Communication

Never has there been so many ways to communicate, and never has there been such a lack of communication. Excellent book.

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Not A Gripping Drama Set In Antarctica

NB this novel is in three parts: Lean, Fall and Stand. Lean is a gripping drama set in Antarctica. But Fall and Stand are the story of recovering what you can after **Spoiler Alert Spoiler Alert** a stroke. Taken as a whole the novel is a coherent narrative, but if you want an ice-bound adventure, give up after Lean. Please don’t though. You’ll be missing out on what Jon McGregor is brilliant at, why we all need him so much, why I guzzle up his books as soon as I hear about him. Here’s an example: one of the characters has a stroke. Most writers, at that point, would move the first person perspective away from that character. The perspective has been switching between the characters anyway. But McGregor continues - in turn - seeing the world as that character, even as words and sense begin ebbing away. One of McGregor’s hallmarks is writing proper, carefully considered gibberish where it’s required. Another is repetition; another is a generally slow pace. You need patience. Then, in this novel anyway, Jon McGregor takes you, with honest, deliberate thoroughness, into one of your dark places, with a candle.

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1 person found this helpful

Not quite what I was expecting

The book was beautifully narrated. However the story, having been heralded as an Antarctic adventure, was largely about the rehabilitation of a stroke patient. Well written and empathetic but not really what I was hoping for.

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Disappointing

The beginning is enthralling as one really experience the confusion fear helplessness of a storm in the attic and it could have been so much more but as one reader said… the next chapters are so repetitive and dull , the character of the wife is so barely sketched. I really expected better .

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Not at all enjoyable - so relieved to get to the end

I know the whole book was a metaphor for how life has no easy answers and how dreadful to lose the ability to communicate but to have to endure the suffering and participate in it was truly dreadful

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Sorry, not for me

I managed 10 chapters, skipping bits, before giving up. I found it slow and depressing

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1 person found this helpful

somewhat overwrought and overwritten

The first part is a gripping account of a slowly unfolding disaster. The second part shifts to another character, the protagonist's wife as joyless and dutiful as he is. The inch by inch account of a man trying to recover from a stroke is true to life but my it does go on! Were there any shards of light in the darkeming gloom? Maybe in the pages I skipped? Thought provoking nevertheless-is a man's life less meaningful when his brain is shattered than when he is slavishly following self-imposed exile from the human race? Should be called Stand Fall Lean to follow his journey back to leaning on others.

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don't bother

exciting opening chapter. then increasingly dull. felt cheated as there was so little story and the therapy sessions which consumed 2/3rds of the book were lazy, ill informed, repetitive writing.
will no longer read his other novels as I had planned to after first few chapters.

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