| Product: |
The Dumb House - John Burnside |
| Date: |
27/02/01 (76 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: Beautiful writing and an interesting story
Disadvantages: Highly disturbing
"No one could say it was my choice to kill the twins, anymore than it was my decision to bring them into the world."
And so starts what is one of the most disturbing, terrifying and utterly gripping books I have ever had the mis/fortune to pick up.
The book is written entirely in first person, and from beginning to end you hang on every word of the central character.
He is fascinated by language and human behaviour, and the effect that losing one has on the other.
His fascination comes out of stories from Persian Myth where a great palace was built, in which new-born babies were attended only by mutes. This was run as a test to discover whether language was acquired or instinctive. This palace is the Dumb House of the title.
By carrying out his own experiments and atrocities our narrator takes us through his fascination, his findings and theories. They are cruel and barbaric to read and they will torment you for the duration of this novel.
Following the death of his mother, the unnamed narrator creates a twisted variant of the Dumb House, using his own children as subjects in a bizarre experiment. However, when the twins develop a musical language all of their own, it is our man who is excluded from their world.
Along the way he falls into a relationship with a young boys mother. I can't give any of it away, but when reading about this relationship I found myself distressed, sickened, full of loathing and totally disgusted by the whole affair. It was the most mesmerizing read I have ever had.
I was unable to put this book down and finished it in only two nights.
John Burnside is better known for his poetry and The Dumb House is his very first novel. It's kind of scary to think that someone actually wrote this book from their own imagination. It is like reading an autobiography of seriously deranged man.
I leant this book to my girlfriend, she got ha
lf way through and decided that she couldn’t read anymore. It was playing with her mind too much.
I do not want to put anyone off of this book, it is truly amazing. The language used in it is incredibly beautiful – as you would expect from a poet - and the story, and the idea behind it, is incredibly interesting, but the book itself is not for the squeamish among us.
This next paragraph is from a section where, having visited the boys mother on several occasions, he finds the boy alone in the kitchen.
"...His face showed the pain, but he made no sound. He didn't cry out, he didn't even struggle, he only whimpered a little, towards the end, as I broke each finger in turn..."
The reason I have included that section is because a) It gives nothing away, and b) it is nothing compared to everything else that happens. If you found that hard to read without feeling the young boys pain, you will certainly find the rest of the book distressing.
But, I cannot say it enough, this is a brilliant, brilliant book. It is strongly written with well defined characters. The prose is like poetry and the plot will take you on the most amazing roller-coaster of a journey.
Or
This is an incredibly disturbing, vomit-inducing book. You will be repelled and angered that a book like this has ever been allowed to be published in the first place. It will make you write a letter of disgust to the publishing company.
Whichever, I recommend this book to anyone who loves literature and language. I found the book exciting, scary, enthralling, disturbing, beautiful and atrocious all at the same time – I list this is one of my favourite books.
It's very similar to The Collector by John Fowles, but it is modern and much more intense.
I paid £6.99 for my copy in Waterstones, but on Amazon I just found it for £4.79.
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