Others by James Herbert - Book Bingo: O
Others by James Herbert
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I read this book years ago, and my memory of it was a little patchy.
The whole premise is that its main character, and narrator, private detective Nicholas Dismas, is asked by a mother to find her son, who was separated from her just after his birth, eighteen years ago.
Dismas is apparently named after the thief in the Bible who repented on the cross, although I can't find him named in my Bible. He is an Elephant Man-like character, who is said to have been found in a dumpster as a baby, abandoned because of his disfigurements.
This isn't the only James Herbert novel that involves a harrowing bodyshock-type theme involving birth defects and disfigurements, and not surprisingly, the theme heavily involves cruelty towards people who are born differently.
Reading this novel again, I was put in mind of H.P. Lovecraft, who appears to have been an influence on this book, both with the narrative style and some of the imagery towards the end.
I noticed also that mirrors featured quite heavily throughout the book, and they mostly involved Dismas' visions. Some of them introduced fantasy elements, including multitudes of winged creatures, and also a "30s/40s film star" who he repeatedly sees taking his place in the mirror (I wondered if the film star was meant to be James Dean, but it his identity was never given). There was a scene later on that involved a two-way mirror that I won't spoil too much about this.
I remembered that this book was quite gruesome in places, and I think I must have blotted some of the nastier bits out of my head; the final third or so of the book made it feel very much like a horror novel.
I was glad I read this again; it felt long-winded at times, but I enjoyed refreshing my memory over the plot, despite the disturbing plot, influenced (according to the afterword) by real-life events.
View all my reviews
And with that, I have completed my first ljbookbingo challenge.
Agatha Raisin and the Fairies of Fryfam (M.C. Beaton)
Big Panda and Tiny Dragon (James Norbury)
Crawling Horror (Edited by Daisy Butcher and Janette Leaf)
Desperation (Stephen King)
Every Contact Leaves a Trace (Elanor Dymott)
Facebook: The Inside Story (Steven Levy)
Girl, Woman, Other (Bernadine Evaristo)
House with No Doors (Jeff Noon)
In a Dark, Dark Wood (Ruth Ware)
Just Like You (Nick Hornby)
Knife Edge (Malorie Blackman)
Little Deaths (Emma Flint)
Mindset (Dr. Carol S. Dweck)
Nightcrawling (Leila Mottley)
Others (James Herbert)
Peter Darling (Austin Chant)
Quidditch Through the Ages (J.K. Rowling)
Round the World in Eighty Days (Jules Verne)
Survivors (Marcus Blakeston & Mark Astronaut)
The Truth is Out There (Thomas Bertonneau and Kim Paffenroth)
Under the Greenwood Tree (Thomas Hardy)
Victims (Shaun Hutson)
Wyntertide (Andrew Caldecott)
X Isle (Steve Augarde)
Y
Zoo City (Lauren Beukes)