Sebastian Faulks - Engleby

[Goawaybob]

I don't know whether to pity him or hate him. Has anyone else read this?

I know what you mean bob.
I read this one via audiobook but was also given a copy of the paper back by lovely MIL who knows I like SF.
Rather disturbing - I have just added the paperback to the charity shop pile with a shudder tbh. Not one i want to revisit.

Did you see the MN online chat with SF btw?
sebastian faulks
Can highly recommend a week in december.

spoiler alert----------------I knew from the minute he said "time for a bath" to the other lad at boarding school that he was the killer, i just didn't want him to be.

I think SF has a very dark mind, albeit pretty acute.

Thanks for the link, will look at that later.

Now i think i need to read something to cheer me up after that one!

Thats the thing for me Jagas, he writes beautifully but it is pretty tough going sometimes. I have also read Human Traces which i thought was brilliant, he clearly has some insight into neurology as well as psychiatry. I got half way through birdsong twice but just couldnt make my self read the war stuff, it was just too much for me.

I love Sebastian Faulks, but Engleby made me very uncomfortable. If you haven't read Human Traces give it a go, it's his best IMO.

Cross posts! You've read it then!

X - posts petrean :)

I don't think i ever really identified with Mike, found him irritating and arrogant, which i suppose is what he was. I wanted to feel sorry for him, i wanted to get to the end and find that she had run away from him but got killed by someone else, but she didn't :(

I read it - it confirmed my view that I can't stand SF, who (IMO!) will never be able to write as well as he thinks he can........

Jajas - why thank you. as for 'The Children's book' erm well it's not one of my best, that's for sure! - I hated that book!

(The last time I was after a new MN name I glanced over at the bookshelf!)

sorry, off the point there.

my book group read Engleby - well, we started it, but most people gave up on it! I did persist to the bitter end just in case.

I really enjoyed this book - seriously, seriously disturbing but darkly funny in places - especially the whole Jeffrey Archer thing. And his explanation about what happens to all of those dull public schoolboys who are too dumb to go to University explains a lot! Maybe I just have a very dark sense of humour.

I agree, I found some of it incredibly (darkly) funny, and then he sort of pulled the plug on that and took you down the drain. Very compelling but as usual for Seb Faulks a dreadful, pat ending! why does he do it, every single time???

I quite liked, 'Engleby' but have hated everything else of his I've tried since, to the point where I've given up on them. Too much 'showing off' of his 'vast mind' (he thinks) and not enough engagement with the fact that somebody is trying to enjoy the damned things.

I found, 'Engleby' darkly and disturbingly funny throughout but agree re the pat ending (which tbh I have now completely forgotten!).

I read Engleby recently and thought it was wonderfully original and well-written but not " enjoyable", it's not meant to be. I knew he had murdered Jenny as soon as he said she had disappeared but of course he's barking mad and the reader does not know what is true and what isn't.

I loved it, thought it was witty and funny.