Remainder (ISBN 0307278352)

This book did not remain with me:
This book was founded on some very interesting philosophical ideas, and had a very curious (and authentic) narrator. We are dealing with a narrator who has clearly experienced some kind of frontal lobe damage, and who feels that none of his experiences or interactions in daily life are authentic or genuine. He wins a great deal of money in a settlement relating to his accident, and the rest of the book is his quest to seek out moments where he can feel completely uninhibited and fluid. I fully believed that someone with the kind of injury he had would behave, think, and feel the way he did, but for a reader, he soon becomes ridiculously tiresome and tedious (due to his excessive fixations on mundane details (oh the detail!) as well as his selfish and foolhardy behavior) and is wildly unsympathetic (and near impossible to relate to). I thought the book starts fairly strong, especially as the author develops our narrator's initial scheme and his motivations, but it eventually flies off the rails and things begin to occur that make no sense, are incredibly stupid, and impossibly frustrating to the reader. I feel like it was the mistake of a first-time author: he wound up going too big and heavy-handed, rather than keeping things subtle and clever, and as a result he winds up with a big mess. If McCarthy had exercised some restraint and not chosen the obvious, over-the-top ending, I would have enjoyed this book a lot more (really, the last third of the book is maddeningly dumb). But overall, I did not really like this book, and promptly sold it back to my local used bookstore. Yes, it did get me to think about some pretty cool ideas, but ultimately, it was not an enjoyable read, made me feel cheated, and I can think of no one I would recommend it to. I'd say you can probably skip this one, as I think very few people would get much enjoyment out of this book.

so damn good....if only it didn't lose steam at the end....:
A hidden gem that screwed with my mind for several days. As the narrator pursued the perfect sequence of movements, I started searching for my own. I actually started recognizing a really fluid opening of the fridge (no suction), pouring of milk on my cereal (cascading from one cheerio to the next with a soft, rushing sound), and so on. This book $@% with my mind and it was refreshing. You can feel the slow, insidious transformation of the narrator as his interests warp into an obsession. To be honest, some luster is lost in the last 50 pages, changing pace far too quickly for the characters. That being said, few books will pull you into a stranger, thought provoking landscape. Definitely worth reading.

Weird fun. A GREAT Ending, too!:
I enjoyed this one quite a bit. The main character receives a huge settlement and can't decide what to do with the money. After investing, his money continues to grow, and grow... At a party, he has an epiphany while zoning out staring at a crack in the bathroom wall. He decides to use his money re-creating a memory that he can't place. It's weird. But it gets weirder as the main character does the same. One of the best endings I've read in a long time.

How to waste a life being wasted:
As I write this, I have not yet read the end of the story. I expect that I shall, but I am not expecting its ending will be much more than running out of energy and space to continue. I found the middle part of the story plodding but the beginning and the denouement well worth the read. If you read novels for pleasure alone, this one may well not satisfy. A reviewer on this site says the book tells the reader more about himself than about any other reality. I agree. It has me thinking about the purposes of ritual in my life, which always come mixed with the rewards of doing the familiar and the frustrations of having been there before many times. I have never ever been the same at two separate time periods. Yet I am the same person at all times, even when I am "not being myself." It could well be I see the story in those terms because philosopher Heidegger employs "the same" to be a mixture of identity and difference--both inescapable, reciprocally implicit, and bedeviling. Hence REMAINDER for me is a philosophical novel--hardly in the Iris Murdoch style, yet equally worthy in its contribution to the tradition of British think-pieces. PS. Now, a week after writing the above, I read the final chapter. It reminds me of what Hollywood did with "Howard, the Duck." It's not that the ending cannot match the build-up. One might also accuse Shakespeare of that. Is it Fowles who gives us two endings to choose from? Which is still pretty lame. Or you can choose which version of the flick "Brazil" suits you? But when in doubt, fall back on horror? Had to have a film script in mind at that point. Pity.

Better than Most Modern Attempts:
This novel played out nicely when read in an over-crowded Florida hotel during breaks from swimming with my son and getting the flu. If re-organizing reality in excruciatingly creepy detail is something you find entertaining and amusing, check it out. Perfect reality overload study in rationalized insanity. Right? Yes. Go read it if that got you interested, lemonhead.