1982, Janine is - well, structurally, it is the rambling, recursive introspection of an unnamed man as he sits in a hotel room in Peebles or possibly Selkirk, pondering his sexual fantasies, the demise of his marriage, his childhood, the death of a man he admired, and other various and sundry events. We learn bits and pieces about his internal landscape as his thoughts interrupt one another - in the middle of a painful memory about his ex-wife, he'll start fantasizing mid-word and launch into a slightly new iteration of the same masturbatory fantasy we meet early on. Or, in the middle of a fantasy, to calm himself down, he'll think back to mixed regret and anguish in childhood, his wish to be better than he is and his simultaneous inflating himself and criticizing himself, or the way lovers of his have treated him. As the foreword says, this is a porn fantasy, novella, and work of experimental fiction all intertwined like messy weeds.

Probably the thing I like the most about the book is the style of writing, just the way it feels. Each page contains a caption in the margin that attempts to get at the main point of that page - a meta-structure or outline of sorts. The writing is grammatical, for the most part - but sentences are fragmentary, incomplete, and self-interrupting - it is the closest thing I have ever read to actually being in someone's mind. There are passages of a single letter or of characters at times of extreme emotion - the way many of us find ourselves thinking non-verbally at such moments.

Another thing that compels me is the recursiveness. The narrator returns to the same themes again and again - sexual fantasies involving the same characters in similar situations; his own importance or lack thereof in his job; how he felt about his parents as a child; his ex-wife and former lovers - and every so often, a new thread will be introduced. He can't help himself from pouring over and over these things as he drinks and thinks - his obsessive focus should be boring, and yet I wasn't bored - I kept looking for new clues, or sympathizing with his need to review and review - I do the same thing about troubling events or even amazing ones.

Self points out that Grey here is experimenting with new forms - and I think that's true, but it's much easier to follow than Joyce's Ulysses or Danielewski's House of Leaves. If you don't like this book, it may be because you are uncomfortable with the sexual parts - you won't have liked Portnoy's Complaint either. (see also feminist complaints here). Amazon says this is about power and powerlessness - that is very accurate. Amazon also says it's about these things as examined through pornography and sex - I think they've got it partially right. The narrator is so obsessed with his status in society and in relation to other people that this is really all he can think about. It comes out in his fantasies - of course it does - but it comes out everywhere else too.

You might also not like it because the narrator is so damnably, irritatingly human - he's weak, he struggles, he's not very likeable. He's unable to forgive himself for his past. Or you might not like it because you find plots involving mental stages boring - you need action to happen on the outside. But if you like to read about the human brain and how it works, if you like to imagine what it must be like to be another person, if the idea of a frank expose of one screwed up guy's inner workings appeals to you - I think you'll find this a marvellous book. ( )

http://www.zapbangmagazine.com/litera... ( )

I don't quite know how to describe this book. It is about depression, suicide, sex, and divine intervention, and the text does some strange things at times.

I like it, but then I like weird stuff. ( )

An essential classic. An ageing, divorced, secretly alcoholic electrical engineer sits in a hotel room paid for by his employers and drinks. He drinks and fantasises about matters sexual in order to keep reality at bay - and especially the realities of his own inadequacies and major and minor failures, including his support for the nasty kind of Social Darwinism so much in fashion in England (and other places) then (and now!) But tonight is the night on which everything will come apart... ( )