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The Wilderness by Samantha Harvey (view source)
Revision as of 13:38, 24 December 2009
, 13:38, 24 December 2009no edit summary
|format=Paperback
|pages=336
|publisher= Jonathan Cape LtdVintage|date=April 2009 February 2010 |isbn=978-0224089685 0099526537 |amazonuk=<amazonuk>02240896840099526530</amazonuk>
|amazonus=<amazonus>0224089684</amazonus>
|sort=Wilderness
I didn't particularly like Jake at first – he seems cold and difficult, though I could just be being prejudiced against his love of concrete and high-rise carbuncles in architecture. His character becomes more sympathetic as his condition deteriorates – I first found myself truly gripped when he gets lost while walking his dog, and has to be brought home by the police, recognising his own vulnerability. The narrative floats between the past and the present, with Jake's visits to his psychiatrist, who charts his Alzheimer's, as linear markers in this trip around and about Jake's deteriorating brain. The final chapters are truly touching – I can't call the outcome uplifting, but it is calm, if very sad. Mind you, I always cry at the bit in 2001: A Space Odyssey when HAL the computer regresses to singing a nursery rhyme when his 'brain' is shut down…
This novel certainly gives its readers food for thought; I wondered if Harvey, who shows considerable skill in her writing, could have had Jake's thoughts in the first person, as an unreliable narrator? We are practically inside his head much of the time, and even a little of Jake speaking his inner thoughts for himself would have been interesting. Samantha Harvey was incredibly brave to tackle this difficult subject in her first novel, and with such aplomb, and it will be interesting to see her future output. I'd like to thank the publishers for sending a copy to the Bookbag.
For further reading, the novel [[The Madonnas of Leningrad by Debra Dean]] explores a similar deterioration of the mind, and was much liked by Bookbag's reviewer. For the science behind Alzheimer's and more, Bookbag liked [[In Search of Memory: The Emergence of a New Science of Mind by Eric R Kandel]].
{{amazontext|amazon=02240896840099526530}} {{waterstonestext|waterstones=6749957}}
{{toptentext|list=Orange Prize for Fiction 2009}}