My second Faulks and just as impressive (in a different way) to Birdsong. Engleby is a near genius loner bordering on the sociopathic. His story is told in the first person allowing Faulks to use one of my favourite narrative techniques, the unreliable narrator. When done well, this way of telling a story demands an element of interaction from the reader, who is obliged to work out the true story behind the one he is being told rather than absorb it passively.

The book is split into three phases. Engleby has a miserable time at boarding school, where he is relentlessly bullied due to his impoverished background. At Cambridge, Jenny, the girl he falls in (unrequited) love with disappears and is assumed dead. Finally, he becomes a decent journalist.

The disappearance of Jenny is the book's centrepiece but its really not enough to sustain a plot in which not an awful lot happens. Nevertheless the quality of Faulks' prose shines through and we get what seems to be a realistic insight into the mind of a distinctly odd person.

The school part of the novel is expertly done, although it must be said that public scholl bullying is a bit of a literary cliche. The time in Cambridge is brilliantly evocative of the 1970s. Faulks loses his way a bit in the final phase, using Engleby as a mouthpiece to snap at the bits of modern Britain he doesn't like, especially education.

Overall, a very good novel. ( )

I worry that Sebastian Faulks sometimes tries too hard both to have his cake and eat it. Is he a literary writer or a popular fiction writer? The current fashion is to eschew categorization and treat such a question as irrelevant. But I wonder. Is Faulks evoking seventies student life in an Oxbridge University or is he writing a thriller? "Engleby" is definitely trying to be both but, as Faulk's style is so smooth and entertaining, I am prepared to overlook a trifle more than one eye cast to the sales figures. "Human Traces" I found a much more satisfying novel but "Engleby" is an excellent page turner and carries me back to the jukeboxes of the student union bar, the halls of residence and student houses of my thankfully less sociopathic university days! ( )

Slight spoiler warning! This is one of those books that is difficult to discuss unless you give *some* indication of what’s going on.

When you meet Engleby, it doesn’t take long to realize that something is 'off' about him. To me, he appears more 'Asperger’s Syndrome' (especially because of his memorization skills) than 'sociopath', but since you never get a definitive answer to the question, I suppose it could be either/or/both/somethingelse. And since Engleby is your narrator, you also aren’t sure what you should or shouldn’t believe. What isn’t said is sometimes more important than what is.

This was a decent read if you’re willing to make the investment. Sometimes Engleby’s train of thought is a little random, and I have to admit I found myself skimming several parts. And while I liked seeing the professionals’ assessments of Engleby (especially when followed up by his own narcissistic reactions to them), I could have done without 'the journal of Engleby after 18 years of treatment'. I think I would have rather left that to my imagination, though a sardonic wink to the reader at the end would have made it all worth it. ( )

Utterly unlike any other Faulks novel, which is good as I have never really rated him as a 'great'. Engleby is sublime, the protagonist is as attractive as Harris's 'Hannibal' but the text is written with the quality of Kazuo Ishiguro's 'Never Let Me Go'. The story unfolds slowly, but that doesn't matter as every sentence is a joy to read and an accurate, although not flattering, homage to 1970's Britain. The ending is, perhaps, a little too inevitable from within the first half, but the need to understand is compelling enough to keep the reader searching, incessantly, to the very end.

A word of warning to non-UK readers – if you are not familiar with Britain's class society ad how is has changed (pre- and post- Thatcher era), the features of dormitory towns, popular media and political figures, as well as the general political landscape, then much of the irony and comedy will be lost. The incredible poignancy achieved in its pages owes much to nostalgic cultural references, which because of the 'personality' of the narrating protagonist are not spoon-fed to an ignorant reader. This perhaps renders it not quite as universally brilliant as Ishiguro's 'Never Let Me Go', but for the authenticity of the protagonist's character, it is necessary. ( )

A very odd book. Well-written -- I did not really expect to like it -- It's about serial murder, but it was very well-done and suspenseful in a non-gruesome way. ( )