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The Beautiful Miscellaneous
Nathan Nelson is the average son of a genius. His father, a physicist of small renown, has prodded him toward greatness from an early age—enrolling him in whiz kid summer camps, taking him to the icy tundra of Canada to track a solar eclipse, and teaching him college algebra. But despite Samuel Nelson’s efforts, Nathan remains ordinary.
Then, in the summer of 1987, everything changes. While visiting his small-town grandfather in Michigan, Nathan is involved in a terrible accident. After a brief clinical death—which he later recalls as a lackluster affair lasting less than the length of a Top 40 pop song—he falls into a coma. When he awakens, Nathan finds that everyday life is radically different. His perceptions of sight, sound, and memory have been irrevocably changed. The doctors and his parents fear permanent brain damage. But the truth of his condition is more unexpected and leads to a renewed chance for Nathan to find his place in the world.
Thinking that his son’s altered brain is worthy of serious inquiry, Samuel arranges for Nathan to attend the Brook-Mills Institute, a Midwestern research center where savants, prodigies, and neurological misfits are studied and their specialties applied. Immersed in this strange atmosphere—where an autistic boy can tell you what day Christmas falls on in 3026 but can’t tie his shoelaces, where a medical intuitive can diagnose cancer during a long-distance phone call with a patient—Nathan begins to unravel the mysteries of his new mind. He also tries to make peace with the crushing weight of his father’s expectations.
The Beautiful Miscellaneous is an extraordinary follow-up to Dominic Smith’s critically acclaimed debut, The Mercury Visions of Louis Daguerre. This dazzling new novel explores the fault lines that can cause a family to drift apart and the unexpected events that can pull them back together.
Then, in the summer of 1987, everything changes. While visiting his small-town grandfather in Michigan, Nathan is involved in a terrible accident. After a brief clinical death—which he later recalls as a lackluster affair lasting less than the length of a Top 40 pop song—he falls into a coma. When he awakens, Nathan finds that everyday life is radically different. His perceptions of sight, sound, and memory have been irrevocably changed. The doctors and his parents fear permanent brain damage. But the truth of his condition is more unexpected and leads to a renewed chance for Nathan to find his place in the world.
Thinking that his son’s altered brain is worthy of serious inquiry, Samuel arranges for Nathan to attend the Brook-Mills Institute, a Midwestern research center where savants, prodigies, and neurological misfits are studied and their specialties applied. Immersed in this strange atmosphere—where an autistic boy can tell you what day Christmas falls on in 3026 but can’t tie his shoelaces, where a medical intuitive can diagnose cancer during a long-distance phone call with a patient—Nathan begins to unravel the mysteries of his new mind. He also tries to make peace with the crushing weight of his father’s expectations.
The Beautiful Miscellaneous is an extraordinary follow-up to Dominic Smith’s critically acclaimed debut, The Mercury Visions of Louis Daguerre. This dazzling new novel explores the fault lines that can cause a family to drift apart and the unexpected events that can pull them back together.
336 pages, Hardcover
First published May 21, 2007
53 people are currently reading
1085 people want to read
About the author
Dominic Smith
20 books665 followersDominic grew up in Sydney, Australia and now lives in Seattle, Washington. He is the author of five novels, including The Last Painting of Sara de Vos, a New York Times bestseller and a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice. Dominic's writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Chicago Tribune, Texas Monthly, The Australian, and The New York Times. He has received literature fellowships from the Australia Council for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts. He teaches writing in the Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers. More information can be found on his website: www.dominicsmith.net.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 155 reviews
August 1, 2017
There is so much to say about The Beautiful Miscellaneous yet I find myself struggling for words. I am no stranger to the work of Dominic Smith. Last year I read The Last Painting of Sara De Vos and absolutely loved it. The Beautiful Miscellaneous is not a new novel; it’s new to Australia, but it was actually published in the US in 2007. It’s interesting to note this, because you would think that being an earlier novel – I think this was his second – it wouldn’t be as good as his more recent work, but this is not the case.
I adored The Beautiful Miscellaneous. Really loved it in a want to see it turned into a movie and give every one of my friends a copy kind of way. It’s profound and touching and exquisitely written. Dominic Smith paints with words. He strings them together and creates a masterpiece that you can see and feel, the imagery is so vivid. I felt that with The Last Painting of Sara De Vos, and I felt that with The Beautiful Miscellaneous as well. It’s not something you can learn; you’re either a literary artist or you aren’t.
Very early on in this novel I had occasion to ponder over the prose.
“I wonder if we all carry our deaths packaged inside us – the time, the date, the manner – bundled and inert. Maybe what I carried all those years until the accident was not shrewd intelligence or the strange light of genius but the glimmer of my own death. Maybe that was what my parents were really looking at when they stared into my eyes and sensed something extraordinary.”
Nathan Nelson’s parents want him to be a genius. But he’s not. When he is seventeen, he is seriously injured in a car crash and he wakes up from a coma different. His brain is no longer the same. He’s developed what doctors suspect is a condition that attaches sensory experiences to his thoughts and consequently he has enhanced memory skills. His father now believes this is Nathan’s chance to be the genius he was always destined to be. Of course, without even reading the novel, you know this is not going to be the case, but that’s not the point. The point is the journey: the relationship between father and son, and the transition of Nathan from boyhood into adulthood. Both of these are defining factors of the novel, separate but also intertwined because Nathan’s relationship with his father, and his mother to a lesser extent, are serious inhibitors to his ability to grow up and get on with his life. We see this build throughout the novel and as Nathan’s life enters a stagnant phase, much to his mother’s distress, as an observer looking in from the outside, we see all the reasons why he reaches this point with perfect clarity and the deepest of sympathy.
There are shades of John Green that come through in this novel. Given this is the story of a seventeen-year-old boy, there are scenes that remind me a lot of Paper Towns, particularly those that include Nathan’s close friends. Dominic is spot on with the teenage wit and sarcasm, the emotional incompetence and the struggle of being loyal to your parents even when they are crushingly embarrassing. There is a scene towards the end of the novel when Toby, Nathan’s blind musical prodigy best friend, jumps up (carefully, because he’s blind) onto the roof of Nathan’s car. They are stuck in a traffic jam, caused by Nathan’s car stalling due to old age, and are being assaulted by a barrage of horns and insults. Toby stands on the roof of the offending vehicle and with his cane (remember that he’s blind) he begins to conduct the bleating horns. This is one of those scenes within a novel that you never forget. It’s brilliant, funny, poignant, all the things a memorable scene should be and it’s entirely representative of what this novel is all about.
I was a bit nervous about reading this novel, despite also being excited to have received it. I was concerned that it might be overly scientific, given that Nathan’s father is a physicist and the subject matter is all about kids who are gifted and geniuses. It does lean heavily into physics, but in an entirely accessible way, and I have to say that I simply do not understand physics at all, but I still wasn’t overwhelmed by the content of this novel and the inclusion of so much physics did nothing to detract from my enjoyment of the story. I can’t say I learnt anything physics related, my brain just seems to refuse the subject as if it’s a completely different language, but I sailed along happily just absorbing the details within the context they were intended.
After Nathan had his accident and his new memory skills emerged, Dominic Smith began to include throughout the text at key moments somewhat random facts that Nathan had memorised. Yet their randomness was very much by design; each ‘fact’ was directly linked to an emotion Nathan was feeling within that moment, ready for you to decode. I thoroughly enjoyed how Dominic did this. It was clever and complimentary and really stood out to me as a unique little ‘extra touch’.
To finish up with, I want to share this line, one of my favourite from the entire novel:
‘The night felt cracked open, alive with possibility.’
How divine. So much said with so little words, but like I said above, a literary artist. Dominic Smith is firmly cemented in as one of my favourite authors. After two exquisite reads, I have full certainty now that any novel of his that I pick up I am sure to enjoy. I highly recommend this novel to readers who appreciated stories about life, family relationships, friendship, love and the universe. It has all of this and more. It’s also set in 1987 and has some pretty cool 80s moments that fellow children from that era will appreciate.
Thanks is extended to Allen and Unwin for providing me with a copy of The Beautiful Miscellaneous for review.
I adored The Beautiful Miscellaneous. Really loved it in a want to see it turned into a movie and give every one of my friends a copy kind of way. It’s profound and touching and exquisitely written. Dominic Smith paints with words. He strings them together and creates a masterpiece that you can see and feel, the imagery is so vivid. I felt that with The Last Painting of Sara De Vos, and I felt that with The Beautiful Miscellaneous as well. It’s not something you can learn; you’re either a literary artist or you aren’t.
Very early on in this novel I had occasion to ponder over the prose.
“I wonder if we all carry our deaths packaged inside us – the time, the date, the manner – bundled and inert. Maybe what I carried all those years until the accident was not shrewd intelligence or the strange light of genius but the glimmer of my own death. Maybe that was what my parents were really looking at when they stared into my eyes and sensed something extraordinary.”
Nathan Nelson’s parents want him to be a genius. But he’s not. When he is seventeen, he is seriously injured in a car crash and he wakes up from a coma different. His brain is no longer the same. He’s developed what doctors suspect is a condition that attaches sensory experiences to his thoughts and consequently he has enhanced memory skills. His father now believes this is Nathan’s chance to be the genius he was always destined to be. Of course, without even reading the novel, you know this is not going to be the case, but that’s not the point. The point is the journey: the relationship between father and son, and the transition of Nathan from boyhood into adulthood. Both of these are defining factors of the novel, separate but also intertwined because Nathan’s relationship with his father, and his mother to a lesser extent, are serious inhibitors to his ability to grow up and get on with his life. We see this build throughout the novel and as Nathan’s life enters a stagnant phase, much to his mother’s distress, as an observer looking in from the outside, we see all the reasons why he reaches this point with perfect clarity and the deepest of sympathy.
There are shades of John Green that come through in this novel. Given this is the story of a seventeen-year-old boy, there are scenes that remind me a lot of Paper Towns, particularly those that include Nathan’s close friends. Dominic is spot on with the teenage wit and sarcasm, the emotional incompetence and the struggle of being loyal to your parents even when they are crushingly embarrassing. There is a scene towards the end of the novel when Toby, Nathan’s blind musical prodigy best friend, jumps up (carefully, because he’s blind) onto the roof of Nathan’s car. They are stuck in a traffic jam, caused by Nathan’s car stalling due to old age, and are being assaulted by a barrage of horns and insults. Toby stands on the roof of the offending vehicle and with his cane (remember that he’s blind) he begins to conduct the bleating horns. This is one of those scenes within a novel that you never forget. It’s brilliant, funny, poignant, all the things a memorable scene should be and it’s entirely representative of what this novel is all about.
I was a bit nervous about reading this novel, despite also being excited to have received it. I was concerned that it might be overly scientific, given that Nathan’s father is a physicist and the subject matter is all about kids who are gifted and geniuses. It does lean heavily into physics, but in an entirely accessible way, and I have to say that I simply do not understand physics at all, but I still wasn’t overwhelmed by the content of this novel and the inclusion of so much physics did nothing to detract from my enjoyment of the story. I can’t say I learnt anything physics related, my brain just seems to refuse the subject as if it’s a completely different language, but I sailed along happily just absorbing the details within the context they were intended.
After Nathan had his accident and his new memory skills emerged, Dominic Smith began to include throughout the text at key moments somewhat random facts that Nathan had memorised. Yet their randomness was very much by design; each ‘fact’ was directly linked to an emotion Nathan was feeling within that moment, ready for you to decode. I thoroughly enjoyed how Dominic did this. It was clever and complimentary and really stood out to me as a unique little ‘extra touch’.
To finish up with, I want to share this line, one of my favourite from the entire novel:
‘The night felt cracked open, alive with possibility.’
How divine. So much said with so little words, but like I said above, a literary artist. Dominic Smith is firmly cemented in as one of my favourite authors. After two exquisite reads, I have full certainty now that any novel of his that I pick up I am sure to enjoy. I highly recommend this novel to readers who appreciated stories about life, family relationships, friendship, love and the universe. It has all of this and more. It’s also set in 1987 and has some pretty cool 80s moments that fellow children from that era will appreciate.
Thanks is extended to Allen and Unwin for providing me with a copy of The Beautiful Miscellaneous for review.
July 25, 2008
I really, really liked this book to begin with, but it was kind of steadily downhill from the accident on (the turning point that takes place about a third of the way in). I actually wished I had stopped reading it, because the last third of the book was just disjointed and not nearly as well written as the first. It was an interesting premise, but the execution was lacking. I liked it much better when it was just the non-brilliant son trying to be happy with who he was. Anyway, I would not recommend this to my LDS friends, because the content toward the end wasn't really up to standards. Still, the first part was so well done (and totally clean) that it might be worth reading just that part and then stopping.
September 13, 2019
2.5★
Interesting idea, and I found the beginning interesting, but I didn't feel the second half was as good as the first half. The Last Painting of Sara de Vos was much better.
Interesting idea, and I found the beginning interesting, but I didn't feel the second half was as good as the first half. The Last Painting of Sara de Vos was much better.
June 8, 2014
"Later that night I drove home slowly in a light rain. The night felt cracked open, alive with possibility." One of many passages I underlined, I start with that because protagonist Nathan Nelson's experience in the car that night is just what this novel delivers to the reader. Aliveness with possibility.
Dominic Smith is my new favorite synesthesia writer. He has done a beautiful thing with this novel, incorporating numerous layers of "difference" into Nathan's unusual upbringing as the son of a brilliant (if awkward) particle physicist and a supremely patient homemaker.
As an adult he confesses, "Normal was something I knew nothing about. I'd grown up with a particle physicist, an astronaut, and a woman who kept house with the pluck and verve of a gymnast." At this stage, Nathan is desperate to fill in some gaps, hopefully to learn what a "normal" family might look like, even while the reader is desperate for Nathan to dig deeper into his own background and to uncover a few truths yet to be unearthed closer to home.
'The Beautiful Miscellaneous' features a teenage protagonist who aches to be more normal and at the same time, he wishes to be more unusual, more gifted, more likely to please his physicist father who's on the look-out from the time of his son's birth for proof of genius. However, Nathan suspects that his intelligence is only slightly above average, and as a result, he fears he will ultimately disappoint his father. In fact, as a boy, he tests the waters of disappointment by purposely losing a highly competitive science bee while his parents watch. The coming of age story Smith weaves into this novel is lovely. Nathan begins to understand his parents' personas through the clarity of youth, and part of the joy of this novel is witnessing the awkwardness of his parents' relationship with one another and with others. Collision is an important theme -- Nathan is nearly killed in a car accident that does kill his grandfather and induces Nathan's unusual synesthesia. But as much as collision is a theme, so too is an odd inability to connect, much less collide. Discovering Nathan's entree into adulthood through the awkwardness of missed connections is almost more powerful than the focus on accidental connections, induced collisions in physics, and crashes and conflicts in philosophy. Between father and son, we see miscommunication sometimes caused not by "mixed messages" but by "missed messages." Yet, by the novel's end, Smith delivers a clarifying view of Nathan's situation that sits well with the reader. Especially as Nathan's relationships evolve with highly gifted friends Teresa (who can see and diagnose disease) and Toby, a blind musical prodigy, this connection/collision/lack of connection theme comes to light.
In fact, light, darkness, and vision is another continuing trope. The ability to see at all, (Toby) see "through" or more deeply, (Teresa) see colors and sounds where others might not,(Nathan) or see from great distances (Whit, the malaprop-loving astronaut) are beautifully rendered. And we really can't help but fall in love with Nathan's dad, right alongside Nathan, as this young man finally figures out his father.
Grateful for the recommendation that led to me this one, I definitely will look for Dominic Smith's other works.
Dominic Smith is my new favorite synesthesia writer. He has done a beautiful thing with this novel, incorporating numerous layers of "difference" into Nathan's unusual upbringing as the son of a brilliant (if awkward) particle physicist and a supremely patient homemaker.
As an adult he confesses, "Normal was something I knew nothing about. I'd grown up with a particle physicist, an astronaut, and a woman who kept house with the pluck and verve of a gymnast." At this stage, Nathan is desperate to fill in some gaps, hopefully to learn what a "normal" family might look like, even while the reader is desperate for Nathan to dig deeper into his own background and to uncover a few truths yet to be unearthed closer to home.
'The Beautiful Miscellaneous' features a teenage protagonist who aches to be more normal and at the same time, he wishes to be more unusual, more gifted, more likely to please his physicist father who's on the look-out from the time of his son's birth for proof of genius. However, Nathan suspects that his intelligence is only slightly above average, and as a result, he fears he will ultimately disappoint his father. In fact, as a boy, he tests the waters of disappointment by purposely losing a highly competitive science bee while his parents watch. The coming of age story Smith weaves into this novel is lovely. Nathan begins to understand his parents' personas through the clarity of youth, and part of the joy of this novel is witnessing the awkwardness of his parents' relationship with one another and with others. Collision is an important theme -- Nathan is nearly killed in a car accident that does kill his grandfather and induces Nathan's unusual synesthesia. But as much as collision is a theme, so too is an odd inability to connect, much less collide. Discovering Nathan's entree into adulthood through the awkwardness of missed connections is almost more powerful than the focus on accidental connections, induced collisions in physics, and crashes and conflicts in philosophy. Between father and son, we see miscommunication sometimes caused not by "mixed messages" but by "missed messages." Yet, by the novel's end, Smith delivers a clarifying view of Nathan's situation that sits well with the reader. Especially as Nathan's relationships evolve with highly gifted friends Teresa (who can see and diagnose disease) and Toby, a blind musical prodigy, this connection/collision/lack of connection theme comes to light.
In fact, light, darkness, and vision is another continuing trope. The ability to see at all, (Toby) see "through" or more deeply, (Teresa) see colors and sounds where others might not,(Nathan) or see from great distances (Whit, the malaprop-loving astronaut) are beautifully rendered. And we really can't help but fall in love with Nathan's dad, right alongside Nathan, as this young man finally figures out his father.
Grateful for the recommendation that led to me this one, I definitely will look for Dominic Smith's other works.
January 9, 2008
This book had a lot of good momentum until the BIG event with the father (no spoiler here!). Then the author seemed to flail around in a lot of disconnected writing/flow ~ was this just the desperate cobbling together of an ending, or was this to reflect the main character's muddled thoughts that followed? I have no idea what the meanderings, cop encounter, or secret photographs have AT ALL to do with the story, and felt they were disjointed and unnecessary. Of course, he could not find the letter IMMEDIATELY after, but, still. I could predict how the book would end ~ and found that piece satisfying ~ but the getting there was tedious.
October 11, 2009
Nathan Nelson is, as a child, involved in a terrible car accident, dies briefly, and awakens from a coma “gifted” with synethesia (sort of like a permanent acid trip: hearing colors, tasting sounds, smelling television, etc.) and an Eidetic (or photographic) memory. His father Samuel had for years, to no avail, tried to coax out Nathan’s genius, only to discover that his son was average, normal, unremarkable.
But after the accident, Nathan’s parents send him to a special school for special children, including: a teenaged girl who is “medically intuitive” and can diagnose cancer, tumors, multiple sclerosis, by the tone/timbre of one’s voice; a blind, sex-obsessed piano prodigy; a savant who can’t tie his shoes but knows what day of the week 12 October 1843 fell on; and a man who replicates citiscapes in his head and then builds them.
The Beautiful Miscllaneous explores how the children’s gifts isolate them from the rest of the world, and how their parents’ expectations shape and preclude certain paths before they (the children) have any say in the matter. It’s a beautiful novel that verges on poetry at times, on account of the narrator’s synesthetic descriptions and the writer’s rhetorical brilliance. It is a novel about the Permanent Search, the sort of hyper-stringent expectations we have of life that preclude happiness and keep us forever Outside of what we need desperately to be In.
But after the accident, Nathan’s parents send him to a special school for special children, including: a teenaged girl who is “medically intuitive” and can diagnose cancer, tumors, multiple sclerosis, by the tone/timbre of one’s voice; a blind, sex-obsessed piano prodigy; a savant who can’t tie his shoes but knows what day of the week 12 October 1843 fell on; and a man who replicates citiscapes in his head and then builds them.
The Beautiful Miscllaneous explores how the children’s gifts isolate them from the rest of the world, and how their parents’ expectations shape and preclude certain paths before they (the children) have any say in the matter. It’s a beautiful novel that verges on poetry at times, on account of the narrator’s synesthetic descriptions and the writer’s rhetorical brilliance. It is a novel about the Permanent Search, the sort of hyper-stringent expectations we have of life that preclude happiness and keep us forever Outside of what we need desperately to be In.
June 11, 2007
This book has a really promising set-up: despite the teachings and urgings of his genius physicist father, 17-year-old Nathan has remained disappointingly average; then he survives a near-fatal car crash and in the process gets his brain rewired. The first hundred or so pages, the build-up to the accident you already know is going to occur, are like a pleasantly held breath, full of anticipation; unfortunately, once the accident happens, and Nathan—now gifted with synesthesia (one of my favorite rare-in-life-but-awesome-in-literature neurological phenomena!) and an accompanying enhanced memory—reenters the world, the book turns into a much more straightforward father-son narrative. It still contains a lot of beautiful imagery, but it's basically a coming-of-age story (it seriously almost-concludes with the protagonist losing his virginity), and it's not different enough to set it apart from the 85 billion other coming-of-age stories I've read.
May 1, 2024
Genius can arrive from across the void, Einsteins ideas existed in the unified field before he ever thought them. Nothing is created from scratch. We're conduits for the universes desire to think about itself. p209
Few things can be as onerous as a parents expectations, especially when those are high. If that parent happens to be a genius, it's only natural that kid is expected to perform,groomed for the job.
It's not that Nathan does not have his particular genius. Only in Nathan, the expression of his genius is more of a flair. He is a sweet guy, considerate and humble, if somewhat passive aggressive. He's a great friend.
Some are born with phenomenal talent; it wants to come out...the rest of us are born with hope. p120
Its not possible to predict what circumstances or accidents of fate will bring out latent and sometimes odd talents. It is not necessary to understand or even like physics to delight in this book.
Few things can be as onerous as a parents expectations, especially when those are high. If that parent happens to be a genius, it's only natural that kid is expected to perform,groomed for the job.
It's not that Nathan does not have his particular genius. Only in Nathan, the expression of his genius is more of a flair. He is a sweet guy, considerate and humble, if somewhat passive aggressive. He's a great friend.
Some are born with phenomenal talent; it wants to come out...the rest of us are born with hope. p120
Its not possible to predict what circumstances or accidents of fate will bring out latent and sometimes odd talents. It is not necessary to understand or even like physics to delight in this book.
June 20, 2007
I enjoyed this book enormously. The characters were vivid and the relationship between the father and the son was compelling. Really, it was a terrific novel. . .and a sign of that was that the day I was going to finish it, I was torn: I didn't want to stop reading but I also didn't want it to end. My one quibble: the book ends abruptly, I felt: the entire novel builds to a beautiful climax and then we are, all of the sudden, in the final chapter (really an epilogue), some years in the future and so much is tied up in two sentences here, three sentences there. I wish the novel had gone on a bit more. . .or perhaps ended with the penultimate chapter.
May 24, 2014
I liked this book - probably because I also had a particle physicist father (albeit not nearly as eccentric as this one) and I am also synesthetic. I liked the descriptions of synesthesia, they really rang true, which is difficult because it's so hard to capture the experience in words.
The relationships and characters are very real. I kind of wanted more, though, in terms of what happened with this gift in the protagonist's life.
The relationships and characters are very real. I kind of wanted more, though, in terms of what happened with this gift in the protagonist's life.
September 23, 2007
wow.
one of those books you can't stop thinking about.
an intriguing read.
I can't wait to pick it up and read it again.
one of those books you can't stop thinking about.
an intriguing read.
I can't wait to pick it up and read it again.
July 31, 2017
There is so much to say about The Beautiful Miscellaneous yet I find myself struggling for words. I am no stranger to the work of Dominic Smith. Last year I read The Last Painting of Sara De Vos and absolutely loved it. The Beautiful Miscellaneous is not a new novel; it’s new to Australia, but it was actually published in the US in 2007. It’s interesting to note this, because you would think that being an earlier novel – I think this was his second – it wouldn’t be as good as his more recent work, but this is not the case.
I adored The Beautiful Miscellaneous. Really loved it in a want to see it turned into a movie and give every one of my friends a copy kind of way. It’s profound and touching and exquisitely written. Dominic Smith paints with words. He strings them together and creates a masterpiece that you can see and feel, the imagery is so vivid. I felt that with The Last Painting of Sara De Vos, and I felt that with The Beautiful Miscellaneous as well. It’s not something you can learn; you’re either a literary artist or you aren’t.
Very early on in this novel I had occasion to ponder over the prose.
“I wonder if we all carry our deaths packaged inside us – the time, the date, the manner – bundled and inert. Maybe what I carried all those years until the accident was not shrewd intelligence or the strange light of genius but the glimmer of my own death. Maybe that was what my parents were really looking at when they stared into my eyes and sensed something extraordinary.”
Nathan Nelson’s parents want him to be a genius. But he’s not. When he is seventeen, he is seriously injured in a car crash and he wakes up from a coma different. His brain is no longer the same. He’s developed what doctors suspect is a condition that attaches sensory experiences to his thoughts and consequently he has enhanced memory skills. His father now believes this is Nathan’s chance to be the genius he was always destined to be. Of course, without even reading the novel, you know this is not going to be the case, but that’s not the point. The point is the journey: the relationship between father and son, and the transition of Nathan from boyhood into adulthood. Both of these are defining factors of the novel, separate but also intertwined because Nathan’s relationship with his father, and his mother to a lesser extent, are serious inhibitors to his ability to grow up and get on with his life. We see this build throughout the novel and as Nathan’s life enters a stagnant phase, much to his mother’s distress, as an observer looking in from the outside, we see all the reasons why he reaches this point with perfect clarity and the deepest of sympathy.
There are shades of John Green that come through in this novel. Given this is the story of a seventeen-year-old boy, there are scenes that remind me a lot of Paper Towns, particularly those that include Nathan’s close friends. Dominic is spot on with the teenage wit and sarcasm, the emotional incompetence and the struggle of being loyal to your parents even when they are crushingly embarrassing. There is a scene towards the end of the novel when Toby, Nathan’s blind musical prodigy best friend, jumps up (carefully, because he’s blind) onto the roof of Nathan’s car. They are stuck in a traffic jam, caused by Nathan’s car stalling due to old age, and are being assaulted by a barrage of horns and insults. Toby stands on the roof of the offending vehicle and with his cane (remember that he’s blind) he begins to conduct the bleating horns. This is one of those scenes within a novel that you never forget. It’s brilliant, funny, poignant, all the things a memorable scene should be and it’s entirely representative of what this novel is all about.
I was a bit nervous about reading this novel, despite also being excited to have received it. I was concerned that it might be overly scientific, given that Nathan’s father is a physicist and the subject matter is all about kids who are gifted and geniuses. It does lean heavily into physics, but in an entirely accessible way, and I have to say that I simply do not understand physics at all, but I still wasn’t overwhelmed by the content of this novel and the inclusion of so much physics did nothing to detract from my enjoyment of the story. I can’t say I learnt anything physics related, my brain just seems to refuse the subject as if it’s a completely different language, but I sailed along happily just absorbing the details within the context they were intended.
After Nathan had his accident and his new memory skills emerged, Dominic Smith began to include throughout the text at key moments somewhat random facts that Nathan had memorised. Yet their randomness was very much by design; each ‘fact’ was directly linked to an emotion Nathan was feeling within that moment, ready for you to decode. I thoroughly enjoyed how Dominic did this. It was clever and complimentary and really stood out to me as a unique little ‘extra touch’.
To finish up with, I want to share this line, one of my favourite from the entire novel:
‘The night felt cracked open, alive with possibility.’
How divine. So much said with so little words, but like I said above, a literary artist. Dominic Smith is firmly cemented in as one of my favourite authors. After two exquisite reads, I have full certainty now that any novel of his that I pick up I am sure to enjoy. I highly recommend this novel to readers who appreciated stories about life, family relationships, friendship, love and the universe. It has all of this and more. It’s also set in 1987 and has some pretty cool 80s moments that fellow children from that era will appreciate.
Thanks is extended to Allen and Unwin for providing me with a copy of The Beautiful Miscellaneous for review.
I adored The Beautiful Miscellaneous. Really loved it in a want to see it turned into a movie and give every one of my friends a copy kind of way. It’s profound and touching and exquisitely written. Dominic Smith paints with words. He strings them together and creates a masterpiece that you can see and feel, the imagery is so vivid. I felt that with The Last Painting of Sara De Vos, and I felt that with The Beautiful Miscellaneous as well. It’s not something you can learn; you’re either a literary artist or you aren’t.
Very early on in this novel I had occasion to ponder over the prose.
“I wonder if we all carry our deaths packaged inside us – the time, the date, the manner – bundled and inert. Maybe what I carried all those years until the accident was not shrewd intelligence or the strange light of genius but the glimmer of my own death. Maybe that was what my parents were really looking at when they stared into my eyes and sensed something extraordinary.”
Nathan Nelson’s parents want him to be a genius. But he’s not. When he is seventeen, he is seriously injured in a car crash and he wakes up from a coma different. His brain is no longer the same. He’s developed what doctors suspect is a condition that attaches sensory experiences to his thoughts and consequently he has enhanced memory skills. His father now believes this is Nathan’s chance to be the genius he was always destined to be. Of course, without even reading the novel, you know this is not going to be the case, but that’s not the point. The point is the journey: the relationship between father and son, and the transition of Nathan from boyhood into adulthood. Both of these are defining factors of the novel, separate but also intertwined because Nathan’s relationship with his father, and his mother to a lesser extent, are serious inhibitors to his ability to grow up and get on with his life. We see this build throughout the novel and as Nathan’s life enters a stagnant phase, much to his mother’s distress, as an observer looking in from the outside, we see all the reasons why he reaches this point with perfect clarity and the deepest of sympathy.
There are shades of John Green that come through in this novel. Given this is the story of a seventeen-year-old boy, there are scenes that remind me a lot of Paper Towns, particularly those that include Nathan’s close friends. Dominic is spot on with the teenage wit and sarcasm, the emotional incompetence and the struggle of being loyal to your parents even when they are crushingly embarrassing. There is a scene towards the end of the novel when Toby, Nathan’s blind musical prodigy best friend, jumps up (carefully, because he’s blind) onto the roof of Nathan’s car. They are stuck in a traffic jam, caused by Nathan’s car stalling due to old age, and are being assaulted by a barrage of horns and insults. Toby stands on the roof of the offending vehicle and with his cane (remember that he’s blind) he begins to conduct the bleating horns. This is one of those scenes within a novel that you never forget. It’s brilliant, funny, poignant, all the things a memorable scene should be and it’s entirely representative of what this novel is all about.
I was a bit nervous about reading this novel, despite also being excited to have received it. I was concerned that it might be overly scientific, given that Nathan’s father is a physicist and the subject matter is all about kids who are gifted and geniuses. It does lean heavily into physics, but in an entirely accessible way, and I have to say that I simply do not understand physics at all, but I still wasn’t overwhelmed by the content of this novel and the inclusion of so much physics did nothing to detract from my enjoyment of the story. I can’t say I learnt anything physics related, my brain just seems to refuse the subject as if it’s a completely different language, but I sailed along happily just absorbing the details within the context they were intended.
After Nathan had his accident and his new memory skills emerged, Dominic Smith began to include throughout the text at key moments somewhat random facts that Nathan had memorised. Yet their randomness was very much by design; each ‘fact’ was directly linked to an emotion Nathan was feeling within that moment, ready for you to decode. I thoroughly enjoyed how Dominic did this. It was clever and complimentary and really stood out to me as a unique little ‘extra touch’.
To finish up with, I want to share this line, one of my favourite from the entire novel:
‘The night felt cracked open, alive with possibility.’
How divine. So much said with so little words, but like I said above, a literary artist. Dominic Smith is firmly cemented in as one of my favourite authors. After two exquisite reads, I have full certainty now that any novel of his that I pick up I am sure to enjoy. I highly recommend this novel to readers who appreciated stories about life, family relationships, friendship, love and the universe. It has all of this and more. It’s also set in 1987 and has some pretty cool 80s moments that fellow children from that era will appreciate.
Thanks is extended to Allen and Unwin for providing me with a copy of The Beautiful Miscellaneous for review.
May 5, 2023
"Some are born with genius, others are born with hope." But what is genius? Nathan's father, a physicist, senses that "we're conduits for the universe's desire to think about itself." In his view, genius is an enhanced capability to act as "a portal" for accessing all that objective reality. Also, genius comes with a responsibility to "tap it, tame it, use it."
All well and good, perhaps, but Nathan has grown up with his father's expectation that simple proximity to the old man, if not heredity, must have sparked genius in him, whereas in his own estimation that is not the case. Early on in this story, I was recalling a scene from Death of a Salesman in which Biff breaks the news to his disbelieving father: "Pop! I'm a dime a dozen."
Of course, Nathan is not a dime a dozen. He's intelligent, thoughtful, sensitive. He just doesn't particularly care about subatomic particles and all the other arcane stuff with which his dad is obsessed. For Nathan, the problem isn't just that he might prefer a day at a theme park over a tour of the Stanford Linear Accelerator; the thing that frustrates him beyond words is his dad's obliviousness.
Then, when he's out for a Sunday drive with his grandfather, everything changes. He's seriously injured in a perhaps metaphorical head-on collision with a truck, and comes out of a coma with an altered brain. No, to his father's disappointment, he is still not exactly a genius, but he has acquired a condition called synesthesia, and with it a phenomenal memory. This leads to his placement in a residential program with a small number of other young people who have various (or "miscellaneous") rare gifts.
Again, from the father's perspective, any such abilities should be used constructively. Being able to recite entire episodes of old tv shows like "Get Smart" is far from acceptable. Even knowing a vast number of random facts, such as the highest recorded decibel value of the human voice, is of no discernable value.
This is an unusual coming-of-age story. Nathan has his own path to follow, as do his peers, and ultimately the older generation has little to say about it. That part is just natural. Having grown up myself, and having fathered three kids, I recognize a lot of this. And yet, there are moments when the story could easily have drifted into very hackneyed territory, e.g., boilerplate scenes involving teenage sex—and it always avoided that trap. In other words, I was often pleasantly surprised.
This write-up doesn't do justice to the novel's themes, one of which questions the nature of God in a universe that supposedly wants to think about itself. Nathan's father is not at all religious, and yet it seems he has written a letter to God (the "Meta-intelligence"). Nathan enters adulthood obsessed not with particle physics but with sorrow over not having been the son his father wanted. He channels that frustrated energy into his own fundamental questions. A colleague shares a view that's a counterpoint to Nathan's father's: "What matters is the knower—the witness of the knowledge."
That, I think, is key. It's admirable to pursue knowledge of the inner workings of the universe, but ultimately, as with seeking to know God, one falls short. That's not cause for despair. We can't understand or control everything, but with wisdom we can perhaps modulate some of it (miscellaneous bits). I want to read more by this author.
All well and good, perhaps, but Nathan has grown up with his father's expectation that simple proximity to the old man, if not heredity, must have sparked genius in him, whereas in his own estimation that is not the case. Early on in this story, I was recalling a scene from Death of a Salesman in which Biff breaks the news to his disbelieving father: "Pop! I'm a dime a dozen."
Of course, Nathan is not a dime a dozen. He's intelligent, thoughtful, sensitive. He just doesn't particularly care about subatomic particles and all the other arcane stuff with which his dad is obsessed. For Nathan, the problem isn't just that he might prefer a day at a theme park over a tour of the Stanford Linear Accelerator; the thing that frustrates him beyond words is his dad's obliviousness.
Then, when he's out for a Sunday drive with his grandfather, everything changes. He's seriously injured in a perhaps metaphorical head-on collision with a truck, and comes out of a coma with an altered brain. No, to his father's disappointment, he is still not exactly a genius, but he has acquired a condition called synesthesia, and with it a phenomenal memory. This leads to his placement in a residential program with a small number of other young people who have various (or "miscellaneous") rare gifts.
Again, from the father's perspective, any such abilities should be used constructively. Being able to recite entire episodes of old tv shows like "Get Smart" is far from acceptable. Even knowing a vast number of random facts, such as the highest recorded decibel value of the human voice, is of no discernable value.
This is an unusual coming-of-age story. Nathan has his own path to follow, as do his peers, and ultimately the older generation has little to say about it. That part is just natural. Having grown up myself, and having fathered three kids, I recognize a lot of this. And yet, there are moments when the story could easily have drifted into very hackneyed territory, e.g., boilerplate scenes involving teenage sex—and it always avoided that trap. In other words, I was often pleasantly surprised.
This write-up doesn't do justice to the novel's themes, one of which questions the nature of God in a universe that supposedly wants to think about itself. Nathan's father is not at all religious, and yet it seems he has written a letter to God (the "Meta-intelligence"). Nathan enters adulthood obsessed not with particle physics but with sorrow over not having been the son his father wanted. He channels that frustrated energy into his own fundamental questions. A colleague shares a view that's a counterpoint to Nathan's father's: "What matters is the knower—the witness of the knowledge."
That, I think, is key. It's admirable to pursue knowledge of the inner workings of the universe, but ultimately, as with seeking to know God, one falls short. That's not cause for despair. We can't understand or control everything, but with wisdom we can perhaps modulate some of it (miscellaneous bits). I want to read more by this author.
August 30, 2019
A Dominic Smith moment is a good moment, a very good moment. I finished The Beautiful Miscellaneous a couple of days ago but it has taken me a little time to reflect before I could launch into reviewing such a sublime piece of writing. Unlike the previous two Smith novels I have read that delve into history, facts and detail this novel is more about the human condition and how fraught things can be when children don't measure up to their parents expectations. The misunderstandings and the anxiety caused by the pressure of living a life that is not necessarily who you are, realising the wavelengths between parent and child are definitely not on the same frequency even if you work hard to make them so.
What is the most heartfelt beautiful moment is when Nathan realised something about his father, that 'most of the time he was a ghost, even when he lived with us. But he tried in his own way, as best he could'. This was pivotal and moving. In grief comes resolution and understanding and the sense that is ok to make the journey in your own way and you can make sense of it all. You can appreciate the person too for who they were even if you didn't really understand them at the time, the control they had on you and how much they wanted to make things happen that were never to be.
So much to love about this novel, the dreams and desires, the heart-wrenching disappointments and the failings and the wonderment and curiosity of growing up. But most of all the inexplicable infallibility between a father and son.
What is the most heartfelt beautiful moment is when Nathan realised something about his father, that 'most of the time he was a ghost, even when he lived with us. But he tried in his own way, as best he could'. This was pivotal and moving. In grief comes resolution and understanding and the sense that is ok to make the journey in your own way and you can make sense of it all. You can appreciate the person too for who they were even if you didn't really understand them at the time, the control they had on you and how much they wanted to make things happen that were never to be.
So much to love about this novel, the dreams and desires, the heart-wrenching disappointments and the failings and the wonderment and curiosity of growing up. But most of all the inexplicable infallibility between a father and son.
December 12, 2017
Dad wants his son to be a genius, but he isn't, until a car wreck changes things. Decent book, especially the parts about the relationship between people.
September 5, 2018
I am enjoying ALL of Dominic Smith’s books so far!
April 21, 2020
I enjoyed this book about a boy's relationship with his parents, but particularly with his scientifically gifted father and his expectations for his more academically challenged son.
While the book never reached the heights of Sara de Vos or Louis Daguerre, the superior writing and language skills of Dominic Smith bring the story to life and make it a pleasure to read.
While the book never reached the heights of Sara de Vos or Louis Daguerre, the superior writing and language skills of Dominic Smith bring the story to life and make it a pleasure to read.
June 9, 2018
"...people selling yard shadows from trailers..."
"We drove past farms that had now thinned to five-acre plots, pottery sheds with homemade signs, people selling yard shadows from trailers, a string of self-storage businesses, an attack-dog training academy."
"Are these elements of the whole or elements of the uncategorized, members of the miscellaneous? Not just appealing mysteries, either. The fatal plane crashes, the atomic babies with multiple organs, the fact that every one of us knows good people who meet with cruel and unusual punishment at the hands of the clock of fate. Surely, there is randomness. And information cascades with a life of its own; it's not out there waiting for the grand interpretation, it's weaving stories, showing up to the party of the living like a man with scraps of paper in his pockets."
"We drove past farms that had now thinned to five-acre plots, pottery sheds with homemade signs, people selling yard shadows from trailers, a string of self-storage businesses, an attack-dog training academy."
"Are these elements of the whole or elements of the uncategorized, members of the miscellaneous? Not just appealing mysteries, either. The fatal plane crashes, the atomic babies with multiple organs, the fact that every one of us knows good people who meet with cruel and unusual punishment at the hands of the clock of fate. Surely, there is randomness. And information cascades with a life of its own; it's not out there waiting for the grand interpretation, it's weaving stories, showing up to the party of the living like a man with scraps of paper in his pockets."
May 14, 2017
The feeling this book gave me is a kind of breathless sadness. Nathan tells his story in a sort of removed narrating with occasional sparking sentences like fireworks. I feel like I see into his world and feel as he does as I turn the pages and isn't that why we read books in the first place?
I felt like this story is pretty relatable. We all have someone close to us who lives in their own world and have times when we just can't understand a parent or two. Probably the most relatable thing though is how lost Nathan was throughout the whole book. As a child, he did everything his parents told him to do then as he became older, he became more rebellious and began to look for his own pathway. It can be hard sometime and you can feel like maybe there isn't anything for you after all, that the universe made a mistake and you just happen to be the odd piece out, the one whose life doesn't have meaning or purpose but eventually, he found something he liked to do. Just kinda wished the author had continued about with that. What was his life like in the future? Was he happy? Did he find someone he could share his world with?
I felt like this story is pretty relatable. We all have someone close to us who lives in their own world and have times when we just can't understand a parent or two. Probably the most relatable thing though is how lost Nathan was throughout the whole book. As a child, he did everything his parents told him to do then as he became older, he became more rebellious and began to look for his own pathway. It can be hard sometime and you can feel like maybe there isn't anything for you after all, that the universe made a mistake and you just happen to be the odd piece out, the one whose life doesn't have meaning or purpose but eventually, he found something he liked to do. Just kinda wished the author had continued about with that. What was his life like in the future? Was he happy? Did he find someone he could share his world with?
July 30, 2008
I agree with a lot of the other comments on this book. I only made it to halfway in... and what a beautiful half a book it was!
I laughed out loud at various parts of the book - usually they involved the description of the narrator's exceptionally dorky father - or should I say "socially challenged." The author excelled so well at constructing a character without going through the motions of telling you about the character. Example: he didn't write, "the dad is dorky," but he told you about all of these hilarious, but believable instances where the dad just didn't get how your average non-genius acted. I loved this! In fact, I'd recommend reading the beginning part of the book only for that.
But once the plot changed and the stilted teenage romance and dialogue started showing up, I put the book down. I feel bad for doing that, and maybe someday I'll stick it out just to say I've read the whole thing. For now, I still recommend Part 1, and I'm not ruling out reading more books from this author!
I laughed out loud at various parts of the book - usually they involved the description of the narrator's exceptionally dorky father - or should I say "socially challenged." The author excelled so well at constructing a character without going through the motions of telling you about the character. Example: he didn't write, "the dad is dorky," but he told you about all of these hilarious, but believable instances where the dad just didn't get how your average non-genius acted. I loved this! In fact, I'd recommend reading the beginning part of the book only for that.
But once the plot changed and the stilted teenage romance and dialogue started showing up, I put the book down. I feel bad for doing that, and maybe someday I'll stick it out just to say I've read the whole thing. For now, I still recommend Part 1, and I'm not ruling out reading more books from this author!
September 12, 2018
I was blown away by this story.
I can’t imagine how Dominic Smith found all those brilliant words.
The people in the book were all so interesting. I cared so much for all of them.
It is basically about a Dad who is a physicist totally immersed in his subject.
He is certain that if he tries hard his son Nathan will be a genius.
But despite his efforts he remains ordinary.
This will make you sad, make you laugh and the worst is that you will get to the end and have to leave all these wonderful people behind.
I can’t imagine how Dominic Smith found all those brilliant words.
The people in the book were all so interesting. I cared so much for all of them.
It is basically about a Dad who is a physicist totally immersed in his subject.
He is certain that if he tries hard his son Nathan will be a genius.
But despite his efforts he remains ordinary.
This will make you sad, make you laugh and the worst is that you will get to the end and have to leave all these wonderful people behind.
February 18, 2008
This book is simply solid. I won't ever read it again and probably won't recommend it to many, if any, but I appreciate having read it and the characters left a well enough imprint in my memory for me to write about the book here.
As a story honestly portraying families and how a child struggles to be his/her own person in the midst of strongly willed parents, this story is well done.
As a story honestly portraying families and how a child struggles to be his/her own person in the midst of strongly willed parents, this story is well done.
July 6, 2008
A good premise, heartwringing characters, a good turn of phrase here and there, but overall, there wasn't anything binding it all together. I get the feeling this is one of those books that could have been amazing, but just...wasn't
September 24, 2007
Amazing. Beautiful. Random. And once more with the quantum theory theme that seems to keep cropping up in everything I read from fairy tales to mysteries to regular old fiction.
December 24, 2007
ok but I set it down and never picked it up again...
May 11, 2025
Almost captivating.
This book has a lot of elements that should be really intriguing, but page after page, failed to excite me or deliver any real insight. I kept wanting to like the story in front of me, because it included many elements that I appreciate: highly descriptive writing, intellectual detail, and the motley cast of characters: a Stanford genius, a bohemian housewife, a down-to-earth astronaut, an angsty clairvoyant, and the protagonist himself, Nathan, a young man who develops synesthesia and incredible memory. The plot also has a good arc, but felt like it never peaked - like it was so close to something happening that never really hit home. The motifs of facts and trivia seemed like they should have given more fun and flavor to the story, but I honestly feel like the author did not choose these facts very intentionally. I would have liked to feel like I actually learned something and experienced how these details tied into the story.
The romantic backstory between Nathan and Teresa was also incredibly lackluster. It should have been really fun to read, two outcast genius teenagers having lusty after-dark rendezvous. Instead it was genuinely boring. It was a conundrum to me, because the writing is good throughout, but somehow the emotion in these scenes falls flat.
My biggest complaint about this book relates to the science. This is the second time I have read a science-themed novel that felt poorly researched. Essentially trying to stamp superficial and cliche ideas about a field onto the page, with clearly little understanding of what that field is really like. Physics terms are thrown around, quantum this, accelerator that. But it feels very false, and as a result the father in the book does not seem like a real, believable character. As someone who is in the sciences, it is obvious to me that real researchers are incredibly specific in their focus, and if Samuel's work had been well-staged as a real topic of study for the time period (1980s), it would have been far more fascinating. That time period was marked by a Nobel prize for the Muon Neutrino and as well as a discovery of W and Z bosons, that served to unify electromagnetism and weak force. Real researchers are the opposite of vague, but Samuel's work, so central to the storyline, is utterly nebulous, like the ghost particle he is apparently seeking.
Overall I wanted to enjoy this book, but it never grabbed my attention, despite 100 reasons that it should have. I can see the author's skill in writing, and developing a good plot, but something was out of balance in the storytelling and authenticity of the work.
This book has a lot of elements that should be really intriguing, but page after page, failed to excite me or deliver any real insight. I kept wanting to like the story in front of me, because it included many elements that I appreciate: highly descriptive writing, intellectual detail, and the motley cast of characters: a Stanford genius, a bohemian housewife, a down-to-earth astronaut, an angsty clairvoyant, and the protagonist himself, Nathan, a young man who develops synesthesia and incredible memory. The plot also has a good arc, but felt like it never peaked - like it was so close to something happening that never really hit home. The motifs of facts and trivia seemed like they should have given more fun and flavor to the story, but I honestly feel like the author did not choose these facts very intentionally. I would have liked to feel like I actually learned something and experienced how these details tied into the story.
The romantic backstory between Nathan and Teresa was also incredibly lackluster. It should have been really fun to read, two outcast genius teenagers having lusty after-dark rendezvous. Instead it was genuinely boring. It was a conundrum to me, because the writing is good throughout, but somehow the emotion in these scenes falls flat.
My biggest complaint about this book relates to the science. This is the second time I have read a science-themed novel that felt poorly researched. Essentially trying to stamp superficial and cliche ideas about a field onto the page, with clearly little understanding of what that field is really like. Physics terms are thrown around, quantum this, accelerator that. But it feels very false, and as a result the father in the book does not seem like a real, believable character. As someone who is in the sciences, it is obvious to me that real researchers are incredibly specific in their focus, and if Samuel's work had been well-staged as a real topic of study for the time period (1980s), it would have been far more fascinating. That time period was marked by a Nobel prize for the Muon Neutrino and as well as a discovery of W and Z bosons, that served to unify electromagnetism and weak force. Real researchers are the opposite of vague, but Samuel's work, so central to the storyline, is utterly nebulous, like the ghost particle he is apparently seeking.
Overall I wanted to enjoy this book, but it never grabbed my attention, despite 100 reasons that it should have. I can see the author's skill in writing, and developing a good plot, but something was out of balance in the storytelling and authenticity of the work.
September 17, 2017
Thank you to Goodreads and Allen and Unwin for the free copy of this enjoyable novel.
I was torn between a 3 or a 4 star rating and opted for 3. The first half of this book had me well and truly invested in the story. The relationship between Nathan and his socially awkward physicist father was frequently very funny and extremely well written. Nathan's father's well intentioned but seriously misguided attempts to coax the genius out of his son was equal parts sad, poignant and funny. The momentum of the novel faltered slightly when Nathan was sent to the research school for gifted children as I was particularly enjoying the father son relationship to that point. However the relationships that Nathan develops with some of the other gifted children was still very well realised, particularly his developing friendship with Toby and Teresa. The novel slightly unravelled for me with Nathan's decent into what was at one point described as a nervous breakdown, following a significant event in the family. It seemed to drift somewhat, perhaps to represent Nathan's sense of being lost. Overall I did enjoy this exceptionally well written book where the author clearly had a good knowledge of particle physics outside of his extensive research.
I was torn between a 3 or a 4 star rating and opted for 3. The first half of this book had me well and truly invested in the story. The relationship between Nathan and his socially awkward physicist father was frequently very funny and extremely well written. Nathan's father's well intentioned but seriously misguided attempts to coax the genius out of his son was equal parts sad, poignant and funny. The momentum of the novel faltered slightly when Nathan was sent to the research school for gifted children as I was particularly enjoying the father son relationship to that point. However the relationships that Nathan develops with some of the other gifted children was still very well realised, particularly his developing friendship with Toby and Teresa. The novel slightly unravelled for me with Nathan's decent into what was at one point described as a nervous breakdown, following a significant event in the family. It seemed to drift somewhat, perhaps to represent Nathan's sense of being lost. Overall I did enjoy this exceptionally well written book where the author clearly had a good knowledge of particle physics outside of his extensive research.
December 24, 2017
This book started out with an interesting concept: a genius physicist expects his child to be gifted as well, goading him to practice math, to go to science camps, to be as brilliant as himself. The son, Nathan, is simply average, and grows up considering himself a disappointment. Then one day Nathan suffers a head injury in a car accident and develops a photographic memory and synesthesia: the extraordinary ability to taste words and feel colors. So far so good, especially because Dominic Smith is an excellent writer and his narrative is vividly descriptive. I was intrigued by how his newfound gift would satisfy his father's expectations, and curious about the phenomenon of synesthesia... but then Smith took the story in other less interesting directions, taking unnecessary detours and adding irrelevant characters. Sadly, the story unfolded much as Nathan did: in a bland, average way.
I am still a fan of Dominic Smith, though, especially after reading his "The Last Painting of Sara De Vos", which was a jewel.
I am still a fan of Dominic Smith, though, especially after reading his "The Last Painting of Sara De Vos", which was a jewel.
September 24, 2018
I absolutely loved the book! As a lover of philosophy and consideration on many topics, I found Dominic Smith to be incredibly insightful on the small/miscellaneous factors of life that he seems to unveil through the character's experience. The book begins with a small boy, making an attempt to live up to his own shadow. His father, a genius theoretical physicist, is attributed with all of the psychological traits one might expect. One of these traits, is unrealistically high expectations for his son. His son, who cannot seem to develop his aspired intellectual capabilities, is just normal, however. Maybe a little gifted, but nowhere near the expected. On a brief road trip to his grandfather's, he experiences a trauma that develops a condition called synesthesia within his senses. This renders him capable of extraordinary feats with his memory. With this provocation, his father sends him to a school for the exceptionally talented. When his unloving father is found to have a three inch brain tumor, the beautiful miscellaneuos comes to light.
August 27, 2017
I received this book for free in a goodreads giveaway. Not an ARC or new release like usual--this book is ten years old--but a rerelease no doubt due to the author's successful last novel, The Last Painting of Sara de Vos.
And though it's not in dire need of my review, there being over a hundred here already, I will say that I enjoyed this far more than I thought I would, given how it opens. When characters start talking about when and where they were born, what their parents were like, etc., my interest usually starts fading away. But I don't abandon books, not usually, and I'm glad I didn't this time, for The Beautiful Miscellaneous becomes, well, almost beautiful at points, as the slow passage of years gives the characters time to feel lived-in and rounded, their edges blurred into their environment. From a little before the halfway point, I found myself reading the book in huge chunks, but not speedily, instead lingering over the growth, the unspooling of time and people.
And though it's not in dire need of my review, there being over a hundred here already, I will say that I enjoyed this far more than I thought I would, given how it opens. When characters start talking about when and where they were born, what their parents were like, etc., my interest usually starts fading away. But I don't abandon books, not usually, and I'm glad I didn't this time, for The Beautiful Miscellaneous becomes, well, almost beautiful at points, as the slow passage of years gives the characters time to feel lived-in and rounded, their edges blurred into their environment. From a little before the halfway point, I found myself reading the book in huge chunks, but not speedily, instead lingering over the growth, the unspooling of time and people.
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