A gnostic tale that hits you like a kick in the gut. Harrison's bleak narrative centers around epilepsy, sex, magic, medieval legend, cancer, car crashes, and how badly fantasy can hurt. If you're the kind of reader whose biggest wish is still to get a letter from Hogwarts, or (more topically) to "find out about your destiny" as the lost heir of an ancient kingdom, etc etc.... then don't read this book. Don't read it unless you want to grow up.Like many readers of this book, when I was finished I would up sort of pissed that "the big crucial magic spell" wasn't described in detail. I wanted some pyrotechnics! Yet the more I thought about it, I realized withholding this from the reader was actually crucial to Harrison's approach. Let's not even talk about the characters of the story yet: if you KNOW the details of the magic ritual that caused all their problems at Cambridge, what will you USE those details for? To imagine yourself doing the same thing, maybe? To imagine an escape? To imagine you too could do magic and see something incredible, some liminal glimpse of the Heart of the World after which everything would be transformed...?Exactly.Harrison's brilliant move in not even showing the magic might seem like a literary version of trolling. But it works. It makes you focus on exactly the critical question of the novel: what exactly is fantasy good for, anyway?I shouldn't have to add that Harrison's prose in this story is brilliant. Here's my favorite bit. Look how he breaks from past to present tense, risky move, yet done properly it creates a kind of zen effect:"She watched the steam rising from her coffee cup, first slowly and then with a rapid plaiting motion as it was caught by some tiny draught. Eddies form and break on the surface of a deep, smooth river. A slow coil, a sudden whirl. What was tranquil is revealed as a mass of complications that can be resolved only as motion..."I have to note that "The Quarry", a short story in Harrison's short story collection, Things that Never Happen, wound up becoming a section of this book. I found this section hard to make it through, maybe cuz I'd read it before. I will say that the novel frame did seem to give more character/backstory to the affectless (THANX SCI FI CLUB FOR THIS WORD!) narrator of the section. Still, I wonder if Harrison would admit that "character" and "backstory" are remotely interchangeable. Heh, now that I think about it, that grouchy contrarian would probably hold that the terms are meaningless abstractions...
An odd little book -- difficult to get into, at times difficult to follow, and, for me at least, difficult to finish. And yet I'm glad that I stuck with it. It has a dense, poetical rhythm that while sometimes infuriatingly obtuse ended up being greatly affecting. "The Course of the Heart" follows a group of three college friends who, after performing a byzantine magic ritual the precise nature of which none of them can remember, find their lives slowly unraveling over the course of the next twenty years. We never find out exactly what the ritual was that they performed, but we do know its purpose -- to somehow penetrate the Pleroma, the mythical perfect reality that our world exists as the merest shadow of. And we know that there was a price they paid for this ritual: one of a life filled thereafter with longing, an insufferable sense of anxiety, and an inability to ever truly connect to the world again. The plot follows the narrator, nameless to us and apparently less affected by the ritual than his friends, as he vainly attempts to help them regain what they have lost. The narrative dips and bends, focusing more on minute details and surprisingly dense literary and historical references, pausing occasionally for unexpected, intensely surreal happenings. It's a bit like a David Lynch movie, in function if not in form -- fascinating to witness, at times aggravatingly mysterious, often beyond any kind of rational comprehension, but starkly compelling nevertheless.
What do You think about The Course Of The Heart (2006)?
The Course of the Heart was difficult to start, and difficult to continue reading. It is a book that I feel is mostly composed of tone and emotional experience rather than plotting or even characterization. Though I had difficulties with most of the book, by the last three chapters I felt as if I understood clearly what was happening. The ending was very affecting, with many of the images introduced early on having wormed their way into my subconscious, only to be revisited in the most despairing fashion at the end.Loneliness, grief and regret echo throughout the pages without ever being stated outright. It's an affecting work but I presently feel overwhelmed by it. In the best possible sense, I don't think I can read another book by M. John Harrison for a long while.
—Tulpa
I liked this a lot better last time I read it, in my early twenties. I've just finished reading Harrison's SF novel Nova Swing and the similarities are quite striking despite the difference in difference and the 15+ years between these books. In both, sad, lost protagonists are trying to find meaning out of something that is either meaningless or ultimately elusive, and in both books most of the protagonists die, but not before they get ill and vomit a lot. It struck me just how much vomiting there is in Harrison's work.Next up on my MJH bender will be his collection The Ice Monkey and or his last (1997) non-SF novel, Signs of Life. From memory there's a woman who gets very sick in that one, too.MJH is an eerie, chilly writer whose work defies genre boundaries. You should try him if you haven't, but I probably wouldn't start here. If you like literary fiction, then make Climbers your first port of call.
—Guy Salvidge
Enpä ole sitten Perez-Reverten Rummunkalvon (noin viisi vuotta sitten) lukenut yhtä sietämättömän ärsyttävää kirjaa kirjailijalta, joka osaa selkeästi kirjoittaa. Aneemisuudessaan täysin lamaannuttava teos. Tätä olisi pitänyt ehkä osata odottaa, sen verran tulisesti joko puolesta tai vastaan mielipiteet Harrisonin kirjoista tuntuvat jakautuvan. Pieleen mennyt maaginen koe aiheuttaa osallistujille ikäviä (osittain mielenterveydellisiä) seurauksia ja tarpeen päästä omien satujen avulla lähemmäksi mystistä valtakuntaa, jonka olemusta kirjassa vatvotaan. Siitä huolimatta, että Harrisonia ei kiinnosta hetkeäkään selittää kenenkään tai minkään tapahtuneen motiiveja tai historiaa, ei varsinaisen juonen seuraaminen ole mitenkään vaikeaa. Mikä oli itselleni puolestaan ylitsepääsemättömän vaikeaa; kirjoitustyyli. Tekotaiteellisuus on varsin tyhmä ja vaikeasti määriteltävä sana jota pyrin välttämään, mutta sanonpa nyt kuitenkin. Harrisonin tyyli kirjoittaa on juuri sitä itseään. Todellisuudessahan siinä on kyse vain ja ainoastaan omista mieltymyksistä, ja tässä tapauksessa ne mieltymykset ovat jotakuinkin niin kaukana tarjolla olleesta tekstistä kuin kuvitella saattaa. Lukiessa tuntui koko ajan siltä, että kirjailija kirjoittaa asian vierestä. Lukujen ja kappaleiden tarkoituksen voi nähdä mielessään, mutta Harrison jaarittelee jostain täysin epäolennaisesta, triviaalista ja tylsästä. Kasveja, puutarhoja ja ainakin miljoonaan kertaan huoneeseen lankeavaa valoa kuvataan vähän väliä, mutta minulle tekstiä parhaiten kuvaavista sanoista tulee mieleen lähinnä betoni ja ankeus. En osaa arvostaa myöskään keskittymishäiriötä muistuttavaa tapaa siirtyä asiasta toiseen ja takaisin, mikä näkyy varsin hyvin hammasten kiristelyä aiheuttavissa henkilöissä. Paikoitellen täysin käsittämättömiä möläytteleviä luomuksia, joista en löytänyt mitään mielenkiintoista saatika samaistumista aiheuttavaa, mikä olisi aika olennaista teoksen sairauskertomus huomioiden. Yhtä selvää kuin se, että en saanut tästä kirjasta irti mitään, on, että tämä tapa kirjoittaa kirja on juuri se mihin Harrison on pyrkinyt. Selvää on myös se, että nyt kun tutustuminen on hoidettu alta pois, me emme enää tapaa.
—Oskari
