From the bottom of the barrel (From the Corner of His Eye - Dean Koontz)

Member Name: x_elff_x

Product:	From the Corner of His Eye - Dean Koontz
Date:	11/11/01 (302 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Perhaps you can use it as a doorstop, or rip up the pages for impromptu lavatory paper, kindling perhaps?

Disadvantages: This list ain't long enough

Usually, when I write a book review here, it is because I have loved the book enough to want to share the experience with others and, hopefully, encourage them to open its covers and enjoy it themselves. Today, however, I am hoping to achieve the opposite effect. Everything about From the Corner of His Eye is so unmitigatingly dreadful, that if I can persuade even one of you not to come within a mile of this God-foresaken tome then I will consider it worth it.

At the risk of totally digressing from the book and boring you witless in the process, I feel it is pertinent to mention that I usually like Dean Koontz, I appreciate his easy style, simple-yet-effect plots and his ability to churn out pretty enjoyable works at an alarming rate. Corner of His Eye, however, is nothing more than tosh.

So what exactly is wrong with this book? Let's start with the plot. If you glance at the description at the top of the page you will see the character Bartholomew Lampion is mentioned, and his blindness. Would you be surprised to learn then, that Bartholomew (Barty) doesn't, in fact, appear, except for an initial mention, until the last quarter of the book? I certainly was, in fact the first part of the novel seems to have little connection with the latter pages, save for the fact that Koontz is trying (very trying) to take us into the realms of chaos theory for beginners.

Frankly, I think it is a very bad sign when even the marketing men and dust-cover writers can't precis the plot, it really doesn't bode well and the mention of the seagull just puts me in mind of Eric Cantona. In fact the similarity doesn't end there, in that Cantona's 'trawler' speech probably made more sense than this book. I will try and tell you a bit about the plot, but it is so unwieldy and improbable that I know I'm not going to do it very well, however, I just know you aren't going to take my word for it otherwise.

So here we go.
The story really begins with Junior Cain (deliberate name choice? Probably) and his recently-wedded wife, Naomi, embarking on an innocent picnic in the woods. Things take a turn for the worse, however, when Junior kills her in the spur of the moment and we discover that he is, in fact, not a very nice man at all. This is the part I hate Koontz for the most. This novel actually begins quite well, so you find yourself drawn in to the storyline as Junior, totally unaware of his psychopathic nature can't understand why each of his murderous acts result in a physical and torturous manifestation of his guilt. For example, following his wife's murder he throws up so much he is hospitalised.

So far so horror/thriller, and when a slightly other-worldly detective - he can, apparently, make coins disappear into thin air - Vanadium, sees through Junior's profession of sorrow and begins to make it his life's quest to catch him, the reader is hooked.

What a shame Koontz didn't just stick to that tale. But no, every action has an equal and opposite reaction dontcha know? So we must also follow the plot line of the woman who bore Junior's child after he raped her, with whom Vanadium has a tenuous link, and about seven other plot lines, each more fantastical than the next but which Koontz would have us believe are all linked in the great big interconnectedness of all things.

Now, I'm not a scientist, but even I found Koontz's argument laughable. He is supposedly creating a world of coincidence, but what he gives us is nothing more than contrivance.

Half way through I was desperate to stop reading, but I just 'had' to know what Barty had to do with all this.... and then he arrived, in typical Koontz child-prodigy form - and with him comes a whole lot of other hokum regarding parallel universes. Have I lost you? Consider yourself lucky, this is only a fraction of the dreadfulness which you will experience if
you try to follow Koontz's train of thought, and I should know, because I persevered with this to the very last predictable, schmaltzy page. Even the characters, allegedly some of the most 'unforgettable' he has ever written, are so numerous that you keep forgetting who is who and who is connected to whom, so much, in fact, that after a while you cease to care. I rather think Koontz ceased to care too, because once Barty arrives the book seems to totally run out of steam.

According to the rest of the dust jacket Koontz is 'venturing far beyond traditional boundaries', Well, they got that right, providing their definition of traditional boudaries involve such heinous crimes as plausible story and sensible plot development. Koontz is trying to be profound, certainly, and, I think, trying to say to us, 'hey guys, be nice to each other and especially the children, won't you? Cos it's a crazy world out there.' Oh, that he had felt able to achieve that sentiment in less than 700 pages.

If you see this book on the shelves and it catches the corner of your eye, I beg you, turn away.

Bookends

Don't believe me? Still wish to go ahead with the folly of buying this damn thing? Oh well, if you really must - and don't say I didn't warn you - you can bore yourself witless for 5.59 if you buy this at Amazon. I, foolishly, acquired the hardback, but at least I can use it as a doorstop.

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