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The Raw Shark Texts: A Novel


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ISBN: 1841959111 - The Raw Shark Texts: A Novel

Title:	The Raw Shark Texts: A Novel
Author:	Steven Hall
Publisher:	Canongate U.S.
Type:	Book / Hardcover
Publication Date:	10 April, 2007
ISBN / ISBN-13:	1841959111 / 9781841959115
List Price:	$24.00
You Save:	$7.68
Amazon Price:	$16.32

This book is also available, brand-new, from 3rd-party marketplace sellers at Amazon.com, from $7.99.

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Editorial Review / Publisher's Information:

Product Description

Eric Sanderson wakes up one day with no idea who or where he is. A note instructs him to call a Dr. Randle, who informs him that he is undergoing yet another episode of memory loss and that for the last two years—since the tragic death of his great love, Clio, while vacationing in Greece—he’s been suffering from an acute disassociative disorder. But there may be more to the story, or it may be a different story altogether. As Eric Sanderson begins to examine letters and papers left behind by “the first Eric Sanderson” and the staggering tale they seem to contain, he and the reader embark on a quest to recover the truth and to escape the predatory forces that threaten to devour him. Moving with the pace and momentum of a superb thriller, exploring ideas about language and information as well as identity, The Raw Shark Texts is ultimately a novel about the magnitude of love and the devastating effect of losing that love.

Amazon.com
Amazon Best of the Month, March 2007: Not since Fight Club have a I read a book that sizzled with such fierce originality and searing vision as Steven Hall's electrifying debut novel, The Raw Shark Texts. It's a twisting, trippy thriller that tears through the landscape of language, revealing the lurking terrors uncovered in every letter of the written word. Steven Hall swims in the same surreal waters as pop-culture pioneers David Lynch and Michel Gondry, and The Raw Shark Texts deserves to be shelved somewhere between Trainspotting and Life of Pi. It pulls you under like a riptide, leaving you exhausted, exhilarated, and gasping for air.

But don't just take our word for it. We asked Audrey Niffenegger, one of the most creative contemporary writers working today, to share with readers her take on Steven Hall's debut novel, The Raw Shark Texts. Check out her exclusive Amazon guest review below. --Brad Thomas Parsons

Guest Reviewer: Audrey Niffenegger

Audrey Niffenegger is a professor in the Interdisciplinary Books Arts MFA Program at the Columbia College Chicago Center for Book and Paper Arts. A visual artist, she shows her artwork at Printworks Gallery in Chicago. The Time Traveler's Wife, her first novel, was an international bestseller and was one of Amazon.com's Best Books of 2003. It won several awards and is being made into a major motion picture. Her visual novels, The Three Incestuous Sisters and The Adventuress, were recently published by Harry N. Abrams. Miss Niffenegger is currently hard at work on her second novel, Her Fearful Symmetry, a ghost story set in London's Highgate Cemetery.

Eric Sanderson has lost his memory, his girl, his life as he once knew it. His pre-amnesiac self is sending him letters, a sort of correspondence course on how to be Eric Sanderson. Unfortunately, this previous self didn't really have it all together either. This is too bad, because the source of all the trouble is a conceptual shark, a Ludovician shark, no less. Soon Eric is on the run, trying to piece it all together and find true love before his mind gets wiped by the shark for the twelfth and probably final time.

Steven Hall is an inventive, funny and extremely smart writer. I am a letterpress printer and a typophile, and I was drawn to his book because of the typography: The Raw Shark Texts is riddled with typographic games, codes, a flip book, and a boatload of very elegant plot devices that hinge on collisions between the Information Age and the imagination. At one point Eric and Scout, his guide/love interest, are speeding away from the conceptual shark on a motorbike. Scout eludes the shark by exploding a letter bomb, a bomb made out of old metal type; the type diverts the shark into a stream of random letterforms. At this I practically fell off the couch with admiration.

There's plenty to groove on in The Raw Sharks Texts even if you're not a type maven. There's echoes of Cyberpunk, Borges, Auster; there is adventure on the high seas, lost love, an exploration of what it means to be human in the age of intelligent machines. The Raw Sharks Texts is huge fun, and I gleefully recommend it. --Audrey Niffenegger

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Customer Reviews:

• Fascinated By Unsure

18 July, 2008

A dear friend sent me Raw Shark Texts, curious at my reaction because she'd found it kind of fascinating but wondered if her fascination was more a commentary on her strangeness than the brilliance of the book. That's all she told me about it. I'd never heard of the book. I decided to read it "cold" -- I made a point of not reading any reviews of it anywhere until I'd finished it. I'm a science fiction buff, woman, middle-aged. Most of the way through the novel I saw this as a science fictional sort of exploration into parallel universes, or maybe a Name of the Rose-like fantasy; and I maintained that vision (illusion?) until the end. By the time I got midway through to page 158, I was thinking "this is wild." Eric had just escaped the ever-ravenous Ludovician (conceptual shark with an appetite merely whetted by sucking up Mr. Nobody minutes before), and then managed to lob a grenade in his wake after lighting the fuse with a menthol cigarette that had fallen out of his mouth when he jumped out the abandoned public hospital window fleeing the Ludovician -- both Eric and cigarette landing in wet moor grass but remaining lit. This was a sign of grace from the heavens, I guess, because Eric returned cigarette to lips, hopped on the waiting motorbike, squealed and bounced down the road in a very 1950s kind of escape -- squeezing the bike's back end with his knees, grasping with one arm a mysterious woman with a "thin but solid waist" while grenade-lobbing with the other, all the time trying like hell to keep from falling back into the tidal wave of concept spew that was in hot wet arcing/aching pursuit .... At that point in the book, I felt like I was reading a 21st century version of Alice Fell Through the Looking Glass. But then moving through the last half of the book, especially in the endless tunnels of paper and words and the conscious seeking of a paradigm shift by drinking the paper-water, I wasn't sure where I was. The narrative did keep my interest to the end, even the young-love and grief story line. But I have to admit I was disappointed by the ending, which seemed to plunk the story squarely in the territory of psychotic delusion. But is it? Several weeks in retrospect, I wonder whether this is an interesting exploration of personal psychosis in and among parallel universes. And I have to agree with Neelander (review above) in her admiration for Hall's interesting imaginings - such as a letter bomb of typeset that slices the conceptual shark into "a stream of random letterforms." It was a good read that made me think and wonder.

- Reviewed by customer ID: A2XHHK0QGFWZCE

• Bizarre Yet Brilliant...

23 July, 2008

Ever since the film "Jaws" scarred me for life when I was a little kid, I've been fascinated (and terrified) by sharks. When I saw Steven Hall's The Raw Shark Texts at the bookstore, I knew that I absolutely had to read it, even though it seemed a bit strange and more science-fictiony than I'd normally read. The shark idea sucked me in. It took me a couple of weeks to get through it - an hour here, a couple there - because I needed time to process some of the bizarre stuff that happened, but in the end, it was well worth the time and energy required to read this novel. (I will refrain from rehashing the plot here because so many others have done it already.) I will say that I'm really surprised that some of the folks here have reviewed it so harshly. RST is not just genre-bending, it is genre-defining: it's science fiction meets Hitchcock thriller meets heart-wrenching romance meets Through the Looking Glass meets The Wizard of Oz meets Jaws meets "Memento"...there are so many parallels one could make, it's almost mind-blowing. Sure, I could probably find some flaws with it, but I'd rather expend that energy thinking about the odd beauty of the novel and encouraging others to read it. It's weird, terrifying, and incredible. I haven't been this deeply affected by a novel since I read Jonathan Safran Foer's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. RST will stick with me for a long time, and I highly recommend this novel to folks who enjoy chewing on their books a bit rather than just getting to the end and moving on. In short, RST is a bizarre and brilliant debut from a talented writer who is ahead of his time.

- Reviewed by customer ID: A19DYSE8IX1I81

• A Fun, Heady Read, But In The End, No

17 July, 2008

Okay, let's start with the title. Raw Sharks Texts. Wow, must be a play on "Rorscharch test" Cool, huh? Well, not so fast. What is a "raw shark"? There's a shark in the book, but it's not raw, per se. In fact, the idea of "rawness" is never mentioned in the book. In other words, the title is fun and seemingly clever but in reality, it's a strained, ersatz clever. That's my overall take on the book: fun and seemingly clever but at the end of the day, strained and in the end, not very fulfilling. The writing is clear and easy to read (at least in the first half). In fact, it pulls you forward. Partly that's because the main character is very likable. And the semiotic/sci fi elements are fun. But it's also because you want to know how Hall is going to wrap it all up in the end without resorting to the obvious. Alas he clearly couldn't figure out how to do that, so he didn't. You're left with two possible endings, neither of which is satisfying alone (one being obvious and the other being a non-ending). These endings are supposed to be more satisfying because you get two of them. The second half is confusing (and dull) and the great tension between the two main characters is hard to fathom. I did love the idea of primitive creatures emerging in the morass of data floating around us--the recapitulation of evolution in conceptual form, but the idea is essentially dropped for a second plot line that goes basically nowhere. Ah, but is there a nowhere or is everywhere nowhere and nowhere is always here? The one word that reviewers seem to use most when describing The Raw Shark Texts is memorable, and indeed I think it shall be. That is to say, I imagine I will remember the book. Of course, the idea of knowing that one will remember something is intriguing. Is there any way to know what we will remember? Furthermore is there any way to know (e.g. remember) that which we once thought we would remember but have now forgotten? If these questions interest you, The Raw Shark Texts may indeed be for you.

- Reviewed by customer ID: A129K1R108MZ58

• This Book Is Like A Shark Attack.

28 July, 2008

As you read, the story circles closer and closer to you, where it finally gets so close you can almost reach out and touch it. Just when you put your arm out it opens its mouth and bites your arm off, leaving half your body bloody and dangling. You're exposed and confused and in pain. And then it's all over. What am I saying? In short, Hall's Raw Shark Texts very, very, very slowly feeds you tiny bits of information until you get to what you think is the dazzling climax of the book where it all suddenly goes flat. I was really disappointed by the book. There are so many things that make this book a let down... a lot of other reviewers have named them as well. I'll list them: 1- the writing style: Hall needs to get himself an editor. If he already has an editor he should fire him immediately. Besides being obviously an excruciatingly long book Hall often goes on rambling overly-hyphenated-descriptions that come off as really unbalanced next to other sections of sparse dialogue and character interactions. And for God's sake the climax of the book was in the last 50 pages! He wasted too much time droning on in the first 2/3 of the book when more substantial writing should've been used at the end. 2- hmmm...there is a fine line between homage/allusions and plagiarism...A. Ross said it best in his review: "it's also next to impossible to write about this book without mentioning, oh, say, Auster, Borges, Calvino, Carver, Gaiman, and David Mitchell, Murakami (just to hit the obvious ones), along with films such as Jaws, Memento, The Wizard of Oz, The Matrix and the collected works of Terry Gilliam, Darren Aronofsky, and Charlie Kaufman. Unfortunately, all these explicit and implicit nods to other work only serve to remind the reader how much generally better they are than the one being read." 3- the ending...WTF??! not only a cop out but really confusing! For all the ideas that Hall weaved throughout the book he sure left a lot of unfinished thoughts at the end. Was it a dream? Was Eric just crazy? Did he really live "two" lives? I didn't put the book down when I finished, I threw it across the room out of sheer frustration and confusion at the ending. 4- I understand the whole concept of "suspending your disbelief", and generally I don't have a problem seeing past otherwise ridiculous ideas to see how they help build a coherent story underneath. But there are SO many ridiculous ideas you are forced to swallow as a reader that the story becomes confusing because you are still lagging behind trying to figure out what "conceptual loops" are and how a bunch of boxes in a warehouse turned into a real life boat on the ocean all of a sudden. OVerall, the general idea for the story is unique and fresh but was more or less ruined in Hall's version of events. In retrospect, not worth my money.

- Reviewed by customer ID: A2ZOV51C4DP6SN

• Unfortunate Execution

22 July, 2008

Well, I picked up this book in the Washington, DC airport because there were lots of positive and intriguing blurbs on the front, back, etc. Conceptually, the central premise of RST is intriguing. Very intriguing. But even a great premise can only take a book so far. Writing and structure are needed to make a great premise an exciting and credible book. RST fails when it comes to writing and structure, and, for me, the failure is significant. I am on page 314 (out of 427, paperback edition) and I've forced myself to get this far; it is uncertain whether I'll reach the end. After page 130 or so, I'm only reading because I'm forcing myself. Here are my fundamental problems: 1) One of the things the author does that kills the flow is he often uses two or three words where one or two would do, and the words he uses don't really convey anything. Here's an example (randomly chosen): "I walked along a sun-dappled avenue lined with overgrown bushes and vines, half-collapsed Greek columns and classical white statues with missing arms or tumbled heads or broken plinths which tilted their weathered masters at angles which would have been precarious and scramble-sliding for any real person" (If you know what "scramble-sliding" is, please let me know). Here's another: "After a few seconds Scout softened with a for-God's-sake sigh." This book is littered with hyphenated words that confuse and impede more than they clarify. I find such descriptions the work of someone who either can't think of a more elegant description or didn't take the time to do so (I suspect that the draft of the book submitted to the publisher had even more than what's in the book). For readers like me, this style will prove very difficult to ignore. 2) When you're writing a book that has abstract concepts and moves between dimensions or worlds or dreams, the irony is that the writing needs to be even more concrete because it's easy for the reader to get lost. In this regard, I think the author fails; not because I don't, generally, understand where things are, but there are lots of subtleties that have been lost due to his poor writing. 3) One of the basic rules of fiction is "show, don't tell." When I'm reading a thriller, "showing" is what keeps the heart racing. "Telling" must be kept to a minimum and deployed at the correct locations. As this book proceeds, the author lapses into more telling. Why? Because he's got these complex and complicated ideas BUT HE DOESN'T KNOW HOW TO SHOW these ideas. He shows in the early part of the book and that's what pulls you in; but he gradually tells more and more. With this type of book, the temptation to tell is great; the author has a concept or idea that he thinks profound or interesting and he's burning to work it into the book. If he had greater discipline, he would ask whether each and every idea serves the story; with discipline, he would discard great ideas if they don't serve to maintain the structure that makes the story interesting and compelling and flowing. But the author of RST doesn't have that type of discipline; thus, he wants to put in all the interesting ideas -- but the only way he can do so is to TELL instead of SHOW. Now, some authors tell more than they show; but their writing is of the quality where you really ENJOY the telling. These authors are masters of punctuation and word choice and have the kind of magic that makes you not mind that you're being told. The author of RST does not possess this type of skill; nor does the author of RST present ideas so intriguing that I'm willing to overlook all the telling. 4) Another problem, for me, is that the central character is not compelling. In fact, the character is not convincing to me; he seems too immature to really have embarked on the journey. I have not been willing to suspend my disbelief where this character is concerned (also: what's up with the cat? I can only guess that the cat plays some central role later in the book -- and that's fine -- but the author is telegraphing the cat's importance because every time the cat is mentioned I keep thinking that the cat should have been left behind). One problem I have is that the author has frequent uses of the four-letter word that begins with "F." I'm no prude, but that word is so overused that it's shock value has long been lost. There was a time when using that word would have said something about a character; now all it says is that you lack the imagination to have come up with something else. Finally, I can see this book as a movie -- but I don't mean that as a compliment. Usually, the book is better than the movie (even if the movie is very good). But I can see RST The Movie being better than the book. That's great for the movie, but not an endorsement for the book. Anyway, that's my two-cents. For those who loved this book, jolly for you. The rest of us, well, we'll just keep on the hunt for what floats our boat.

- Reviewed by customer ID: A8IF72UM5Q5QT

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