Word Made Flesh

Rating:
Summary: Been There Done That
Review: Industrial fiction meets holocaust fiction and the survivor myth. The writing is good but the characters, plotting, and ideas are stale. If you perfer form to content this is a book for you. But if you like form and content to work equally well in a book then this one falls flat.

Rating:
Summary: It begins with a skinning . . .
Review: It begins with an incredibly vivid depiction of a man being ritually skinned alive, as gruesome a description as anything Clive Barker ever wrote. What does it have to do with plot? Almost nothing. The man could have been shot, or stabbed, or starved. The actual manner of his death has little to do with the byzantine plot structure of WORD MADE FLESH. Then again, plot has very little to do with it, either. What is important is the actual literary description of the event, the words used, the emotions evoked. It's important, because in WORD MADE FLESH, the words we read are important above all else.

WORD MADE FLESH is a novel in love with language, a mystery-thriller about the power and mystery of the unusual symbols which make up what we term 'writing'. It rivals Arturo Perez-Reverte's ode to literature THE CLUB DUMAS in its fascination and awe with the written word. That it doesn't quite equal the towering heights DUMAS reached doesn't detract from its style or wit.

WORD MADE FLESH is a labyrinth of a mystery, in which characters interweave and react in a manner akin to both Raymond Chandler novels and David Lynch films. It concerns Gilrein, a cab driver in the city of Quinsigamond. Gilrein was once a police officer, until his wife and fellow officer Ceil was killed in a botched raid. Gilrein has become a target for gangland leader August Kroger, bibliophile and monster, because of a rare book ostensibly in Gilrein's possession. When this story occurs is vague, as the novel evokes both the nostalgic qualities of Dashiell Hammett's THE MALTESE FALCON and the futuristic horror of Philip K. Dick's DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP?

This is merely the bare bones of the narrative, as a complete rendition of its many layers would prove insurmountable. Suffice to say, the characters Gilrein meets say it all about the novel's hidden depths. They include: Otto Langer, fellow cabdriver and ventriloquist, haunted by Holocaust memories; Wylie Brown, former Gilrein flame obsessed with a 200-year-old murder-suicide; and most vividly, Emil Lacazze, a police inspector who ran the precinct's Eschatology Squad, obsessed with his 'Methodology' by which he cracks the toughest of criminals. Every character is haunted by the past, and trapped in their own personal terror.

Author Jack O'Connell is less concerned with the vagaries of plot than he is the intricacies of language. He understands the inherent futility of using words to communicate, as words themselves serve to distance people from the events they relate. One of the more intriguing conceits of O'Connell's world is the creation of the Tung, a criminal organization devoted to the destruction of the written word.

O'Connell's passion is how words are presented, the intricate patterns which are formed through sounds and meaning. His world (this is one of a series of books set in Quinsigamond) revolves around absurdly effective names which do not simply label the character, but create an emotional response through the name's physical sound and presence. Gilrein, Emil Lacazze, Quinsigamond, Meyrink, Kinsky, Kroger; all are bizarre and unusual words which effectively sum up the character.

O'Carroll's actual plot, like the best mysteries, is secondary to the world the plot takes place in. O'Carroll's universe is a cold, bleak, mesmerizing wasteland that exists in a world between then and now. But for all O'Carroll's brilliance, his story peters out in the last pages, in an ending surprising only in its comparative banality to the preceeding tale. Like THE CLUB DUMAS, the search for a book takes on a surprisingly exciting veneer. Like DUMAS, the ultimate meaning of the mysterious book is breathtaking. Unlike DUMAS, O'Carroll can't find an ending.

That aside, WORD MADE FLESH (love the title) is a powerful book. It's mix of high literature and low brutality results in a startling display of the power of the wordsmith. O'Carroll's Quinsigamond, as bleak a world as James Ellroy's L.A., is a world worth visiting more than once.

Rating:
Summary: It begins with a skinning . . .
Review: It begins with an incredibly vivid depiction of a man being ritually skinned alive, as gruesome a description as anything Clive Barker ever wrote. What does it have to do with plot? Almost nothing. The man could have been shot, or stabbed, or starved. The actual manner of his death has little to do with the byzantine plot structure of WORD MADE FLESH. Then again, plot has very little to do with it, either. What is important is the actual literary description of the event, the words used, the emotions evoked. It's important, because in WORD MADE FLESH, the words we read are important above all else.

WORD MADE FLESH is a novel in love with language, a mystery-thriller about the power and mystery of the unusual symbols which make up what we term 'writing'. It rivals Arturo Perez-Reverte's ode to literature THE CLUB DUMAS in its fascination and awe with the written word. That it doesn't quite equal the towering heights DUMAS reached doesn't detract from its style or wit.

WORD MADE FLESH is a labyrinth of a mystery, in which characters interweave and react in a manner akin to both Raymond Chandler novels and David Lynch films. It concerns Gilrein, a cab driver in the city of Quinsigamond. Gilrein was once a police officer, until his wife and fellow officer Ceil was killed in a botched raid. Gilrein has become a target for gangland leader August Kroger, bibliophile and monster, because of a rare book ostensibly in Gilrein's possession. When this story occurs is vague, as the novel evokes both the nostalgic qualities of Dashiell Hammett's THE MALTESE FALCON and the futuristic horror of Philip K. Dick's DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP?

This is merely the bare bones of the narrative, as a complete rendition of its many layers would prove insurmountable. Suffice to say, the characters Gilrein meets say it all about the novel's hidden depths. They include: Otto Langer, fellow cabdriver and ventriloquist, haunted by Holocaust memories; Wylie Brown, former Gilrein flame obsessed with a 200-year-old murder-suicide; and most vividly, Emil Lacazze, a police inspector who ran the precinct's Eschatology Squad, obsessed with his 'Methodology' by which he cracks the toughest of criminals. Every character is haunted by the past, and trapped in their own personal terror.

Author Jack O'Connell is less concerned with the vagaries of plot than he is the intricacies of language. He understands the inherent futility of using words to communicate, as words themselves serve to distance people from the events they relate. One of the more intriguing conceits of O'Connell's world is the creation of the Tung, a criminal organization devoted to the destruction of the written word.

O'Connell's passion is how words are presented, the intricate patterns which are formed through sounds and meaning. His world (this is one of a series of books set in Quinsigamond) revolves around absurdly effective names which do not simply label the character, but create an emotional response through the name's physical sound and presence. Gilrein, Emil Lacazze, Quinsigamond, Meyrink, Kinsky, Kroger; all are bizarre and unusual words which effectively sum up the character.

O'Carroll's actual plot, like the best mysteries, is secondary to the world the plot takes place in. O'Carroll's universe is a cold, bleak, mesmerizing wasteland that exists in a world between then and now. But for all O'Carroll's brilliance, his story peters out in the last pages, in an ending surprising only in its comparative banality to the preceeding tale. Like THE CLUB DUMAS, the search for a book takes on a surprisingly exciting veneer. Like DUMAS, the ultimate meaning of the mysterious book is breathtaking. Unlike DUMAS, O'Carroll can't find an ending.

That aside, WORD MADE FLESH (love the title) is a powerful book. It's mix of high literature and low brutality results in a startling display of the power of the wordsmith. O'Carroll's Quinsigamond, as bleak a world as James Ellroy's L.A., is a world worth visiting more than once.

Rating:
Summary: free range intelligence
Review: Jack O'connell is about to bust 'em open wide with this new book, folks. He's been a secret wonder for a while but this one will change that. He's an artist of great and diverse talents, gothic, lyric, learned and a sick sick puppy. His prose rambles and licks and wipes and stabs, always sharp and informed by his free range intelligence. He's like Poe without the hopefulness. Catch onto O'connell now and get your dreams all twisted and larded with suspicious acts you almost comprehend.

Rating:
Summary: Dark and brilliant
Review: Staggeringly brilliant. Endlessly dark and inventive. A work of genius you *MUST* read.

Rating:
Summary: Poetic Violence
Review: The book has it's fair shair of blood and gore, yet keeps it at a good enough level where theres a great story behind it. Actually a really great story which thickens, and at the end it leaves you thinking "So thats really how it is".

Rating:
Summary: ultimately disappointing
Review: the book is a surreal mixture of different themes: noir mystery, love story, linguistic philosophy and even the holocaust -- sort of raymond chandler meets wittgenstein.

jack o'connell writes really well, but the big problem with this novel is that none of the characters are real. by "real" i mean capable of evoking emotional resonance. so in spite of the fact that many of the passages are very stylish and intriguing, at the end of the book i was left feeling cheated, because i didn't care who lived or died, and in particular what happened to gilrein, the book's protagonist.

give me iain m. banks any day.

Rating:
Summary: Great Poetic Book
Review: The book is great. It starts off with Gilrein getting beat up in the beggining. He doesn't know why, but he finds out later. The reason he got beat up has a really big story to it and it involves a lot to do with his past and present.

Rating:
Summary: GREAT BOOK
Review: The book starts off with Gilrein getting beat up. The beggining is just a bunch of things happening and you don't know why they are happening, but as the story progresses, everythings starts to relate and plot becomes like a deep hole you fall into really quick. The writing style of Jack O'Connel is very original. His words are very complex and carefully chosen. The way he describes his violence is as if it were a poem, like as if it were poetic violence. This is a great book and I would recommend it to anyone who has a taste for poetry and/or great mysteries.

Rating:
Summary: Dark and brilliant
Review: WORD MADE FLESH is laden with blood, violence, and horror, but the book is about none of these things. Rather, O'Connell is fascinated with the topic academics know as "semiotics": the strange and transformative relationship between an object or idea and the word we use to describe it.

The book is full of people who at some level are acting out their frustration at being unable to communicate, unable to make that fundamental connection with another human being. One character is driven mad by his inability to express the horror of an atrocity he witnessed decades ago in Eastern Europe, another is afflicted by a disease that attacks the brain's language centers, and the hero is a man broken by the death of his wife, the only person he could express himself to.

The prose is beautiful and haunting. The surface-level mystery plot makes most noir seem merely gray in comparison. And it all takes place against the backdrop of Quinsigamond, Maine, the most nihilistic city in the universe. The problem, though, is that O'Connell deploys an embarrasment of riches in his 326 pages and doesn't linger long enough on any one idea, character, or plot point to give it the emotional impact it merits. Trying to fit all his ideas into a book as slim as WORD MADE FLESH is like trying to tour the Smithsonian in a day. Also, it seems to be assumed that the reader is familiar with his earlier, impossible-to-find Quinsigamond books. Despite all this, though, the book is wonderfully worth reading -- because, though his fictional world is crude and nihilistic, O'Connell himself is not, and every word he writes is incandescent with compassion and fiery, holy rage against both the fictional hell of Quinsigamond and the real world that it holds a mirror to.