Review of End of Alice by A.M. Homes (written 27th of May 2008)
"And perhaps you wonder who am I to be running interference, to be acting as her translator and yours. Mine is the speech, the rhythm and rhyme of an old and peculiar man who has been locked away for too long, punished for pursuing a taste of his own." (The End of Alice, p. 11)
A.M. Homes is a brave writer. She dares to be cheerful (This Book will Save your Life) and she dares to enter the abyss that is the dark side of the human psyche. The storyteller in this book is a pedophile convicted of raping and murdering. The storyteller is as unstable and as unreliable as they get. He tells his story in bits and pieces and the reader goes through the disgust and the hatred and the emotions not knowing if the man is trustworthy, if he tells the truth or if he’s just describing whatever filth comes to his mind, trying to make cracks in the readers defenses.
A.M. Homes is a great writer. She writes with skill and perfection the words that are the words of the criminal. The reader doubts everything but one thing. The reader never doubts the atrocities he has done but what we learn from reading this book is the same thing we should learn each time we open the newspapers that tell of men kidnapping little girls, that tell of men making underground prisons so they can make sure their daughters will be theirs forever. We read because we want to know what lies behind the darkness. We want to know what it is because we believe if we do we’ll be less afraid of it. This book delves into more than the psyche of a criminal. It delves into the ifs and whats and whynots of the reader himself.
It’s a well written novel. It’s an extraordinary novel that drives you up the wall and drives you insane with rage. It infuriates which is a good thing. A story like this should infuriate. And it should be told. Because it doesn’t depict a demoralized society but a crazed individual and each time we try to understand is a step closer to a solution. Some kind of solution to a great problem.
The End of Alice is a great book. It exceeds Nabokov’s Lolita in every way possible.
A.M. Homes is a brave writer. She dares to be cheerful (This Book will Save your Life) and she dares to enter the abyss that is the dark side of the human psyche. The storyteller in this book is a pedophile convicted of raping and murdering. The storyteller is as unstable and as unreliable as they get. He tells his story in bits and pieces and the reader goes through the disgust and the hatred and the emotions not knowing if the man is trustworthy, if he tells the truth or if he’s just describing whatever filth comes to his mind, trying to make cracks in the readers defenses.
A.M. Homes is a great writer. She writes with skill and perfection the words that are the words of the criminal. The reader doubts everything but one thing. The reader never doubts the atrocities he has done but what we learn from reading this book is the same thing we should learn each time we open the newspapers that tell of men kidnapping little girls, that tell of men making underground prisons so they can make sure their daughters will be theirs forever. We read because we want to know what lies behind the darkness. We want to know what it is because we believe if we do we’ll be less afraid of it. This book delves into more than the psyche of a criminal. It delves into the ifs and whats and whynots of the reader himself.
It’s a well written novel. It’s an extraordinary novel that drives you up the wall and drives you insane with rage. It infuriates which is a good thing. A story like this should infuriate. And it should be told. Because it doesn’t depict a demoralized society but a crazed individual and each time we try to understand is a step closer to a solution. Some kind of solution to a great problem.
The End of Alice is a great book. It exceeds Nabokov’s Lolita in every way possible.