Carry Me Down

A waste of time

This book was one of the most tedious books I've read in a long time. With unlikable characters, a plot that was hardly even there, and page after page of basic garbage, I couldn't wait for an ending...and even that was horribly lacking. The writing was just fine, but the book as a whole was a complete waste of time.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Was this review helpful? Yes  NoThank you for your feedback.   Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.

THEN GO AND CLOSE THE DOOR

True or not, I can't help feeling that ANGELA'S ASHES has destroyed a generation of Irish/American writers (or any writer wanting to write in the field). Not to say that CARRY ME DOWN is ANGELA'S ASHES all over again, but I can feel its ghosts tucked between Hyland's spare, plain, beautiful, yet graphic writing style. Haunting is a word that will pop up time and again as you read the book, and it is a haunted book to be sure. The last time I actually got this involved with a character and their moods and feelings was with Will Perry in Phillip Pullman's A SUBTLE KNIFE, so, why the low score when all it seems I have nothing but praise and teaspoons of surgar for this novel... well, there are some problems. As good as the prose is, it still comes across like a play with all the stage directions wedged into the story trying to pass itself off as legitimate fiction - it's not. Everything is stark, sharp and literal. Cup. Table. Chair. Fireplace - you name it, it all reads flat on the page and never sticks in your mind. Some of the ideas do. The subplot about being a human lie detector, the struggling and desperate end to a marriage and the breaking of the family unit, it's all done very well. But then there are the triggers and emotional landmines that cheapen the deal. The fate of the kittens being the most grevious, and sore thumbed. It's a brutal scene, and pulls at your heart - not because it's so well written, but because it's murder most foul, plain and simple. I could ring tears out of that scene in any novel, no matter the subject, so when I read it here it really felt like a scene Hyland had floating around in a journal that got transplated into this novel. And while the dialogue was well written, and often sharp, it tends to sound flat inside your head. Almost like you've walked into the 1,000 performance of a play, and the actors hearts are tired of the material - it's colorless, humourless and dry... but still compelling in its decay. It's a tough novel, one that I wanted to love every time I turned the page, but by the last page I simply could not love it as a novel, but could find some heart for the process and art of it trying to be a novel. CARRY ME DOWN comes across like a work in progress, much like its lead character, and as he develops we hope the novel will as well, but it never does. It ends without ending, much like life itself.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Was this review helpful? Yes  NoThank you for your feedback.   Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.

Almost painful

This novel is long-listed for the 2006 Booker prize and is the best of the bunch that I've read so far. The prose is clean and sharp and the suspense and atmosphere that builds up is awful (meaning great). Comparisons t other child narrators like that in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time or David Mitchell's latest rather miss the point this is a book about the consequences of a kind of extreme puritanism and perfectionism - the desire to make the world in the way you want it and the inabiity to fully realise that other people have lives that are outside your ken. However, like the best child narrators, John Egan (the 12 year old central character) does evoke strong felings of sympathy (despite him being a little creepy)and sees the world with an off-kilter vision that has not yet been dulled by adulthood. A great read. highly recommended.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Was this review helpful? Yes  NoThank you for your feedback.   Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.

'It's compelling...'

'This is an unisual novel that is wrenchng and totally satisfying.'

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Was this review helpful? Yes  NoThank you for your feedback.   Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.

One of the best books of the last decade!

I could not put this book down and could not stop thinking about it after I finished. It was brilliant from beginning to end. The writing is sharp and simple, the characters complex and believable, the story slightly surreal but truthful. Read it now.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Was this review helpful? Yes  NoThank you for your feedback.   Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.

dull book with no point

do not bother to read this book - it is time you will never get back; there are very few books that I do not forward to friends or family to read - I had no one that I would give this book to - it went right in the trash as soon as I finished the last word

Was this review helpful? Yes  NoThank you for your feedback.   Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.

No Plot

This book was huge waste of time. There was no plot to the story and I kept reading it for the purpose for maybe it will finally start getting a plot. Read the whole book and nothing! I would not reccomend this book

Was this review helpful? Yes  NoThank you for your feedback.   Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.

No text was provided for this review.