Shear

by Tim Parks

In the hallucinatory light and heat of a Mediterranean island, a geologist arrives to inspect a granite quarry where a worker has been killed in suspicious circumstances. Briefed in advance to write a damning report, he brings along his young mistress and pushes his wife and family to the back of his mind. But his blithe plans are disrupted by the arrival of the dead man's widow, hell-bent on revenge; a fax from his wife announcing her pregnancy; and a threatening dispute with the quarry owners. Conflicting messages and complex motivations abound until, from the dust and roar of quarry and stone mill, the jagged contours of a harrowing conspiracy emerge. By the time the home office instructs him to drop the case, it is too late. He has already stumbled into a web of blackmail, deception, and murder. "Shear, " a geological term, occurs when "pressure is applied in at least two different and not diametrically opposite directions, " and in Shear Tim Parks has created a shattering portrait of a man confronting multiple forces and mounting obsessions. At stake is his marriage, his affair, his career, the life of an unborn child, his own life, and the lives of innocent people. Inevitably, all decisions and choices will emerge as suspect. Even integrity can be "just a cover for escape."

Genres: Fiction

216 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1993

About the author

Born in Manchester in 1954, Tim Parks grew up in London and studied at Cambridge and Harvard. In 1981 he moved to Italy where he has lived ever since, raising a family of three children. He has written fourteen novels including Europa (shortlisted for the Booker prize), Destiny, Cleaver, and most recently In Extremis.
During the nineties he wrote two, personal and highly popular accounts of his life in northern Italy, Italian Neighbours and An Italian Education. These were complemented in 2002 by A Season with Verona, a grand overview of Italian life as seen through the passion of football. Other non-fiction works include a history of the Medici bank in 15th century Florence, Medici Money and a memoir on health, illness and meditation, Teach Us to Sit Still. In 2013 Tim published his most recent non-fiction work on Italy, Italian Ways, on and off the rails from Milan to Palermo.
Aside from his own writing, Tim has translated works by Moravia, Calvino, Calasso, Machiavelli and Leopardi; his critical book, Translating Style is considered a classic in its field. He is presently working on a translation of Cesare Pavese's masterpiece, The Moon and the Bonfires.
A regular contributor to the New York Review of Books and the London Review of Books, his many essays are collected in Hell and Back, The Fighter, A Literary Tour of Italy, and Life and Work.
Over the last five years he has been publishing a series of blogs on writing, reading, translation and the like in the New York Review online. These have recently been collected in Where I am Reading From and Pen in Hand.

Reviews

[Hakan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tim Parks daha önce okumadığım bir yazar. Aslında epeydir Destiny’sini (Kader) arıyorum. Bir kitapçıda bu romanına (Shear; Türkçeye herhalde Kopma veya Kopuş olarak çevrilebilir) rastlayıp, konusu da ilgimi çekince almıştım.

Baş kahraman kırk yaşlarında bir jeolog. İtalya’daki bir granit madeninden çıkarılan bir parçanın yol açtığı kazanın sebeplerini araştırmak amacıyla gönderildiği madenin bulunduğu Akdeniz beldesinde geçirdiği beş günün hikayesi. Evli ve iki çocuk sahibi kahramanımız bu “iş seyahati”ne yirmilerindeki sevgilisiyle çıkıyor. Tabii olaylar planladığından çok farklı gelişiyor.

Romanda adeta bir Hitchcock filmi kıvamında sıkı bir gerilim de var. Evlilik ve aile yaşamının getirdiği rutini kırma, yeni ve genç bir insanla beraber olma heyecanı (adam kıza aşık ama, hakkını yemeyelim), bir yandan bunun yarattığı vicdan azabıyla mücadele gibi aslında biraz klişe görünen konular çok iyi, batmadan anlatılmış.

Keza, yapacağı araştırmanın ilgili şirketler bakımından sorun çıkarmayacak şekilde sonuçlandırılması için uğradığı baskılarla baş etme çabası da (bu arada bu “baskılar”da İtalyan patronun müthiş cazibeli kızı da kullanılıyor), vahşi kapitalizm eleştirisiylei yi işlenmiş.

Kitabın diğer bir ilginç yönü de, ana kahramanın mesleği ışığında jeoloji ile hayat arasında kurulan dikkate değer analojiler, parallelikler. İnsanı nerdeyse jeoloji okumaya teşvik ediyor.

Başta da söylediğim gibi, henüz tek kitabını okudum ama Tim Parks’ın Ian McEwan, Julian Barnes ayarında, insanların ruhuna nüfuz edebilen bir yazar olduğu anlaşılıyor.

[Simon newson · Rating 2 out of 5]

enough about rocks already

[Nick Davies · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not completely sure if this was brilliant, or a bit terrible. This relies to an extent on whether I attribute the narrative style to the author, or the character he is describing. Hard to explain, but I'm probably influenced by that to a large degree, and it's essentially an impossible question (answer = 'both').

I read an xkcd comic once about erotic geological terms. This novel preceded this comic, but has similar themes. Early on, our geologist protagonist makes comparisons between a woman's body and some rocks, and the same kind of metaphorical use is frequent throughout this short novel - which is essentially a bit of a conspiracy thriller with industrial espionage type vibes. It reminded me of John Fowles in places, very clever and interesting, but it spent its entirety tiptoeing along the border of funny/witty/clever and strayed in to the realm of ridiculous/cheesy on a number of occasions. For all that it was enjoyable, it did get overly sexist/xenophobic at times too.

Perhaps for these reasons as well as not connecting with the main character as much as I did in 'Europa' by the same author, I found this slightly less to my taste for all that I could appreciate the skill of the writing.

[Stephen · Rating 3 out of 5]

An easier read than some of Parks's foregoing stories, I enjoyed this mainly for its geological technicalities. Similar to Magnus Mills (whose 'The Restraint of Beasts' I've read more recently), Parks uses firsthand memories to illuminate the particularities of a niche professional sector. Whereas Mills gives us itinerant fence-builders, Parks plunges us into the dusty worlds of stone quarrying and geological surveying. There's plenty of rock-analysing jargon, which like Christie's understanding of the pharmacology of poisons, adds a forensic plausibility to the plot.

This being Parks, we get a death, and in the mould of the traditional murder mystery, we know about it early on. In this case it is more a manslaughter mystery as the crystalline instability in substandard rock is blamed for the death of a crane operative. His widow seeks answers, which is where 40-ish Peter Nicholson comes into the story. Flown over from the UK into the Mediterranean, Peter seeks to walk the line between competing demands as he prepares his investigative report.

This being Parks, we get an affair too, which allows this to be read as within the equally expansive cannon of late 20thC novels on negotiating middle-class infidelities. I found this angle less convincing. I couldn't fully fathom why the younger woman kept with Peter, or get a reading of emotional depth for either. That said, Iappreciated the intersecting plot lines as a means to deepen the plot dynamics. A story about rocks possibly also benefited from a lightening of interest on an emotional plane.

File next to the Divine Comedy's 'Cassenova' and/or hard rock.

[abby · Rating 1 out of 5]

it would seem that i am in constant competition with myself to read the most boring book known to man, and so far? this one takes the cake. men cheat, geologist studies rocks, corruption exists in the most minor and inconsequential way imaginable, and unreadable metaphors about the composition of rocks continue on and on and on and on and on

[Divlja Latica · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dok sam čitala knjigu delovala mi je dobro napisano do kraja, kraj mi je katastrofalan čemu ovo? I sad sam jako isfrustrirana ovom knjigom. Opis knjige po meni neadekvatan u odnosu na samu radnju. Previše strucnih termina za knjigu, mislim stvarno treba čovek biti geolog da bi razumeo neke delove. Stil pisanja mi se zapravo jako svidja i želela bih da pročitam od ovog pisca još nešto

[Maureen D. Hunter]

Terrible confusing ending

This book was disappointing, confusing and the ending was terrible. It did not live up to its expectations. What actually happened in the end? Did he know up?

[Ivana Antin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Since I do not condone adultery, the protagonist ended in too mild a manner.

Well written, a paradise book for geologists.

[Janice · Rating 4 out of 5]

I couldn’t put it down! I loved how the author created parallels between stone and life. I was a little baffled by the ending…. Didn’t see it coming.

[Kelly · Rating 1 out of 5]

Sometimes you start reading a book and at some point realize the time you've spent is time you'll never get back. I really try and finish the books I start but found absolutely nothing engaging about this book by the time I was at least a third through the text. Life's too short to continue. The basic comparison to how rocks split with events in the book just gets old quickly and the book is simply boring.