Nicola Barker
Author of Darkmans
About the Author
Nicola Barker is a Senior Lecturer at Kent Law School, University of Kent, UK.
Image credit: Tony Davis
Series
Works by Nicola Barker
Associated Works
The Art of the Story: An International Anthology of Contemporary Short Stories (1999) — Contributor — 394 copies, 5 reviews
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Birthdate
- 1966-03-30
- Gender
- female
- Education
- University of Cambridge (King's College)
- Occupations
- novelist
- Awards and honors
- Granta's Best of Young British Novelists (2003)
- Agent
- David Miller (Rogers Coleridge & White)
- Relationships
- Thompson, Ben (partner)
- Nationality
- UK
- Birthplace
- Ely, Cambridgeshire, England, UK
- Places of residence
- Soweto, South Africa
London, England, UK - Associated Place (for map)
- England, UK
Members
Discussions
The Yips by Nicola Barker in Booker Prize (August 2012)
Reviews
I never feel clean leaving a review of a book I haven't finished but according to my kindle I have read 234 pages and I have suffered enough. Goddammit.
I read the first two books in this trilogy, and it *is* a trilogy because they are sub-titled as Thames Gateway #1, #2, #3
The first book was like a B&W TV drama, stark, under-explained and brilliant.
The second was more of an early colour tv 80's drama, colours a bit washed out and a few fuzzy lines on the screen but you could still make out show more what was happening.
Where do I begin on #3? First of all wtf is happening? I can discern no plot, storyline, framework, or anything that holds it all together. The characters are 2 dimensional in spite of the number of words that are thrown on their presence. Their petty thoughts and accommodations are simply fucking boring. Did it have a beginning? a middle? I am sure as hell not wasting any more time to see if it has an end.
I've read enough Japanese plot-less novels to know that you don't need a "plot"as such but you do need a context and characters that are interesting.
It's like it was written by someone who didn't write the first two in this trilogy. The first two were tied together by being placed on the Thames Estuary and in the characterisation, but where is this one placed? I simply have no idea either geographically, spiritually or intentionally.
I'm not afraid of long books! I have read 4 volumes of The Man Without Qualities, Sapiens, Gravity's Rainbow and The Luminaries, and while The Luminaries had good moments and bad moments, at least it had enough sub-plots to help you along. But where is the fucking main plot, let alone any sub-plots in this?
The characters are not being developed just repeated over and over again.
I'm sick of angst that thinks it is substance. Angst is the wallpaper in the room, it is not the room! Flawed characters are not the same as characters that draw empathy or even hatred out of you. I'm sick of the blandness of it all. Like I said 235 pages of what?.
I have read many novels with less pages but more substance than this. And I'd include Thames Gateway #1 in that list any day. show less
I read the first two books in this trilogy, and it *is* a trilogy because they are sub-titled as Thames Gateway #1, #2, #3
The first book was like a B&W TV drama, stark, under-explained and brilliant.
The second was more of an early colour tv 80's drama, colours a bit washed out and a few fuzzy lines on the screen but you could still make out show more what was happening.
Where do I begin on #3? First of all wtf is happening? I can discern no plot, storyline, framework, or anything that holds it all together. The characters are 2 dimensional in spite of the number of words that are thrown on their presence. Their petty thoughts and accommodations are simply fucking boring. Did it have a beginning? a middle? I am sure as hell not wasting any more time to see if it has an end.
I've read enough Japanese plot-less novels to know that you don't need a "plot"as such but you do need a context and characters that are interesting.
It's like it was written by someone who didn't write the first two in this trilogy. The first two were tied together by being placed on the Thames Estuary and in the characterisation, but where is this one placed? I simply have no idea either geographically, spiritually or intentionally.
I'm not afraid of long books! I have read 4 volumes of The Man Without Qualities, Sapiens, Gravity's Rainbow and The Luminaries, and while The Luminaries had good moments and bad moments, at least it had enough sub-plots to help you along. But where is the fucking main plot, let alone any sub-plots in this?
The characters are not being developed just repeated over and over again.
I'm sick of angst that thinks it is substance. Angst is the wallpaper in the room, it is not the room! Flawed characters are not the same as characters that draw empathy or even hatred out of you. I'm sick of the blandness of it all. Like I said 235 pages of what?.
I have read many novels with less pages but more substance than this. And I'd include Thames Gateway #1 in that list any day. show less
Weird Shit Indeed.
What is it about the Thames Estuary that produces both legions of nutters and scribes of authors attempting to somehow convey this liminal happenstance of humanity to normal people?
Nicola Barker is obviously one gell who is both unafraid and equipped to wade into this quagmire. Caught between tides of both water and synchronicity she deftly weaves a path over this unstable firmament.
So let's start with Ronny 1 who meets Ronny 2 and Ronny 1 makes a joke about "The Two show more Ronnies" which goes over the head of Ronny 2 so Ronnie 2 says to Ronny 1 lets call you Jim from now. So Ronny 1 has a brother called Nathan who goes looking for Ronny 1 and when he asks for Ronny 1 he gets directed to Ronny 2 who is known as Ronny but instead sees Jim who is in fact Ronny 1. But Nathan never talks to Ronny 1 anyway. You with me so far?
Meanwhile, everyone in the story so far is treading on egg shells, all the bloody time.
If you are looking for something for normal people like Gone Girl or Woman on a Train you will realise very early on that you are well and truly on the wrong road completely.
If, however, you start to enjoy this story you will no doubt realise that you are on the wrong road in life, a realisation that brings no comfort except for the fact that this is the first book in a trilogy.
So where does all this go? It ventures into other marginal lives along the way but never strays far from the main line of the narrative. I loved it.
One of the characters is a photographer/pornographer who made his money producing porno photos with the juicy bits removed and replaced with a series of dots to produce "join the dots" porno images. His revelation is that many things are defined/described/understood, not by what's there, but by what's not there.
Which brings us back to the Thames Estuary, which is the main character in the story, has very little presence but is, at the same time, all pervasive.
Would you like this? Depends on your latitude for difference and other. Actually, just looking at you, you probably wouldn't. You should just go back to your Girl On A Train life and just stay the fuck away from the Thames Estuary. show less
What is it about the Thames Estuary that produces both legions of nutters and scribes of authors attempting to somehow convey this liminal happenstance of humanity to normal people?
Nicola Barker is obviously one gell who is both unafraid and equipped to wade into this quagmire. Caught between tides of both water and synchronicity she deftly weaves a path over this unstable firmament.
So let's start with Ronny 1 who meets Ronny 2 and Ronny 1 makes a joke about "The Two show more Ronnies" which goes over the head of Ronny 2 so Ronnie 2 says to Ronny 1 lets call you Jim from now. So Ronny 1 has a brother called Nathan who goes looking for Ronny 1 and when he asks for Ronny 1 he gets directed to Ronny 2 who is known as Ronny but instead sees Jim who is in fact Ronny 1. But Nathan never talks to Ronny 1 anyway. You with me so far?
Meanwhile, everyone in the story so far is treading on egg shells, all the bloody time.
If you are looking for something for normal people like Gone Girl or Woman on a Train you will realise very early on that you are well and truly on the wrong road completely.
If, however, you start to enjoy this story you will no doubt realise that you are on the wrong road in life, a realisation that brings no comfort except for the fact that this is the first book in a trilogy.
So where does all this go? It ventures into other marginal lives along the way but never strays far from the main line of the narrative. I loved it.
One of the characters is a photographer/pornographer who made his money producing porno photos with the juicy bits removed and replaced with a series of dots to produce "join the dots" porno images. His revelation is that many things are defined/described/understood, not by what's there, but by what's not there.
Which brings us back to the Thames Estuary, which is the main character in the story, has very little presence but is, at the same time, all pervasive.
Would you like this? Depends on your latitude for difference and other. Actually, just looking at you, you probably wouldn't. You should just go back to your Girl On A Train life and just stay the fuck away from the Thames Estuary. show less
In the midst of improvisational jazz music show, a member of the audience stands up and asks, audibly, "Is this honest? Are we all being honest here?" A linked video shows up on social media, the interruption linked with a video of the bandleader, Sasha Keyes, ranting backstage and calling him, "some dickweed, small-town, TonyInterruptor". It goes viral, setting off our novel.
It's a novel of characters much smaller than their world and this viral video about them. A chain reaction is set show more off, with some vague wide-world impact and a lot vainly philosophizing victims. It's a fast, light, novel with some serious philosophy, and that always stays very human. The way these characters interact, compressed in the novel, leaves a kind of web. They're all linked in some unspecified way. I like imagining that all the individual characters here sort of create one wholly divergent contrary yet entwined personality or mind, because it's in tune my personal theme for this year of reading with Virginia Woolf, but also because it creates a kind of beautiful and sensible tension.
I liked how contemporary this was. When Sasa Keyes rants to his manager, in a much more contained and un-filmed rant, he perfectly captures social media's dark empowerment:
My first by Nicola Barker. It was fun and rewarding. Her chaotic yet thematically tied humor has elements of Terry Pratchett. But the humanity, and the thinking behind it are all very Ali Smith-ish, and that's more how I would relate her too. I liked how she has a character say, 'I object to hand shaking on ideological grounds', or another have an epiphany that goes like this: 'Hang on...hang on...You're saying that even dickheads like you and me — like us — can attain... You know... Enlightenment?’. Recommended if any of this appeals.
2026
https://www.librarything.com/topic/384249#9203250 show less
It's a novel of characters much smaller than their world and this viral video about them. A chain reaction is set show more off, with some vague wide-world impact and a lot vainly philosophizing victims. It's a fast, light, novel with some serious philosophy, and that always stays very human. The way these characters interact, compressed in the novel, leaves a kind of web. They're all linked in some unspecified way. I like imagining that all the individual characters here sort of create one wholly divergent contrary yet entwined personality or mind, because it's in tune my personal theme for this year of reading with Virginia Woolf, but also because it creates a kind of beautiful and sensible tension.
I liked how contemporary this was. When Sasa Keyes rants to his manager, in a much more contained and un-filmed rant, he perfectly captures social media's dark empowerment:
'... Because they lack the basic, human, animal resilience — the pluck and the imagination — to stay stable — whole — within their own ridiculously fragile sense of self, which means they feel duty-bound to guard and police everything — everything: language, art, freedom. Their identity — their preciousness, their "other"ness, their demented particularity — becomes their sense of victimhood, their victimhood spawns self-righteousness, their self-righteousness spawns their own mealy-mouthed form of bullying.’
My first by Nicola Barker. It was fun and rewarding. Her chaotic yet thematically tied humor has elements of Terry Pratchett. But the humanity, and the thinking behind it are all very Ali Smith-ish, and that's more how I would relate her too. I liked how she has a character say, 'I object to hand shaking on ideological grounds', or another have an epiphany that goes like this: 'Hang on...hang on...You're saying that even dickheads like you and me — like us — can attain... You know... Enlightenment?’. Recommended if any of this appeals.
2026
https://www.librarything.com/topic/384249#9203250 show less
What a strange, difficult, engrossing, wonderful book this is! Using stream of consciousness, music and graphic design, Barker brings us to a bizarre world where emotions are dulled to spare from pain. Mira A., using music, will access her painful past by edging out of this pleasant prison, the musical notes creating vibrations that interfere with the artificial frequencies of the system she is in. It is an allegory for the ways in which we numb ourselves to avoid pain, but can also be show more extended to the way we treat mental illness in general.
Ultimately this book generates more questions than answers, but isn't that its very premise? for the reader to question the words she uses, the lies she may manufacture to avoid an uncomfortable truth? After all, freedom resides in uncertainty and how many of us are willing to walk in ambiguity?
An incredibly original and artistic novel with deep philosophical questions. show less
Ultimately this book generates more questions than answers, but isn't that its very premise? for the reader to question the words she uses, the lies she may manufacture to avoid an uncomfortable truth? After all, freedom resides in uncertainty and how many of us are willing to walk in ambiguity?
An incredibly original and artistic novel with deep philosophical questions. show less
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Statistics
- Works
- 23
- Also by
- 5
- Members
- 2,964
- Popularity
- #8,605
- Rating
- 3.6
- Reviews
- 108
- ISBNs
- 137
- Languages
- 6
- Favorited
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