James Purdew cannot remember a few things. A few years, come to think of it. They seem to have just slipped his mind. And it's not as though he can simply consult his journals to refresh his memory, because the journals for those three years seem to be locked in a small safe that can only be cracked via explosives and he's misplaced the key.

In the first scene of Sam Taylor's The Amnesiac, James is rushing up the stairs to answer a telephone in the Amsterdam flat that he shares with his girlfriend, Ingrid -- and he breaks a bone, which leaves his leg in a cast. It is the day before his thirtieth birthday. After a few weeks of recuperation, their relationship unravels, though not explosively by any means. Ingird leaves to take a job where, if he went with her, he could see his life neatly mapped out for him and James is unwilling to continue along such a clear path. After the break-up, a chance encounter with Ingrid's brother conveys to him the message that Ingrid hopes James can work things out with Anna. The name means virtually nothing to James, but it does give him a flash image of recognition, even if he has no idea who Anna might be. He feels compelled to discover the secret of those missing years -- for really, with such a hole in his memory, he starts to question a good amount of the rest of his memories, too. So James returns to H (an specified university town) in the UK, where he went those missing years occurred. He begins to restore a house owned by an unknown Client, and James becomes convinced that he knew this place during those missing years. Alternately becoming obsessed with rebuilding the house and peeling back the layers of his own past, James becomes a kind of detective, digging up clues to discover what secrets are out there, even if they would best be forgotten.

Oddly (or perhaps fittingly), I cannot remember the recommendation or review that caused me to put The Amnesiac on my short-list of books to read. Book club books and other titles wormed their way into my hands before I could finally reach for it upon my shelf, and without glancing at the back cover to refresh myself of the plot (and I had forgotten most of that, beyond simply that it featured a man trying to discover something about himself that he had forgotten), I started to read.

And I could not put it down.

It's hard to describe this novel, as its appeal wasn't necessarily in the linear story. Indeed, when discussing it with others as I was still reading it, the only thing I would say is that I feared it might collapse, becoming too clever to sustain itself. And while it didn't collapse, I also didn't feel entirely satisfied with its resolution. What I did enjoy, though, was the tone of everything... when things started to spiral out of control, the language kept up as you moved along at breakneck speed, but then slowed with James's (and the reader's) attempt to understand. The details helped this, without beating you over the head with clues (though James himself keeps a box quaintly labeled "CLUES"). And these details, like common initials in a story within the story that James finds under the wallpaper or flashes of what must be memories, are what James and the reader cling to as we move along. The reader is allowed to feel satisfied with guessing when things are a bit fishy and while a handful of instances resulted in my guesses being spot on, there were an equal number of times where I felt the bottom drop as I struggled with a new twist. If you couldn't tell already, reality is a bit of a dodgy concept for James Purdew, but it's certainly interesting. I particularly enjoyed a conversation between James and Philip Larkin, where James calls Larkin out on being dead. The details scattered throughout, too, were great -- shining moments of how imperfect our recognition of details can be and what exactly we choose to recall about scenes.

So the novel might not be perfect, but it's certainly fascinating. I mean, if you were to summarize the simple plot of the novel, it involves a newly-thirty man struggling to understand his past and what it all means. That hardly sounds original, but I'm quite pleased with Taylor's twists on it. ( )

It started off well enough, but then it got confusing and just dragged on forever. ( )

I was unsure when I first started reading this but I soon became engaged and completely involved in James Purdew’s life. Having come to this book fresh from not enjoying “The Island at the end of the World” (Taylor’s latest offering) I really wasn’t convinced it was going to be a good read. I was wrong, it was fantastic. The novel refers continually to Jorge Luis Borges’ “The Labyrinth”.

Starting off in Amsterdam, the main character is contented with his life but after breaking his ankle in a very hot summer, his boredom turns into an obsession about his past. Unfortunately for James Purdew, he can remember nothing about his time as student in an unidentified university town in England and it is here that the reader goes through James’ struggle to remember. The novel is a very clever read and even though I didn’t enjoy his newest book, he is certainly capable of crossing genres and showcasing his writing skills. I found the book actually difficult to put down and in some respects this is due to the short chapters where you feel you have time for just one more and suddenly one more has led to finishing a section.

If you’ve read “The Raw Shark Texts” by Steven Hall then this could well be the book for you. It got under my skin and I was desperately trying to reach confirmation of my thoughts about James forgotten memories. There’s a mixture of styles within the novel as James finds an extract from a story and also introduces us to a fictional psychologist, whose work we read examples of as if he were real. The narrative is dazzling, taking the reader from a Dickensian style plot, to a detective story.

When I reached the end I didn’t feel completely fulfilled. I felt like I need one more chapter. For some, the novel will conclude with satisfaction, but I still had thoughts racing round in mind. I can’t recommend this book enough but with mixed reviews available on the internet it’s a one you’ll have to try yourself. ( )

The book hooked me at first, I couldn't stop reading it. But, what the heck was that book about?

The beginning went along nicely, James Purdue is a 30 yr old British man living with his girlfriend in Amsterdam and clearly something happened while at University in the town known only as "H" and he has three years missing from life.

James seems to be sleepwalking through life. No friends, in his life he hardly comes into contact with other humans. He is like a zombie, a person with ennui. Things just seem to happen to him without care.

So far, so good. But, when the novel-within-a-novel began that is when it just lost me. The ending was disappointing and unfullfilling.

Part ghost story, part sci fi, part time travel, I found it to be wasted time. ( )

The Amnesiac is a strange book. I bought it following a recommendation on VSL, that called the book "unputdownable". Well, it took me a few days to get through it, so I wouldn't define it quite as such. But it is an intriguing book, as one would expect from a book about amnesia.

James Purdew is a 30-year-old Briton that leads a more or less contented, easy-going life in Amsterdam with his girlfriend, Ingrid. A leg injury has him confined to the apartment for a while, which gets him thinking about life in general and his in particular (lesson for life: do not think too much!) He gradually realises he has this blank about three years in his past, and when he checks his diaries he finds out those relating to that period are locked in a box to which he has conveniently lost the key. As his relationship with Ingrid hits a dead-end anyway, he decides to head back to England to retrace his past.

So far so good, and up until this part the book was indeed "unputdownable". A great start. But this is where things get more complicated. James starts his detective work by going back to the house he lived in during his university days. The plot goes back and forth in time and various clues come together, pieces of the past. James starts feeling this is all part of a bigger picture that keeps eluding him. He also gets the feeling he is being manipulated by greater forces.

The story is hard to follow, not only because of the obvious "holes" of James' missing past, but also because of the writing style. Narration switches between James and a mysterious narrator, that claims at times to be in the same room as James. Excerpts of other works are inserted alongside the main story. There are several characters, in different times, whose names or initials are similar. Taylor also switches between genres: science fiction, mystery and drama. This is partly why this book is slow to read; the reader is curious to find out what is going on, but the style is such that it slows down the reading pace.

The end is rather disappointing, as one suspects what happened quite early on in the story. Nevertheless, this is a book I would recommend and certainly a great debut book for Sam Taylor.

PS - I was reminded of the movie Memento while reading this book (note to self: must watch that movie again). ( )