Remainder | 
|  | | | Title: | Remainder | | Author: | Tom Mccarthy | | Publisher: | Vintage | | Type: | Book / Paperback | | Publication Date: | 13 February, 2007 | | ISBN / ISBN-13: | 0307278352 / 9780307278357 | | List Price: | $13.95 | | You Save: | $2.79 | | Amazon Price: | $11.16 | |
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Product Description
A man is severely injured in a mysterious accident, receives an outrageous sum in legal compensation, and has no idea what to do with it.
Then, one night, an ordinary sight sets off a series of bizarre visions he can’t quite place.
How he goes about bringing his visions to life–and what happens afterward–makes for one of the most riveting, complex, and unusual novels in recent memory.
Remainder is about the secret world each of us harbors within, and what might happen if we were granted the power to make it real.
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Customer Reviews:
• Ellsworth Toohey Would Approve 03 April, 2008
the protagonist is highly derivative, being modeled after the stranger by albert camus. that alone wouldnt be so unforgivable if the execution itself wasnt so incredibly poor, with excessive abuse of contrived metaphor and a generally unimaginative, relentlessly boring delivery. an endless barrage of mundane objects such as a crack in the wall, soap bubbles and windshield wiper fluid are sources of ecstatic inspiration and existential affirmation. homicides and fatal gunshot wounds are just as beautiful, transcendent, and utterly meaningless, in the view of the narrator. again, no problem with developing that concept, but the main character is left so UNdeveloped that you really cant believe he exists, EVEN IN THE AUTHORS MIND. this is rather ironic, considering the entire plot revolves around his overriding desire to "feel real."
the objective, similar to the stranger and countless other novels, is a deliberate and calculated pointlessness, albeit with the "clever twist" of having a "happy" ending. towards the end of the novel, the reader is not so subtly told just how pointless the first thirteen chapters or so have been, as if we didnt already know, and as if we really arent sure that we wont find nirvana in a pile of congealed fat somewhere. yet we are stubbornly led onward, apparently in the expectation that we will still form some falsely imagined appreciation for this unfruitful exercise in futility. for some reason, it reminded me of the end of the film 'american beauty,' as we are told that "beauty is everywhere," while watching a plastic bag floating around in front of a garage door. if you recognize this sort of pseudo-philosophical posturing for the pretentious nonsense that it is, then be content to pass this by. read the stranger instead.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A2D0FG1PXO0X28
• DĂ©jĂ Vu On Demand 07 April, 2008
"Remainder", recommended by a friend for its though provoking details, fell miles short of impressing me aside from McCarthy's ability to prove that he knows his way around words.
The story revolves around a man who, from an accident of some object falling from the sky and hitting him (??), receives a settlement of a few million dollars from a company. With too much money and time on his hands the man pays actors and laypeople people to reenact various moments, mundane or dramatically violent, which appeal to his euphoria inducing sense of déjà vu. As tolerance levels for what creates his 'buzz' get higher, demands get more dangerously absurd to the point where the man's insatiable appetite for control ultimately spirals him out of it.
The cornucopian repetitive descriptions McCarthy typed in order to obviously showcase his writing style, the flighty main character and supporting characters were mild turn-offs, and the aimful seeming plot more ambiguous than productive.
Shuffling through I kept thinking, "How much more until something really happens here?" though there was enough in the character development of the protagonist to make his quest of putting puzzle pieces of his life together seem somewhat provocative.
I would not recommend to other existentialist enthusiasts who are short on time and/or patience, though I would recommend "Remainder" to fans of the movie Memento as a literary companion piece.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A10S9MZFTG990E
• Better Than Most Modern Attempts 16 July, 2008
This novel played out nicely when read in an over-crowded Florida hotel during breaks from swimming with my son and getting the flu. If re-organizing reality in excruciatingly creepy detail is something you find entertaining and amusing, check it out. Perfect reality overload study in rationalized insanity. Right? Yes. Go read it if that got you interested, lemonhead.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A3HMQSU70NTUS5
• This Book Did Not Remain With Me 18 July, 2008
This book was founded on some very interesting philosophical ideas, and had a very curious (and authentic) narrator. We are dealing with a narrator who has clearly experienced some kind of frontal lobe damage, and who feels that none of his experiences or interactions in daily life are authentic or genuine. He wins a great deal of money in a settlement relating to his accident, and the rest of the book is his quest to seek out moments where he can feel completely uninhibited and fluid. I fully believed that someone with the kind of injury he had would behave, think, and feel the way he did, but for a reader, he soon becomes ridiculously tiresome and tedious (due to his excessive fixations on mundane details (oh the detail!) as well as his selfish and foolhardy behavior) and is wildly unsympathetic (and near impossible to relate to).
I thought the book starts fairly strong, especially as the author develops our narrator's initial scheme and his motivations, but it eventually flies off the rails and things begin to occur that make no sense, are incredibly stupid, and impossibly frustrating to the reader. I feel like it was the mistake of a first-time author: he wound up going too big and heavy-handed, rather than keeping things subtle and clever, and as a result he winds up with a big mess. If McCarthy had exercised some restraint and not chosen the obvious, over-the-top ending, I would have enjoyed this book a lot more (really, the last third of the book is maddeningly dumb).
But overall, I did not really like this book, and promptly sold it back to my local used bookstore. Yes, it did get me to think about some pretty cool ideas, but ultimately, it was not an enjoyable read, made me feel cheated, and I can think of no one I would recommend it to. I'd say you can probably skip this one, as I think very few people would get much enjoyment out of this book.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A1DEAVW9ZRI9F0
• Great Start, Tedious Middle, Crappy Ending 19 April, 2008
This actually started out as one of the best books I have read in some time. Superb writing and interesting characters. Someplace in the middle, though, it starts to get tedious, and then just as it appears the story is going someplace again it falls completely off track.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A1V7F7MACPEEAF
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