I sometimes think books are like buses – you don't read any good ones for a while, and then three come along at once. Anyway, have had a great run recently, one of which was the new book by Joshua Ferris (whose first was And Then We Came To The End, an office-based tale that I enjoyed very much).
There's not much of a plot to The Unnamed. A man, Tim, a highly paid partner in a law firm, good at his job and with a loving wife and daughter, is afflicted by a strange condition that forces him to walk until he drops from exhaustion. Undiagnosed and seemingly incurable, his inability to stay still in one place causes his successful life to fall apart at the seams.
It's a strange setup for a strange-sounding novel. I think it succeeds because it is so vividly written, and the characters are believable and likeable, impossible not to care about them and their fate. In considering all the things that Tim is forced unwillingly to walk away from, Ferris suggests we consider the things in our own lives that we hold dear, or maybe that we take for granted. It's a love story that actually reminded me a little bit of The Time Travellers Wife, in that it is about the inexorability of fate and time, and shared moments that cannot last. Ultimately, this novel shows, we are alone, and we cannot hold on to anything; the things we have in life that are precious are impermanent, and yet – as is also suggested as the story unfolds – it is those moments and connections that are the things that make life worthwhile.
I liked that there was much that was left open and unresolved. I thought the characters were nicely drawn and the surroundings vividly evoked. There's a poetic quality to it, but buried in the mundane; an everyday lyricism, maybe, that made reading it a pleasure.
45/50
Cover art: Oh I love this. I actually bought the large-format paperback just to have this cover. 9/10
