Review: "Darkmans" by Nicola Barker

This is going to be a difficult book for me to review, because, even though I spent more than a week with this book, I cannot really give it an accurate synopsis, so I cannot give it a really thorough review. I can still give you a somewhat accurate opinion of it at least, cause my feelings, being negative, are quite clear to me, I didn’t really like Nicola Barker’s Darkmans. I found it confusing and convoluted to the point where the confusion about the plot became a real hindrance to me in my quest to finish it and move on to something better. But for all of what I just said, the actual reading process, for me at least, was quite easy to get through. The book has a good flow, mainly due to its layout, and the trail to the end became more noticeable as I kept on going through it. Having read a more in depth synopsis, I can kind of piece together a coherent plot. It reminds me a lot of Trainspotting, in that it deals with a group of lowlifes in Scotland over a few days, but there is a strange connection to a history-traveling gesture that interrupts the flow of their relatively empty lives. I think you can tell from the slight disconnect of this review, that I really didn’t enjoy this book very much. I found the parts that I did understand to be to indicative of the kinds of British writing that I find unappealing, like a second rate Amis, which is really saying something: it tries very hard to be vaguely post-modern, but just comes off as emotionally vacant. Like I said before, it is a quick read if you force yourself to finish, but if you do not plan on writing a review of it, 800 plus pages is too much of a sacrifice if you don’t have the time.

Rating: 2/5