Fascinating. I write some dross about structure in my novels – or not in my novels and then I start reading The End of Mr Y by Scarlett Thomas which I picked up at the opening of The Big Green Bookshop and have, funnily enough, never seen anywhere else. Why did I pick it up? It has black-stained page edges which makes it look different. Yes, I really am that easily hooked. Sad. But true.
Anyway, the point is that The End of Mr Y is fascinating in various ways. For a start, nobody else seems to have heard of it, though it could easily turn into a huge cult thing. Secondly, it’s based in Canterbury, or, if it’s not (the town’s name hasn’t been mentioned yet, but I’m only a quarter of the way through) there’s a town which shares Canterbury’s features to a spooky degree. It even begins with a bit of the university falling into a huge hole made by an early railway tunnel – this really happened to one of the University of Kent at Canterbury’s buildings.
So I went online to find out about Scarlett Thomas - who she is, why she’s setting her novels in Canterbury, etc to find that she’s got quite a lot to say about structuring the modern novel here.
She also has a Myspace page which kind of implies that she wishes she didn’t. In fact she seems ambivalent about a lot of stuff, as you can see here.
So, Scarlett Thomas, anybody want to tell me what the rest of her books are like and whether there is a growing cult out there? Or is the mysterious The End of Mr Y mysterious for a reason…
Anyway, the point is that The End of Mr Y is fascinating in various ways. For a start, nobody else seems to have heard of it, though it could easily turn into a huge cult thing. Secondly, it’s based in Canterbury, or, if it’s not (the town’s name hasn’t been mentioned yet, but I’m only a quarter of the way through) there’s a town which shares Canterbury’s features to a spooky degree. It even begins with a bit of the university falling into a huge hole made by an early railway tunnel – this really happened to one of the University of Kent at Canterbury’s buildings.
So I went online to find out about Scarlett Thomas - who she is, why she’s setting her novels in Canterbury, etc to find that she’s got quite a lot to say about structuring the modern novel here.
She also has a Myspace page which kind of implies that she wishes she didn’t. In fact she seems ambivalent about a lot of stuff, as you can see here.
So, Scarlett Thomas, anybody want to tell me what the rest of her books are like and whether there is a growing cult out there? Or is the mysterious The End of Mr Y mysterious for a reason…
