missing girl and his marital difficulties. Everything becomes intertwined and complicated particularly by the supernatural ingredient. And then there are the pussy riots between the androgynous rioters dressed in yellow pastel with yellow ski masks and the police in black which is a continual backdrop to the action.
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