Ο Άλεξ Γκάρλαντ σε ηλικία 26 ετών έγραψε ένα από τα πλέον αγαπημένα μου βιβλία, ανεξαρτήτου είδους, την Παραλία, ένα γεγονός που στάθηκε ικανό από μόνο του για να θέλω πάση θυσία να βρω και να διαβάσω το μοναδικό άλλο βιβλίο του που μεταφράστηκε στα ελληνικά, το The Tesseract - ή ελληνιστί "Μαύρος σκύλος". Σε καμία περίπτωση ο Μαύρος Σκύλος δεν φτάνει το επίπεδο της Παραλίας, δεν έχει ούτε το ίδιο βάθος στην πλοκή και τους χαρακτήρες που με ξετρέλαναν και αγάπησα, ούτε τις ίδιες φιλοσοφικές προεκτάσεις που μ'έκαναν να σκέφτομαι διαφορετικά. Όμως πιστεύω ότι πρόκειται για ένα ξεχωριστό βιβλίο που αξίζει να διαβαστεί, κυρίως λόγω της γραφής και της αφήγησης. Η γραφή είναι εξαιρετική, ακριβώς του γούστου μου και η αφήγηση ιδιαίτερα πρωτότυπη και μοναδική, ένα συγγραφικό πείραμα θα έλεγα, που είτε θ'αρέσει στον αναγνώστη είτε όχι, με πολλά μπρος-πίσω στον χρόνο και συνεχή εναλλαγή οπτικών γωνιών. Η ιστορία έχει να κάνει με τις ζωές κάποιων συγκεκριμένων ανθρώπων στην Μανίλα και πως μ'έναν απροσδόκητο τρόπο θα ενωθούν κάποια στιγμή σε μια τρομακτική κορύφωση στο τέλος. Σε γενικές γραμμές η πλοκή δεν με ενθουσίασε, αν και μερικά κομμάτια της ήταν πραγματικά πολύ καλά και ενδιαφέροντα. Σίγουρα είναι ένα βιβλίο που αξίζει να διαβαστεί λόγω της πειραματικής γραφής, όμως μην περιμένετε ένα βιβλίο που θ'αλλάξει την ζωή σας. Ο Άλεξ Γκάρλαντ έχει γράψει μόλις άλλο ένα μυθιστόρημα, το The Coma, γιατί φαίνεται ότι η συγγραφή σεναρίων για ταινίες τον ελκύουν πλέον περισσότερο. Είναι υπεύθυνος για τα screenplay των ταινιών Never Let Me Go, Dredd και Halo (δεν έχει γυριστεί ακόμα), έχει γράψει τα πρωτότυπα σενάρια των ταινιών 28 Days Later και Sunshine του σκηνοθέτη Ντάνι Μπόιλ, είναι υπεύθυνος για το σενάριο και την σκηνοθεσία της ταινίας επιστημονικής φαντασίας Ex-Machina που θα προβληθεί μέσα στο 2014, και φυσικά οι ταινίες The Beach (πολύ καλή κατά την γνώμη μου) και The Tesseract βασίζονται σε βιβλία του. Όσο να'ναι φαντασία και ταλέντο έχει, αλλά θα ήθελα να γράψει περισσότερα μυθιστορήματα. Κάποια στιγμή θα διαβάσω ξανά την Παραλία!
I guess I should quit reading the blurbs and especially the review quotes written on the covers because they lead me astray. Even though The Tesseract is a good novel, it definitely didn’t take my breath away and I didn’t exactly consider the finale shattering, as it was promised on the cover – therefore, because I was naive enough to build my expectations on what I read on the cover, the novel proved to be a bit of a disappointment.The novel is set in Manila and it is made up of three interconnected stories. The protagonists of the first story are the prominent members of the Manila underworld. Don Pepe, renown for his cruel and unflinching character, and his men are preparing to meet an Englishman, Sean. Perhaps a payoff is about to be staged, perhaps not – even though Sean notices a couple of ominous signs, this was not clear for me. Anyway, Sean makes a decision the consequences of which he foresees, still, he considers action preferable to inaction.In the second story we meet Rosa, a doctor waiting for her husband to arrive home. But her husband is late: first he is stuck in a traffic jam, then two street kids puncture his tire so he has to stop to change it. In the meantime, Rosa tries to put her children to bed, then watches TV with her mother. The quiet evening is then disrupted by the sound of gunshots, and Rosa’s nice and safe suburb suddenly becomes the scene of an underworld payoff.The third story is about two street kids, Vincente and Totoy who spend the evening together. First they puncture the tire of the car of a man stuck in a traffic jam, then they follow two gangsters who are themselves chasing a man first through the Manila ghetto and then through a nice suburb.I guess it’s easy to see where these three stories interconnect and where the lives of all the characters who would have never met under normal circumstances collide. And I happen to like stories about seemingly unexpected meetings and about the role chance plays in the ways a life changes, but I wasn’t convinced by The Tesseract. To me it seems that the chance meetings in this novel are just those: chance meetings, and I don’t see any hidden meaning behind them; and the fact that the three stories in this novel finally connect, doesn’t make this book better or more special – despite the connections, I might as well have read three separate short stories.Still, The Tesseract is not a bad novel. Just like in The Beach, Alex Garland again does a wonderful job depicting ominous deeds, dark emotions and a typical (at least for me, though I haven’t been there) Far Eastern atmosphere and way of life. And I liked two stories out of the three. Even though I couldn’t be bothered with the story of Don Pepe and all his gangster buddies, and I felt that I got to know too little about them to care about or feel for them, I didn’t have this problem with the other two stories. They also contain only sketches about the characters’ lives and a couple of memories from their past, but in these stories these were enough for me to be able to picture the minds and hearts of the characters and to be able to feel for them. And I found the story of the teenager Rosa and her lover, Lito, and the only gently hinted-at tragedy of the scholar who records the dreams of street kids truly heart-wrenching.Because of details like these, I’m glad I read this novel (it’s not too long, anyway), but I wouldn’t say that The Tesseract left me speechless. And this novel won’t become one of my constantly re-read books, unlike The Beach.
What do You think about The Tesseract (1999)?
The Tesseract, by Alex Garland, is a strange book, because it takes 4 sets of characters (an Englishman in Manila, the local "heavy" that he's due to meet, 2 street kids, and a family) and watches what happens in the run up to (and after) the time when these 4 groups collide.It's a good, but rather, depressing book. It's set in a third world country which has very little evidence of "forward momentum" and you know from how the book's written that no one's going to be happy at the end (unless something startling happens).In a strange way, it actually reminded me of the last series of A League of Gentlemen (without the laughs) for those who are interested in how it's structured.Incidentally, one of the closest things I have to a claim to fame is that I actually went to school with Alex Garland, and if you were to read anything by him I'd say that this book was closest to his take on things as a teenager.
—Jim
Set in the Philippines, the story focuses on three very different groups of people from different walks of life, and who probably should never in real life have any reason to meet each other, but do here through a bizarre set of circumstances. Throughout the narrative, I got the feeling that each of these people have no way to understand why these things are happening to them; they just are -- and it's just a matter of timing and circumstance, with no rhyme nor reason -- and that even at the end, the whole "unraveling" if you will, I was still left with the notion, as one of the characters was so fond of quoting, "that's just the way it was." So really, if you're looking for some kind of explanation of it all, my advice is not to.As in his first book, "The Beach," Garland starts his story in a run-down hotel room, where the character Sean notices that the peephole has been covered over. He also notices that he is in a room where the sheets have bloodstains, the phone is decorated with perfectly made circles made by cigarette burns and he deduces that he's staying in a room where a torturer once stayed. As he ponders all of the reasons why he's making this conclusion, and what scenarios may have occurred to make the bloodstains, he's also thinking about the meeting with Don Pepe, who runs some kind of Mafia-type piracy ring where he deals with merchant marine sea captains. Don Pepe arrives early and Sean jumps to the conclusion that he's going to be killed and tries to stay ahead of the game by being prepared to shoot first. He succeeds in killing Don Pepe and his right-hand man, but this leaves two more of Don Pepe's men, who chase him through the streets of Manila. His path will intersect with that of two street kids, and it will also intersect with that of Rosa, a doctor with two children, a husband and a mother, who live in a quiet upscale suburb there.The story flows very well even though the narrative is not exactly linear; everything intersects and the chapters weave in and out of narratives of the various characters' stories. The characterization is excellent, making it possible for the readers to get into the characters' lives.Very tense at times; recommended .
—Nancy Oakes
I went to a drop in medical centre today and got told there was a couple hour wait, but I could go for a wander and come back. I dropped into a nearby Salvation Army and picked up this book and another which will probably be as terrible. JG Ballard says on the rear "The most interesting novel of the year". Fuck. 1998 must have been a really shit year for novels. I almost gave it two stars, seeing as it served it's purpose fairly well, as waiting room reading material. You flip about a page per 30 seconds when the reading is this light. Still, horribly written, full of cliches, reads like a the schoolwork of a ninth grader who thinks he's onto something good because he read his older brother/barely-literate dad's Irvine Welsh/Chuck Palahniuck books. I haven't read 'The Beach', but I saw the shitty movie, and now doubt the book is much better after slogging through this rag.
—Chris Hearn
