Now this is a hard one to rate. First of all, it had almost no plot. That may be exaggerating it a mite, but everything that happened seemed mundane and very little was explained. For example, there's a scene around page 275 in which one of the characters arrives at a dinner party because he was elected as Chairman of some committee. Only a measly 400 pages later we actually find out (as an afterthought) what the committee is about and that it has very little to do with the plot (or with anything).

That's what makes rating the book difficult. On one hand there was no point to it, it hardly really warranted 838 pages and, as the ending implied (if I may spoil it somewhat), everything happened by random chance. The characters randomly went howling-at-the-moon crazy (possessed by the ghost of a 500-year-old jester) and just as casually turned back to whatever constituted normal for them. On the other hand, the writing was excellent as were the characters (not even the Goth and the Teen got on my nerves too much), there was ample time for development character-wise after all. It was darkly funny and a bit sad, which is probably my favorite mixture. About halfway through I even had to rush online to purchase a couple more books by Barker. On the third hand, I tend to love these love-it-or-hate-it kind of books (maybe I try to rationalize them more than the average reader, i.e. "Since I already wasted so much time and money on it, would I rather be satisfied with it or not?"), but it's clearly not for everyone.

Some random thoughts to fit the motif du jour:
- As a friend of cats, I wasn't too happy with the highly unethical treatment of Manny the Cat.
- Barker got die (singular) and dice (plural) mixed up, as in "he felt for his five die".
- There was enough sexual tension between many characters to supply electricity for a small town and it never came to anything. Apart from that one tit fuck, I suppose.
- A couple of times the third-person narrator used the first-person word "I", which felt wrong.
- Although no one's used the tag, I found it somewhat magical realism-ish. The whelping dog in the rainy forest, e.g, wasn't actually magical, but felt similarly eerie.
- Props for mentioning the Meat Puppets and Frank Zappa.
- The use of parentheses was prodigal (which I try (unsuccessfully) to parody here), but—unlike usually—I liked it. It added something. As did the separate fonts for thoughts and translations.

- Sometimes there were section breaks whose purpose I couldn't quite fathom, though.
- It was one of the weirdest books I've read and I respect that, but it could have been even better. It's easy, Nic; just add plot. ( )

"...because it can now be scientifically proved that water has a memory, then why not the blood? Why not the bones, the hair and the muscles?” p.729

Yes, the past can inhabit you—and you can place yourself in the past - and the future, too.
Uncompromising and unapologetically -- I loved/lived this book. ( )

I was really looking forward to reading this book, as the cover makes it sound really interesting.

…..Elen, an enigmatic chiropodist, whose unstable husband, Dory, believes that their only son, Fleet, has been fathered by the deranged ghost of an evil, 500-year old court-jester…….a magical yet somehow instantly familiar world in which language crackles like static…..

Unfortunately, I was very disappointed. The writing style was very annoying. I felt like I was being treated like an idiot, as obvious things were explained in brackets on a regular basis.

The character build up was OK at first, but failed to develop fully. They just didn’t come across as very believable. The dialogue between the characters wasn’t very natural, and their continual misunderstandings, resulting in large gaps and then:

WHAT?

EH?

really grated on me.

The plot was very sporadic, and had no forward momentum, so I found my thougths wandering off. This happened more frequently as the book went on, and so I finally gave up 250 pages in. This is the first Booker short listed book that I have failed to complete. I agonised over whether, or not, to finish it, so checked as many other reviews as possible. I discovered that people decide they either love or hate this book very quickly. Those that dislike the book, are left even more frustrated by the ending, so as I have nearly 500 pages left to read to reach this point I think I’ll leave it there.

I would, however, still love to read a book about a 500-year old court-jester fathering a child from Kent! If you’ve seen one - let me know!! ( )

Huge disappointment. This was a very long book (838 pages) and was not worth the effort. The first half sped by quickly, as Barker's strength seems to be quirky character development. Unfortunately, that can only hold your interest until you realize that the little plot that can be found is not interesting enough to sustain the novel.

Loose strands are left all over the place and by the end you realize that a majority of the events that occurred in the book have no real purpose. The resolution, as such, that does occur is mostly uninteresting, incomplete and forced. The author tries to beg forgiveness with a page or two explaining a pithy philosophy of coincidence without meaning, but it just does not wash.

Made it all of the way through, but this book killed my desire to read for a month. ( )

The experience of reading this book can only be compared to riding a ghost train with its brake cable cut - you hurtle with increasing speed through bizarre and sometimes sinister surroundings, with the occasional flash of illumination to show you where you are. I loved it, but there's no way I can attempt a synopsis. The book, set in twenty-first-century urban-blighted England, covers the lives of an interlinked group of people, and takes in a decades-old grievance, a family feud, cowboy builders, demonic possession, the evolution of language, and illicit love and lust of all kinds. Oh, and a goth with her mouth sewn up. And all this in Barker's traditional rambling, tangential, brilliantly-overworked-metaphor'd style.

It took me about 100 pages to have the first idea of what was going on - but after that I was gripped. It's funny, eerie, good hearted and with - I think - serious things to say about modern England, under all that. Despite its length (838 pages) I am already thinking about reading it again... ( )