Bibliofemme Bookclub An Irish Bookclub

The press release starts off like this ‘When Salamander Quinn decides to liberate all the lost souls at St. Job’s Infirmary, he embarks on a Kafkaesque journey. Just before Christmas, his plans are further complicated by the arrival of a mystery woman, who sets in motion a chain of startling events. Faced with mounting odds, as his past comes back to haunt him, he struggles to prevail.’

Ok, so far I am at page 183 of 238 and there has been no liberation plan, plenty of mention of mystery woman but she isn’t complicating anything. In fact the only thing complicating this novel is the authors pursuit of their idea of a “Kafkaesque” vision.

Indeed the novel opens with a quote from Kafka. Now as a fan of Kafka this immediately made me sharply intake my breath. Ohh very presumptuous. Not that there is anything wrong in aspiring to the greatness of Kafka, yet aspiration is all it is here. Sections chop and change at random from different episodes of his life in St Jobs hospital, to dreams or ruminations of his past and so on without any reason other than to hopefully seem somewhat delusional, surrealistic or yeh Kafkaesque, with no success. Kafka is not Kafka because he jumped around like a lunatic or deliberately tried to confuse us or seem clever. Kafka taps deep into the human psyche in a way that leaves this novel standing on a distant hill waving half-heartedly at it.

It’s not to say that the writer doesn’t have potential, there are many interesting descriptions, (I did really like the description of a fine day as ‘a pet day’) and constructions but over all it comes off as trying TOO hard. Yes I am going to finish this novel but right now unfortunately all it has given me is a massive headache.

Postscript.
Yes I did finish it and yes there is something at work here but unfortunately the writer clouds her own talent and conception with unsatisfactory construction and strained rhetoric. Regrettably this is more surrealism by numbers than Kafkaesque journey.