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Tedious
“I tried. It sounded so promising I was really excited about getting into this book and I'm sure, had I finished it, it would have left some kind of impression. Unfortunately, I found it tedious beyond salvation, and it takes a lot for me to put a book down. It failed to engage me. Perhaps I'm missing something good by not sticking with it but I don't think I ever enjoyed such a highly acclaimed book less. ”
An amazon user wrote this on 2009-10-15. -
1 of 1 members found this review helpful.
Dark and Humorous? Not really...
“I was looking forward to reading this book. I brought it with me on a long trip and thought i would be able to complete it within a week. It's about 800 or so pages, and not a short read. I was prepared for this and plunged in...
An amazon user wrote this on 2009-09-01.
100 pages in, i still was unsure at what the point was. Where the oddities would come into play. Sure, it was a little dark but not really. The parts that some might consider "funny"- weren't even worth cracking a smile. I didn't try to "get the point" and continued reading to just see what would happen.
400 pages in, i was waiting for the dark and mysterious parts to come a little closer together. There was still ridiculously long excerpts of a dinner parties and grocery store outings. I was still not impressed and decided to keep reading through because i was already in for the long haul.
Overall, the author gave great background on the characters; included pages and pages of pointless nonsense; complicated vocabulary for no point whatsoever.
I like odd books like The Somnambulist, Domino Men, Middlesex. I like complicated reads with elaborate vocabulary like JRR Tolkien's work. I was open to this book and gave it my all to the end. I did NOT like Darkmans. I would not read any other books by the author. I do not like it Sam I am.
This was a waste of hours and hours of my time that i will never get back. ” -
We Are All Dark-Mans
“Yes, we are all Dark Mans in the sense that we are all mysterious individuals. Yet we are all linked to our ancestors and to history and . . . Sounds absurd, but when expressed in this huge comic novel, these platitudes are quite palatable. Only the first few pages, setting up the innumerable scenes that follow, were rough going. I bought the book because I thought it was going to be about time travel; well, time travel is only about 5% of it. Yet I was dazzled by the author's creativity. It is NOT too long.
An amazon user wrote this on 2009-03-25.
Should you read it? It's a combination of Angela Carter and Franz Kafka. If that combination appeals, I think you should try it.” -
1 of 1 members found this review helpful.
An odd but fun novel
“Darkmans appears to be about damaged or eccentric people who are thrown into everyday, mundane situations. Its bleak, yet funny even though I don't understand what the book was really about -beyond what I described in that first sentence.
An amazon user wrote this on 2008-12-28.
The cast of characters comprise of Daniel Beede, his drug dealing son Kane, his endlessly profane ex-girlfriend Kelly and Gaffar, a Kurdish repairman who, after a fight with Kane over the seriousness of Kelly's injuries (she broke her leg falling off a wall), comes to work for him as a courier and also befriends Beede who, of course, shares a house with the son he barely talks to.
Beede's life is one shaped by things of the past -as most lives are, but seems to be haunted by the theft of some antique tiles, and has also embarked on a mysterious project with the forger named Peta Borough that seems to involve strange duplications and research into John Scogin, jester in the court of Edward IV.
Then there is the matter of Fleet, son of Elen and Dory, an eerily gifted and strangely prescient boy who builds a model of the Cathedral of Saint-Cecile with matchsticks. To the growing alarm of Elen and Dory (who seems to suffer from a mental illness somewhere between narcolepsy and schizophrenia), Fleet knows impossible amounts of information about the same John Scogin that Beede is researching. And during Dory's hazy episodes, Fleet calls his father "John".
There isn't much plot, but it does feature an incentive style prose, underlined with some very funny elements -like the fact that everyone appears to know a crap load of miscellaneous information on a wide variety of subjects.
Its an unusual novel to say the least, yet one that I could not put down.” -
A confusing mix
“Primarily about the estranged relationship between Beede and his drug-pusher layabout son, the layers of their relationship and back history are peeled away amidst the olde English spirit possession of Beede's Germanic friend Isidore.
An amazon user wrote this on 2008-12-01.
And that's where the story spirals out of control as Barker tries to add too many ingredients into her mix. The supernatural elements didn't quite gel... After a while I got really irritated with the constant intrusion of the characters' thoughts even as they converse at cross purposes with each other...
I get the idea the John Scogin, King Edward IV's court jester, is the Darkmans referred to, and that his spirit possesses Isidore to do crazy things, and that in some weird metaphysical twist, his son Fleet, who seems borderline autistic, is actually an older spirit in a 'The Child is the Father of Man' fashion (apologies to Wordsworth), but I must admit that by the end of 838 pages, I was much too tired to care either way.
”
