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Loading... Under the Skinby Michel Faber
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. Jodyreadseverything | Jun 1, 2009 |   This book is very hard to stop reading once you have started. Fascinating story. But both me and my husband found the end a bit unsatisfying. (  )LottaBerling | Jan 18, 2009 | Isserley would drive around to pick up hitchhikers. She wouldn’t pick them up on her first drive past them; she’d checked them out first and would drive by 2-3 times just to ascertain her perceptions of their persons. It would have to be a well-built male and one who is alone… A mysterious piece of work saturated with the unknown. It was easy to read and it’s just so intriguing that you want to keep reading to find out what exactly are these unknown elements. There are points when I was on the edge of my seat thinking yes, it’s about to be reveal only to be given more teasing hints of what’s hidden. It evokes feelings of fear, disgust, and sympathy. (  )babemuffin | Dec 8, 2008 | 1  I have never read anything by Michel Faber and been disappointed and this is no exception. The female Isserly picks up hitchhikers, who may or may not go home with her for nefarious purposes. I won't give away too much, since part of the joy of this book is slowly discovering what is going on. The overarching plot, however, is about what it means to be human, what it means to be hurt, and what it means to have mercy. (  )apartmentcarpet | Nov 26, 2008 | This book reminded me why I love to read. I didn't want to leave this story for a second. ( )keren7 | May 19, 2008 | 1 |  0.027 seconds to build listing  no reviews | add a review
Amazon.com (ISBN 0151006261, Hardcover)In the opening pages of Under the Skin, a lone female is scouting the Scottish Highlands in search of well-proportioned men: "Isserley always drove straight past a hitch-hiker when she first saw him, to give herself time to size him up. She was looking for big muscles: a hunk on legs. Puny, scrawny specimens were no use to her." At this point, the reader might be forgiven for anticipating some run-of-the-mill psychosexual drama. But commonplace expectation is no help when it comes to Michel Faber's strange and unsettling first novel; small details, then major clues, suggest that something deeply bizarre is afoot. What are the reasons for Isserley's extensive surgical scarring, her thick glasses, her excruciating backache? Who are the solitary few who work on the farm where her cottage is located? And why are they all nervous about the arrival of someone called Amlis Vess?The ensuing narrative is of such cumulative, compelling strangeness that it almost defies description. The one thing that can be said with certainty is that Under the Skin is unlike anything else you have ever read. Faber's control of his medium is nearly flawless. Applying the rules of psychological realism to a fictional world that is both terrifying and unearthly, he nonetheless compels the reader's absolute identification with Isserley. Not even the author's fine short-story collection, Some Rain Must Fall, prepared us for such mastery. Under the Skin is ultimately a reviewer's nightmare and a reader's dream: a book so distinctive, so elegantly written, and so original that one can only urge everybody in earshot to experience it, and soon. --Burhan Tufail (retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:58:11 -0400) The first test round has been closed. Visit the Open Shelves Classification group for details. |
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But the book was great and I loved every word in it. It kept me guessing, I'd come up with one theory, then another, then swap back to the first, trying to work out just what Isserley was up to.
Michel Faber has been recommended to me by an LT member whose reading suggestions have never disappointed me before and still haven't. Apart from the fact that I was surprised about the amount of well built hitch-hikers loose in the Scottish hills everything about this book felt real and I didn't want to put it down until I got to the bottom of Isserley and her story and was surprised to find myself sympathising with her and hoping her story ended well. (