The Tesseract

Rating:
Summary: I don't read many books but this was quite enjoyable
Review: I've been obsessed with the movie The Beach. Every time I watch it, it climbs my favorite movie ladder(which it is now in the top 10). So I decided to (gasp) read the book The Beach to see what all was different from the movie. Sadly my library only had The Tesseract by Alex Garland, so no Beach for me. While I don't read many books, The Tesseract held my attention and was a fun read.

The book is simply brilliant, as others have said. This is what I got out of the book: It tackles the issue of time or the 4th dimension something that we as 3 dimensional beings can never really see happening nor control. Whether it be someone who has gotten themself into a bad situation, someone who has loved, or someone who has forgotten the past, time is what none of these people could predict. Much like they could not predict how they would end up spending time together themselves.

What we end up with is a group of 3-dimensional people who are haunted by time. And by doing so only look at the next step up, the 4th dimension, but never understanding it as a whole. And with this comes a sense of godlessness that if humans are struggling to comprehend what's behind time, how could they ever comprehend god or some higher dimension in life or the hereafter?

The end result is a group of people who at most can only comprehend their view of actions that take place, who never have the full story, who can only make their daily lives less complex but never more. A book through 3 different stories that shows the limits of humanity. Everyone should read The Tesseract.

Rating:
Summary: I Should've stayed on The Beach...
Review: Let me tell you something about The Beach, not only is it one of my favorite books, it's one of my favorite books to recommend. I made all my friends and family read it and they all loved it, I think it was my older sister, who's favorite author is Jane Austeen and stays away from modern lit like from the plague, who said she'd never enjoyed a book this much before. Her exact words were "the best literary experience I've ever had". So when The Tesseract came out I was the first one to but, and apparently the only one, I found out why later. The Tesseract is a failed attempt by a beginning writer to prove that he can write more than a Leo movie. After seeing the movie I do understand the writer's need to get as far away from The Beach as possible but this is ridiculous! It reads like an essay written by an ambitious 12 year old, it is uninteresting and at any given time you can skip 50 pages and not have missed any crucial events simply because - there are none! The characters are boring and after a while you are faced with the fact that you just don't care what happens to them! I am not only disappointed but in mourning for this brilliant writer who obviously is trying to impress someone god knows who, and I am sincerely hoping his new baby The Coma will redeem him from this joke.

Rating:
Summary: an unexpected yet thoroughly engaging story...
Review: The Tesseract starts off so much like The Beach (Alex Garland's first novel). The setting is a slimey hotel in the tropics (Manila), and we have a man caught up in some rather nasty (criminal) business. However just as the tension really builds the author does a major context switch and the reader is then told the lives of various tangential Filipino characters. In the end Alex Garland pulls everyone together for a rather shocking (read: violent) finale. Weird? Yes. But surprisingly well done.

For me The Tesseract is a better book than The Beach, an incredibly successful first novel by Garland. Firstly the author really captures the sense of despair of the Filipino people and the seedy, humid, polluted, and impoverished elements of Manila. Rather than being a singular story of urban violence Alex Garland paints a panorama of unfortunate lives. While its "bouncy" structure works very well generally I thought the beginning (mondo violence) and ending (mondo violence) were a bit inconsistent with the rest of the book (human drama, no violence). But unlike The Beach, The Tesseract certainly isn't cool. No sex, no drugs, and no beautiful people. It's just a well-written novel...

Rating:
Summary: Intelligent, detailed, absorbing
Review: This book a page-turner just as "The Beach" was, but I loved this book more. "The Beach" was thrilling and filled with adrenaline, but when Garland turns his attention to character development in more "normal" settings (although not without violence) he surprises you with even more profound thoughts about human life, destiny, chance, truth & reality. "The Tesseract" seems a more mature book, and the details of Manila and its surrounding areas are so real, you feel like you yourself are running down the grimy streets of the slums, trying to salvage your life. Garland proves himself a master of character portrayal by having vastly different people inhabit the same book & even interact with each other. From destitute street kids to a well-to-do doctor to a European fleeing gangsters, Garland shows that no matter what level of society, all humans have thoughts, fears, concerns, dreams. These poignant glimpses of human emotion make this book impossible to put down. Can't wait for his next book!