The Restraint of Beasts

Two printable comments that immediately spring forth when I finished was an angry "What the.." and "I cannot believe he just did that". Yet half an hour later I was smugly basking in the glow of having just finished a wonderful book, deliciously imagining what exactly was going on. This is not a book for people who like neat & tidy plots, nor those who do not appreciate black humour. It's a wonderful piece of misdirection really.

Through deadpan humour and tight sentences we follow the our narrator who has just been made foreman of two lazy ne-er do wells in a small high tensile fencing company. Yes it's the exciting world of building fences, mingled with that great British past time of pub drinking. And quite frankly it's great.

The show more characters are superb, the plot amusing and an un-nerving feeling that clashes wonderfully with the every day. It's a great book to try Magnus Mills plus it's quite short so what have you got to lose? Fans of his will of course have read this already.... show less

My copy from 1999 does not contain "comedic" in the title, as it is listed here. This book is like you combined Kafka and silent screen comedy. It's not laugh-out-loud funny, but consistently amusing in its deadpan black comedy. When one approaches the ending, a queasy and ominous feeling is evoked that signals that things are going to go very wrong for our fence crew. (It has to do with a certain feature of their last fence.) Mills leaves it to our imagination what will happen to them, which is perfect.

I do enjoy Magnus Mills’ weird light-and-yet-dark little novels. This one concerns the fence-building trade, which is apparently rife with political machinations and strange undercurrents. The narrator is foreman to a three-man (including himself) crew, who live in a caravan and spend their evenings in a pub. Mills gives him a wonderfully deadpan voice, which suggests that nothing much occurred when something terrible happens and vice versa. In keeping with the rest of the novel, the ending is entirely ambiguous, apparently arbitrary, somewhat worrying, and yet very funny. Part of me expected the occurrence of a sudden revelation similar to [b:Explorers Of The New Century|1502616|Explorers of the New Century|Magnus show more Mills|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1184365917s/1502616.jpg|316249], but somehow that would not have fitted with the overall tone.

I wondered whether to give this novel three or four stars, but decided that the fourth was merited by the title, which could be interpreted in a number of ways. I also loved the recurrence of ‘An Early Bath for Thompson’ by A.D. Young. show less

A very odd book, yet very engaging. Who knew that installing fences in wet English weather could be so entertaining! And who knew anyone could drink as much as these three. I'm a bit surprised that it was shortlisted for the Booker. The ending left a great deal to be desired but I enjoyed the journey with this trio of wastrels.

Mills is a master of the simple, no-frills, yet poignant story, with characters who seem to be products of the landscape they inhabit. Always funny, yet simultaneously disturbing.

Gloriously deadpan tale of two slovenly Scottish high-tensile fencing labourers, Tam and Richie, and their long-suffering unnamed English foreman. They are trapped in an absurd world of itinerant work driven by Donald, a ruthless micro-manager. At first the repetitive actions of the pair, such as their routine around sharing a fag, and their eternal quest to reach a pub, any pub, at the end of each day are grating, but gradually they become heroes resisting the bullshit of work and efficiency. Like the foreman/narrator, I came to identify with them and lament the way that they are corralled into ever-worse conditions. They are the beasts being restrained. It is a very humourous book, with occasional slapstick deaths thrown in, but also show more one that has a lot more depth than may initially seem. show less

What a bizarre little story. Definitely the first time I've read a comic novel about laborers putting up fencing in a near Kafkaesque situation where severe deeds matter little and minor events have seemingly cataclysmic ramifications. Lots of "What...?!" moments and a few laughs - the result of the joiner's work (eh?!) and Tam's tattoo spring to mind - and the end result is an odd little story with much information about high-tensile wire and some insights into menial labor, which is hardly menial, and its effect on the minds of some very special people.