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Summary
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.
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Hall's debut, the darling of last year's London Book Fair, is a cerebral page-turner that pits corporeal man against metaphysical sharks that devour memory and essence, not flesh and blood. When Eric Sanderson wakes from a lengthy unconsciousness, he has no memory. A letter from "The First Eric Sanderson" directs him to psychologist Dr. Randle, who tells Eric he is afflicted with a "dissociative condition." Eric learns about his former life-specifically a glorious romance with girlfriend Clio Aames, who drowned three years earlier-and is soon on the run from the Ludovician, a "species of purely conceptual fish" that "feeds on human memories and the intrinsic sense of self." Once he hooks up with Scout, a young woman on the run from her own metaphysical predator, the two trek through a subterranean labyrinth made of telephone directories (masses of words offer protection, as do Dictaphone recordings), decode encrypted communications and encounter a series of strange characters on the way to the big-bang showdown with the beast. Though Hall's prose is flabby and the plethora of text-based sight gags don't always work (a 50-page flipbook of a swimming shark, for instance), the end result is a fast-moving cyberpunk mashup of Jaws, Memento and sappy romance that's destined for the big screen. 125,000 first printing; $150,000 promo. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
New York Review of Books Review
IN 1773, patriots in Boston protested Britain's stranglehold over the tea trade by tipping 342 crates of Chinese leaves into the harbor. The British had been trying desperately to offset the costs of purchasing this valuable commodity from Canton, where China had imposed its own unfavorable trading terms. Tea was the lifeblood of the East India Company, but by the late 18th century, it had begun to drain the beast it was supposed to nourish. Kate Teltscher's marvelous new book, "The High Road to China," lucidly relates how Britain tried to circumvent trade barriers by opening a back door to China through the mysterious land of Tibet. It was with this aim that in 1774 Warren Hastings, the governor of Bengal, sent his private secretary, George Bogle, to the remote Buddhist monastery of the third Panchen Lama, Lobsang Palden Yeshe. Bogle's route took him into some of the world's toughest terrain, over flooded ravines in Bhutan and across Tibet's icy plateaus. But these were the least of his obstacles: he also had to scale the daunting barriers of cultural understanding. Communication was actively hindered by agents of the Qianlong emperor in Peking, who claimed Tibet as a dependency and spurned the meddling of traders from an island of "lonely remoteness ... cut off from the world by intervening wastes of sea." Besides, as the Dalai Lama's regent warned, the British were warlike and treacherous. When the Panchen Lama finally permitted Bogle to enter Tibet, he was risking relations with his Chinese overlords; he was also exposing his country to a notorious band of rascals. What could have motivated this rash invitation? While Bogle was intent on trade agreements, the Panchen Lama was eager to forge a pilgrim path to the Buddhist holy lands in India: "I wish," he told Bogle, "to have a place on the banks of the Ganges, to which I might send my people to pray." At the heart of Teltscher's book is the friendship that - according to Bogle - grew up between himself and the Panchen Lama. Despite the paucity of Tibetan sources, there is enough in Bogle's papers for Teltscher to claim that their relationship "stands out in the history of encounters between Europeans and non-Europeans because it was neither violent nor exploitative." Both Bogle and the Panchen Lama "were eager to cultivate each other, both were equally keen to learn." Teltscher's 1995 book, "India Inscribed," a study of 17th-and 18th-century British and European writing on India, emphasized how explorations of Eastern cultures, like Sir William Jones's study of Sanskrit, were carried out with the sinister aim of gaining mastery over colonial subjects. There was little room in that strict reading, inspired by the work of Edward Said, for the idea that genuine scholarly fascination could subsist as an end in itself alongside imperial ambitions. Britain's tentative position in Tibet at the time differed from its dominant role in Bengal, but "The High Road to China" also signals a shift in Teltscher's general attitude. Even while working for an unjust colonial machine, many individuals fostered similarly paradoxical relationships that became the channels for mutual cultural exchange. But the ironies, as Teltscher shows, run deep. Britain's ambition of opening up the Chinese market was finally realized through violence, with the Opium Wars of 1839-42 and 1856-60. Francis Younghusband, who traveled to Tibet in 1903, saw himself as Bogle's diplomatic successor even while leading a British invasion that massacred 500 Tibetans in a single encounter. Teltscher deftly laces her narrative with insights into Tibet's modern predicament, and Bogle's journey becomes a conduit for reflecting how a caffeine addiction that many of us still share was a potent force in shaping global trade. Tristram Stuart is the author of "The Bloodless Revolution: A Cultural History of Vegetarianism From 1600 to Modern Times."
Guardian Review
Steven Hall's debut opens, as so many novels seem to do these days, with a young amnesiac losing his memory after an unspecified traumatic event. Eric Sanderson wakes up in a flat with no idea of who or where he is. He finds out only because the old Eric Sanderson, the one before the memory loss, has prepared a series of letters telling him his identity and what he should do next. The first letter directs him to Dr Randle, a frizzy-haired "electrical storm" of a psychiatrist who tells him that this all happened after the death of his girlfriend Clio and that he should under no circumstances read any more of the old Eric Sanderson's letters. Rather than seek other advice, Eric holes up in his flat with his cat Ian and tries to establish a new identity for himself. He eventually opens the letters from the old Eric, which duly tell him to surround himself with four dictaphones at all times and to assume the blandest false identity possible. All of which will protect him from the Ludovician. The Ludovician is a thought fish, a gigantic conceptual shark which "feeds on human memories and the intrinsic sense of self". Except it's also, in a way, a real shark which can really eat you. Sort of. Unless you're protecting yourself in a cage of four dictaphones, which create a "non-divergent conceptual loop" that repels it, just like a shark cage. Still with us? After the first attack by the Ludovician, Eric finds himself, cat in tow, on the trail of the "Un-Space Exploration Committee" to seek out "crypto-conceptual oceanologist" Dr Trey Fidorous. Along the way, he escapes the nefarious Mr Nobody with the sudden help of the beautiful Scout, who bears an uncanny resemblance to Clio. Scout tells Eric about evil mastermind Mycroft Ward (say it slowly), less a villain than a malignant consciousness imprinting himself on innocent people. Perhaps there's a way to kill two birds with one stone. And that, of course, is going to require a conceptual boat. Yes, this does sound like a novel only a certain type of undergraduate could love, and the list of ultra-cool pastiches is extensive: The Matrix , Memento , Paul Auster, Mark Z Danielewski's House of Leaves , Chuck Palahniuk, and especially Haruki Murakami's Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World . And The Raw Shark Texts only really takes off in its last part, when Hall goes for broke and recreates Jaws - not just referencing it, but actually recreating it, plot lines, order of death, climax and everything. There is, however, an exuberance here that keeps the self- conscious cult aspects from getting irritating. Hall acknowledges his influences directly and with enthusiasm, and his whimsy with typeface and page layout is usually to a purpose. Even the 50-page flipbook of an approaching shark late in the novel is surprisingly effective and chilling in context. And though his romantic dialogue is hackneyed, he's an effective writer of both horror and adventure. The problem is that this is at least the third novel I've read in the past year about a man trying to recreate reality after losing his memory. John Haskell's American Purgatorio was unbearably solipsistic, while Tom McCarthy's Remainder was pleasingly eerie. The Raw Shark Texts falls somewhere in between, with an added dash of adventure story. There's another one along this month, from Sam Taylor ( The Amnesiac ). For now, though, a literary moratorium on young male amnesiacs would be welcome. Don't women ever lose their memories? Patrick Ness's most recent book is Topics About Which I Know Nothing (Harper Perennial). To order The Raw Shark Texts for pounds 11.99 with free UK p&p call Guardian book service on 0870 836 0875. Caption: article-shark.1 Rather than seek other advice, [Eric Sanderson] holes up in his flat with his cat Ian and tries to establish a new identity for himself. He eventually opens the letters from the old Eric, which duly tell him to surround himself with four dictaphones at all times and to assume the blandest false identity possible. All of which will protect him from the Ludovician. The Ludovician is a thought fish, a gigantic conceptual shark which "feeds on human memories and the intrinsic sense of self". Except it's also, in a way, a real shark which can really eat you. Sort of. Unless you're protecting yourself in a cage of four dictaphones, which create a "non-divergent conceptual loop" that repels it, just like a shark cage. - Patrick Ness.
Kirkus Review
If Paul Auster and Haruki Murakami collaborated on Moby-Dick crossed with The Wizard of Oz, they might produce something like Hall's deliriously ambitious debut, which mixes profound themes with playful plot twists. Narrator Eric Sanderson suffers from what his psychiatrist, Dr. Randle, calls "psychotropic fugue," a recurring amnesia. The only clues he has to the catastrophe that triggered his psychosis are those provided by Dr. Randle and through letters and packages sent to him by "the First Eric Sanderson." According to the psychiatrist, Eric has tried to come to terms with his past and his identity on previous occasions, only to revert to the state that he's in when the novel begins, reborn from unconsciousness. She warns him not to pay any heed to the First Eric Sanderson: This is where madness lies. Yet the First Eric Sanderson warns him not to trust Dr. Randle, who may be putting her professional interests in his unusual case ahead of his best interests. At the crux of Eric's crisis is a trip he took with his girlfriend Clio to the Greek islands, where she seems to have suffered a fatal scuba-diving accident. As long as the narrative remains primarily inside Eric's head, it's riveting, but it turns increasingly wacky as he abandons therapy and embarks on a pilgrimage to confront the great "conceptual fish" that apparently can attack his memory like a computer virus. In the process, he acquires a female accomplice named Scout, who might be Clio and may be using Eric for her own purposes. She says she can lead him to Dr. Trey Fidorous, archetypal mad scientist and world authority on conceptual fish. So they're off to see the wizard, then off to spear the fish (conceptually, of course) as the typography turns from prose paragraphs into codes and word illustrations. Quite a narrative feat of hallucinatory imagination, though occasionally only borderline coherent. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
Is Eric Sanderson crazy? Or is he really skidding along in another dimension of the known world, confronting a shifting identity and the loss of love? With a 125,000-copy first printing; national tour. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.