The Transatlantic Book Club discussion

Has anyone made any progress with the book so far? I'm not very far in, and still trying to get my bearings with respect to where Self is going with the plot--or what the plot is, really--but I'm intrigued by the stream-of-consciousness narrative, and enjoying it more than I really expected to. Does anyone else have any reactions thus far?

I'm much the same, not far in. I'm finding that it demands more concentration than most stuff, not that that's a bad thing, just makes it difficult to snatch a few pages here and there through the day like I normally would. I'm enjoying it though, I quite like the way it skips from place to place much like a person's train of thought does.
It's just occurred to me that it's a lot like Mallet's Mallet. Only without the "I'm mad me" glasses.

I've pushed back the finish date for reading Umbrella--I've had a terrible time these last two weeks trying to accomplish anything outside of work, and I don't think I'm alone in being behind with this. If you have finished, feel free to start chatting--I'll still be able to keep up with conversations.

I wanted to like this, and at first I did, but the further I got the less I cared. I didn't have much difficulty in following the twists and turns of the stream of consciousness, or figuring what was going on; I had a problem mustering the will to care about what was going on. It's an impressive piece of work, I will give it that--it deserved its place on the Booker shortlist, but all the same I'm glad it didn't win. By the time I'd finished it I was less in what Self had accomplished than simply relieved I didn't have to keep going, and difficult (or even tiresome) stories should be more rewarding than that--McEwan's Sweet Tooth, for instance, which I nearly gave up on twice out of sheer irritation with the narrator until the last part that made all the annoyance worth it. I get the impression that no one else in the group cared for it either--anyone else care to comment?

I really enjoyed this, although it was, not hard work exactly, just slow going. Whether this was because of the vocabulary, the subject matter, the style of writing or a bit of all three I'm not sure. I can see how you might struggle to care what was going on, I was the same in a way - I can't think of many Selfs I've read that reach a particularly satisfying conclusion, and I didn't sympathise with the characters much, didn't care what happened to them, with the exception of Audrey. I liked the book, but then I am a bit of a fan, and I suppose I expected to and wanted to like it.

A bit of less qualified praise:
- I've found the book skewing my perception of the world, my thoughts are interspersed with italics, I frequently notice people ticcing. It's not quite as pronounced as when I read Great Apes and saw people behaving like monkeys for weeks afterwards, but I enjoy the way a book can sometimes blur into your outer life and give you a fresh view of the world, and, for me, Umbrella achieved that.
- It conjured up some lovely, outlandish, Heath Robinson images (the Mind's house, the troglodyte's underworld). Have you ever seen The Hourglass Sanatorium? It made me think of that.
- It touched on a few subjects I don't know enough about (munitionettes, the WSPU, encephalitis lethargica) in a way that left me wanting to find out more, which is always nice.
- I found it thought provoking on the relationship between the bodily human world and the man made, industrial world.
- It introduced words I didn't know before. I may never use them in general conversation. I may have forgotten them in a few weeks, but I enjoyed looking them up. So I'm sad. Sue me.

I have to say it's not a book I'll be rushing to recommend to many people, and I'm relieved to be reading something like Enduring Love that fairly hurtles along, but I liked it while it lasted and it left me wanting to read more of his output.