A Review of the Book “The End Of Mr Y” by Scarlett Thomas
Saturday, September 15th, 2007 Subscribe To Our Feed
British novelist Scarlett Thomas bears the burden of being a Bright Young Thing, part of the controversial New Puritans movement, and voted by the Independent as one of the best young writers of 2001.
If any proof was needed that his 35-years old lives up to the hype, then this book is it: a breathless narrative that propels you forward relentlessly like a bullet train; meaty ideas about love, life and the universe; and a delirious valentine to the pleasures of reading.
“The End of Mr Y” is all this, and you get a crash course on metaphysics to boot.
The protagonist Ariel Manto is a smart young woman, a PhD candidate who reads voraciously, sometimes to the detriment of life and the whole business of living.
Any bookworm can identify with her when she says: “Real life is physical. Give me books instead” Give me the invisibility of the contents of books, the thoughts, the ideas, the images. Let me become part of a book; I would give anything for that.”
She soon gets her wish when she stumbles upon a rare copy of The End Of Mr Y. The book is written by an obscure Victorian writer, Thomas Lumas, about whom Ariel is writing a thesis.
She discovers within its pages the secret to accessing the “Troposphere”, a sort of universe of the collective unconscious where she can leap into the minds and bodies of other living beings. She rapidly becomes addicted to trawling through this space but there are deadly dangers afoot.
This book is like a literary equivalent of the science-fiction hit movie, The Matrix, where a rollicking adventure story conceals a sneaky raft of ideas about sub-atomic particles, existence and reality.
As she gets sucked into the pleasures of living vicariously through the Troposphere, Thomas draws adeft parallel with bibliophiles who preere the thrills of armchair travelling to experiencing real life. In introducing real world threats which cross over to the Troposphere, however, she acknowledges that reading can be the most dangerous pursuit of all. After all, it is a never-ending quest for knowledge and you know where that led Eve.
If there is a complaint about this book it is that characterisation takes a backseat to plot and ideas. Ariel, despite, or perhaps because of, her erudition, is a mixed up mess in her personal life, embroiled and completely unable to sort through her finances.
Still this is a minor quibble given the other riches in this novel. You know a book is a keeper when it has succeeded in shifting your universe a stomach lurching degree off its usual axis.
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