"Structured rather akin to a Chinese puzzle or a set of Matrioshka dolls, there are dazzling shifts in genre and voice and the stories leak into each other with incidents and people being passed on like batons in a relay race. The 19th-century journals of an American notary in the Pacific that open the novel are subsequently unearthed 80 years later on by Frobisher in the library of the ageing, syphilitic maestro he's trying to fleece. Frobisher's waspish letters to his old Cambridge crony, Rufus Sexsmith, in turn surface when Rufus, (by the 1970s a leading nuclear scientist) is murdered. A novelistic account of the journalist Luisa Rey's investigation into Rufus' death finds its way to Timothy Cavendish, a London vanity publisher with an author who has an ingenious method of silencing a snide reviewer. And in a near-dystopian Blade Runner-esque future, a genetically engineered fast food waitress sees a movie based on Cavendish's unfortunate internment in a Hull retirement home. (Cavendish himself wonders how a director called Lars might wish to tackle his plight). All this is less tricky than it sounds, only the lone "Zachary" chapter, told in Pacific Islander dialect (all "dingos'n'ravens", "brekker" and "f'llowin'"s) is an exercise in style too far. Not all the threads quite connect but nonetheless Mitchell binds them into a quite spellbinding rumination on human nature, power, oppression, race, colonialism and consumerism."

Int'l ray: *completed*
This copy of the book stands in for another one that's missing.
- judygreeneyes, USA
- UnwrittenLibra, USA (ship int'l)
- bekoh, Aus (ship int'l)
- wendyv, Aus (ship int'l)
... and this copy got lost as well.... no idea if wendyv has really sent it off, she has gone AWOL, stalling many rings & rays, and another book she claims to have posted has not arrived neither, so there is reason to be suspicious...

ETA, April 2012 - glad that this book turned up again, it seems it really never got sent off, but somehow found its way to a charity shop. Thanks a lot for journalling it, minkidink!!!
(The other participants of the ray have got the book elsewhere in the meantime, so I removed their names from the list.)

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

travelling to judygreeneyes
happy reading

Thanks, ApoloniaX, the book has arrived safely in San Diego. I can start reading it very soon.

This book was very engaging once I got through the 1st chapter, I think. I especially enjoyed the section about the fabricants, fascinating, and the sections about Luisa Rey, but I have to admit to being a little unclear about the overall relationships between the chapters, except for a few obvious things here and there. I could see what connections there were, but would find it interesting to hear the author speak about it. I think it would have worked fine for me even as a collection of short stories, so it wasn't really a problem. The chapters were in various voices: a business man on a voyage among the Pacific islands in the mid-1800's, a young composer at odds with his parents who develops a relationship with a famed aging composer in Belgium after WWI, a young female journalist in California in the Governor Reagan era who gets in trouble investigating the safety of a nuclear power plant, a "fabricant" (genetically engineered slave) on a future Earth, and a young pacific islander (I had to skip this section, the style of speech was just too much work to decipher). These individual people, separated in time, somehow have things in common, like willingness to buck the system and experiences suffered at the hands of people corrupted by power. I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

I noticed this week that this book ended up on Powell's bookstore's top books of the decade list.

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

This book is leaving by mail to visit UnwrittenLibra. Since he is going to be back in the USA in one month, I'm mailing it to his US address so it doesn't miss him in transit. Enjoy!!

Arrived back home in the USA from Israel today to find this. Thanks, Judy!

Off to bekoh in Australia today via Baltimore-Roland Park Station, Maryland. Go book go!

I was a little disappointed by this book - it really seemed disjointed and some of the dialect in the sections was hard to read. I was able to finish it but was not that impressed.

I have one book to finish before I can to this. It looks really interesting; I like post-apocalyptic novels.

1 month later:

Loved it! I really enjoyed spotting the way the separate stories joined together. I also found the "Zachary" chapter a bit hard to read but was fascinated with the idea of how civilization changed from the technologically advanced world of the "fabricants" to Zac's world but the same theme of power over people still remained.

posted to Wendy today -

tbr - a lovely surprise in the letterbox after a loooooonnnnngggggggg day! Thank you! Am half way through one at the moment but will get to it shortly.

Hmmm. I enjoyed being a part of this ring but have to admit to being a little frustrated at times by the novel. I just wanted to get into it and found that the change in narrative voice dtracted at first from the novel, for me. I enjoyed the time span and the characters. Thank you for including me. I have pm'd Mr Baggins and will send it as soon as I have the address.

Sent ia surface mail today. Happy reading!

I just found this book in an opportunity shop in Leongatha, I've only read two chapters, kept having to get the dictionary out for the first chapter. I'm enjoying it so far and quite intrigued. I picked it up because it was reviewd on the First Tuesday Book Club in September 2011, I remembered the name and the premise. I'll finish my review once I've finished reading it.
7 weeks later....
Finished it and loved it, can't think why I shouldn't give it 10 out of 10. I enjoyed every switch of character and setting, which surprised me because I was completely absorbed in each individual story, so when they ended abruptly I was at first disappointed. But one page into the next story and I was hooked again. That to me shows the skill of the author, and the many voices he has. A really great read and I will be letting it loose again soon. I am travelling to NYC via Singapore, then Mexico and somewhere enroute I will release (sadly) my little friend. I think the cover is excellent as well!