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C
The acclaimed author of Remainder, which Zadie Smith hailed as “one of the great English novels of the past ten years,”gives us his most spectacularly inventive novel yet.
Opening in England at the turn of the twentieth century, C is the story of a boy named Serge Carrefax, whose father spends his time experimenting with wireless communication while running a school for deaf children. Serge grows up amid the noise and silence with his brilliant but troubled older sister, Sophie: an intense sibling relationship that stays with him as he heads off into an equally troubled larger world.
After a fling with a nurse at a Bohemian spa, Serge serves in World War I as a radio operator for reconnaissance planes. When his plane is shot down, Serge is taken to a German prison camp, from which he escapes. Back in London, he’s recruited for a mission to Cairo on behalf of the shadowy Empire Wireless Chain. All of which eventually carries Serge to a fitful � and perhaps fateful � climax at the bottom of an Egyptian tomb ...
Only a writer like Tom McCarthy could pull off a story with this effortless historical breadth, psychological insight, and postmodern originality.
Opening in England at the turn of the twentieth century, C is the story of a boy named Serge Carrefax, whose father spends his time experimenting with wireless communication while running a school for deaf children. Serge grows up amid the noise and silence with his brilliant but troubled older sister, Sophie: an intense sibling relationship that stays with him as he heads off into an equally troubled larger world.
After a fling with a nurse at a Bohemian spa, Serge serves in World War I as a radio operator for reconnaissance planes. When his plane is shot down, Serge is taken to a German prison camp, from which he escapes. Back in London, he’s recruited for a mission to Cairo on behalf of the shadowy Empire Wireless Chain. All of which eventually carries Serge to a fitful � and perhaps fateful � climax at the bottom of an Egyptian tomb ...
Only a writer like Tom McCarthy could pull off a story with this effortless historical breadth, psychological insight, and postmodern originality.
310 pages, Hardcover
First published August 5, 2010
176 people are currently reading
4,839 people want to read
About the author
Tom McCarthy
107books484followersTom McCarthy � “English fiction’s new laureate of disappointment� (Time Out, September 2007) � is a writer and artist. He was born in 1969 and lives in a tower-block in London. Tom grew up in Greenwich, south London, and studied English at New College, Oxford. After a couple of years in Prague in the early 1990s, he lived in Amsterdam as literary editor of the local Time Out, and later worked in British television as well as co-editing Mute magazine.
His debut novel Remainder was first published in November 2005 by Paris-based art press Metronome. After becoming a cult hit championed first by British webzines (it was 3:AM Magazine’s Book of the Year for 2005) and then by the literary press, Remainder was republished by Alma Books in the UK (2006) and Vintage in the US (2007). A French version is to be followed by editions in Japanese, Korean, Greek, Spanish and Croatian.
A work of literary criticism, Tintin and the Secret of Literature, was released by Granta Books in June 2006. It also came out in France and an American edition is in the offing.
Tom’s second novel, Men in Space came out in 2007.
He has published numerous stories, essays and articles on literature, philosophy and art in publications including The Observer, The Times Literary Supplement and Contemporary Magazine, as well as in anthologies such as London from Punk to Blair (Reaktion Books), Theology and the Political (Duke University Press) and The Milgram Experiment (Jan van Eyck Press). His story, “Kool Thing, Or Why I Want to Fuck Patty Hearst� appeared in The Empty Page: Fiction Inspired By Sonic Youth (Serpent’s Tail) in 2008.
His ongoing project the International Necronautical Society, a semi-fictitious avant-garde network that surfaces through publications, proclamations, denunciations and live events, has been described by Untitled Magazine as ‘the most comprehensive total art work we have seen in years� and by Art Monthly as ‘a platform for fantastically mobile thinking�. In 2003 the INS broke into the BBC website and inserted propaganda into its source-code. The following year, they set up a broadcasting unit at the ICA from which more than forty ‘agents� generated non-stop poem-codes which were transmitted over FM radio in London and by internet to collaborating radio stations around the world.
Tom has also tutored and lectured at various institutions including the Architectural Association, Central Saint Martins School of Art, the Royal College of Art, Goldsmiths College and Southern California Institute of Architecture. He recently taught a course on ‘Catastrophe� with Marko Daniel at the London Consortium.
His debut novel Remainder was first published in November 2005 by Paris-based art press Metronome. After becoming a cult hit championed first by British webzines (it was 3:AM Magazine’s Book of the Year for 2005) and then by the literary press, Remainder was republished by Alma Books in the UK (2006) and Vintage in the US (2007). A French version is to be followed by editions in Japanese, Korean, Greek, Spanish and Croatian.
A work of literary criticism, Tintin and the Secret of Literature, was released by Granta Books in June 2006. It also came out in France and an American edition is in the offing.
Tom’s second novel, Men in Space came out in 2007.
He has published numerous stories, essays and articles on literature, philosophy and art in publications including The Observer, The Times Literary Supplement and Contemporary Magazine, as well as in anthologies such as London from Punk to Blair (Reaktion Books), Theology and the Political (Duke University Press) and The Milgram Experiment (Jan van Eyck Press). His story, “Kool Thing, Or Why I Want to Fuck Patty Hearst� appeared in The Empty Page: Fiction Inspired By Sonic Youth (Serpent’s Tail) in 2008.
His ongoing project the International Necronautical Society, a semi-fictitious avant-garde network that surfaces through publications, proclamations, denunciations and live events, has been described by Untitled Magazine as ‘the most comprehensive total art work we have seen in years� and by Art Monthly as ‘a platform for fantastically mobile thinking�. In 2003 the INS broke into the BBC website and inserted propaganda into its source-code. The following year, they set up a broadcasting unit at the ICA from which more than forty ‘agents� generated non-stop poem-codes which were transmitted over FM radio in London and by internet to collaborating radio stations around the world.
Tom has also tutored and lectured at various institutions including the Architectural Association, Central Saint Martins School of Art, the Royal College of Art, Goldsmiths College and Southern California Institute of Architecture. He recently taught a course on ‘Catastrophe� with Marko Daniel at the London Consortium.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 531 reviews
August 23, 2010
Dear Mr. McC,
I had occasion to read your latest novel, C, over the weekend. I know this will be difficult to hear, given the warm reception to Remainder, but this novel is bloated twaddle.
Don’t get me wrong � I think you have talent. Bags of talent. Why, however, you chose to waste that talent writing a bad novel from the 19th century is beyond me. I mean, you are a modern artist, Tom � why must you borrow from the past to “steer the contemporary novel in exciting directions?� Is this the exciting direction? Backwards? Is the future in the past?
Zadie Smith will be so disappointed, Tom. She had such high hopes for you. I know Zadie can be a fair-weather friend, but she had a soft spot for you. And look what you’ve gone and done! Such torturous description! I understand you researched a great number of topics � blind children, botany, chemistry, WWII aviation, Egyptology, but the book shouldn’t be a repository for your research, Tom! You have to, like, give us a half-decent character.
Serge. Dear dead-in-the-head Serge. What a dumbo. So he loses his sister and doesn’t give a shit. So what? So he goes to a health spa and fucks his masseuse. So what? So he crashes a fighter plane, kills his colleagues, and doesn’t give a shit. So what? So he develops a heroin addiction then drops it when he’s fed up being an addict. So what? So he is drafted to Egypt and fucks a scientist in a tomb. So what?
Tom. Go back and read this through. Ask yourself this: is this character even remotely human? Also ask yourself: that embarrassing stuff about signals and eidetic powers. Is that relevant? Does it mean anything? Or does it give brief respite from your staggeringly verbose prose? Finally: how many Latin terms for plants do we need Tom? How many do we really need???
I hope this matter will be addressed in future works. I won’t be reading them, but for the sake of your next few readers, and Zadie, I certainly hope you do.
Yours,
MJ
I had occasion to read your latest novel, C, over the weekend. I know this will be difficult to hear, given the warm reception to Remainder, but this novel is bloated twaddle.
Don’t get me wrong � I think you have talent. Bags of talent. Why, however, you chose to waste that talent writing a bad novel from the 19th century is beyond me. I mean, you are a modern artist, Tom � why must you borrow from the past to “steer the contemporary novel in exciting directions?� Is this the exciting direction? Backwards? Is the future in the past?
Zadie Smith will be so disappointed, Tom. She had such high hopes for you. I know Zadie can be a fair-weather friend, but she had a soft spot for you. And look what you’ve gone and done! Such torturous description! I understand you researched a great number of topics � blind children, botany, chemistry, WWII aviation, Egyptology, but the book shouldn’t be a repository for your research, Tom! You have to, like, give us a half-decent character.
Serge. Dear dead-in-the-head Serge. What a dumbo. So he loses his sister and doesn’t give a shit. So what? So he goes to a health spa and fucks his masseuse. So what? So he crashes a fighter plane, kills his colleagues, and doesn’t give a shit. So what? So he develops a heroin addiction then drops it when he’s fed up being an addict. So what? So he is drafted to Egypt and fucks a scientist in a tomb. So what?
Tom. Go back and read this through. Ask yourself this: is this character even remotely human? Also ask yourself: that embarrassing stuff about signals and eidetic powers. Is that relevant? Does it mean anything? Or does it give brief respite from your staggeringly verbose prose? Finally: how many Latin terms for plants do we need Tom? How many do we really need???
I hope this matter will be addressed in future works. I won’t be reading them, but for the sake of your next few readers, and Zadie, I certainly hope you do.
Yours,
MJ
March 18, 2012
The book jacket quotations claim this to be “a work of outstanding originality and ambition…An avant-garde epic, the first I can think of since Ulysses� and “The remix the novel has been crying out for.�
Among the many questions this book has left me with, perhaps the most pressing is this: What the hell were those reviewers thinking? This is a fairly straightforward narrative about the life, albeit a life that takes some unusual twists, of a rather dull protagonist. Serge is dull in the sense that modern man is dull: he is, to paraphrase Thoreau, never “quite awake.� There is no “originality� anywhere near akin to Ulysses, nor is McCarthy’s prose a “remix� of any class. Apparently McCarthy did a wealth of research into WWI , deaf education, radio, Egyptian myth, and chemical compounds. However, I don’t see how this makes for a groundbreaking, or even compelling, read. All it does is provide his dull character with a more historically accurate milieu. There is nothing “avant-garde� about it!
Because of the above-noted praise, I expected this to be more like reading Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow. (Note: there is an author whose wealth of research actually tied into the plot/theme/essence of his book.) Perhaps it is due to that presupposition that I could find some similarities between Serge Carrefax and Tyrone Slothrop. Both bumble through a World War; both have meaningless sexual liaisons; both indulge in narcotics; both end up on a ship in some way connected to Egyptian mythology; both characters� minds completely and terminally dissipate; and Slothrop embodies his namesake-anagram “sloth or entropy� while Serge constantly battles with a “restlessness, [which] he comes to realize, is in truth an attempt to achieve its opposite: stasis� (194). Is any of this intentional? I suppose there’s no real way to tell, but I highly doubt it. Is any of this meaningful? Also very doubtful, yet it does bring light to the fact that if you are looking for something, you are bound to find some traces of it.
That brings me to my next point: the confusing yet captivating, curt yet compelling title. So many of the recurrent motifs of the novel start with or contain the letter “C�: communication, chemicals, crypts, codes, copper, contraptions, eleCtricity, inseCts, meChaniCs, and, of course “Carbon: the basic element of life� (292). However, title the book ANY other single letter (except maybe “x�), and I’m sure my mind would be focused on identifying words/motifs that begin with that letter. Again, then, we have an example of the reader having complete control of how to gather meaning from the book. Is this the “avant-garde� nature of the novel? The book itself deals repeatedly with how perception shapes reality and the caul through which we see the world; however, I still think this is a complete stretch! While so much of literary criticism IS based on “bolstered support� (b.s.), there has to be a more concrete, tangible well of evidence within the novel. It is the writer’s job to fill this well and, through his work, develop the salient pools of interpretation. Blah! I’m thinking too much about how this damn book doesn’t provide enough direction for any coherent, meaningful thought. Under-developed theme=lazy writing.
Much of my CritiCism has so far been hurled at the message and style of the book. On a strictly plot basis, the first 75 pages were abysmally boring. This revulsion is even more poignant when you realize that this was not even endured because it was necessary groundwork that would be important later. Nope. The next four sections each jump to a completely new chapter of Serge’s life and can stand, for the most part, independent of one another. At least, though, the rest of the book was an interesting enough story, especially when you read it just for what it is: a creative story about the life of 20th century character, NOT a literary feat that stylistically approaches Ulysses or thematically contains the depth and number of levels of Gravity’s Rainbow.
It’s a deCent book.
Among the many questions this book has left me with, perhaps the most pressing is this: What the hell were those reviewers thinking? This is a fairly straightforward narrative about the life, albeit a life that takes some unusual twists, of a rather dull protagonist. Serge is dull in the sense that modern man is dull: he is, to paraphrase Thoreau, never “quite awake.� There is no “originality� anywhere near akin to Ulysses, nor is McCarthy’s prose a “remix� of any class. Apparently McCarthy did a wealth of research into WWI , deaf education, radio, Egyptian myth, and chemical compounds. However, I don’t see how this makes for a groundbreaking, or even compelling, read. All it does is provide his dull character with a more historically accurate milieu. There is nothing “avant-garde� about it!
Because of the above-noted praise, I expected this to be more like reading Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow. (Note: there is an author whose wealth of research actually tied into the plot/theme/essence of his book.) Perhaps it is due to that presupposition that I could find some similarities between Serge Carrefax and Tyrone Slothrop. Both bumble through a World War; both have meaningless sexual liaisons; both indulge in narcotics; both end up on a ship in some way connected to Egyptian mythology; both characters� minds completely and terminally dissipate; and Slothrop embodies his namesake-anagram “sloth or entropy� while Serge constantly battles with a “restlessness, [which] he comes to realize, is in truth an attempt to achieve its opposite: stasis� (194). Is any of this intentional? I suppose there’s no real way to tell, but I highly doubt it. Is any of this meaningful? Also very doubtful, yet it does bring light to the fact that if you are looking for something, you are bound to find some traces of it.
That brings me to my next point: the confusing yet captivating, curt yet compelling title. So many of the recurrent motifs of the novel start with or contain the letter “C�: communication, chemicals, crypts, codes, copper, contraptions, eleCtricity, inseCts, meChaniCs, and, of course “Carbon: the basic element of life� (292). However, title the book ANY other single letter (except maybe “x�), and I’m sure my mind would be focused on identifying words/motifs that begin with that letter. Again, then, we have an example of the reader having complete control of how to gather meaning from the book. Is this the “avant-garde� nature of the novel? The book itself deals repeatedly with how perception shapes reality and the caul through which we see the world; however, I still think this is a complete stretch! While so much of literary criticism IS based on “bolstered support� (b.s.), there has to be a more concrete, tangible well of evidence within the novel. It is the writer’s job to fill this well and, through his work, develop the salient pools of interpretation. Blah! I’m thinking too much about how this damn book doesn’t provide enough direction for any coherent, meaningful thought. Under-developed theme=lazy writing.
Much of my CritiCism has so far been hurled at the message and style of the book. On a strictly plot basis, the first 75 pages were abysmally boring. This revulsion is even more poignant when you realize that this was not even endured because it was necessary groundwork that would be important later. Nope. The next four sections each jump to a completely new chapter of Serge’s life and can stand, for the most part, independent of one another. At least, though, the rest of the book was an interesting enough story, especially when you read it just for what it is: a creative story about the life of 20th century character, NOT a literary feat that stylistically approaches Ulysses or thematically contains the depth and number of levels of Gravity’s Rainbow.
It’s a deCent book.
March 7, 2023
We live in an age of information overload. There's as much data around us, visible or invisible, as oxygen practically. I often like to think about what the internet will be like in 5, 10, 20 years. At some point, there's going to be a time when there is just SO much information on it - active and non-active, abandoned Livejournals, decades-old records of transactions, discarded emails, forgotten websites, log after countless log - it will all, theoretically, still be around, and still be available to look at. What will we do? Keep it there? Reboot the Matrix?
Tom McCarthy's C takes it a step further. Think about radio waves, satellite transmissions, energy expelled from humans even! Where does it all go? Can we find it again if we need to? There's a lovely little passage where the main character's father goes off on an excited tangent about the possibility of finding and recreating energy and information from people in the past. Is this a way to travel through time? Can we still see a lost loved one? Can we go to the site of the cross and still find Jesus?
Not a lot really happens in C. The pace is super slow, the characters are static, and I can definitely see how many would find this boring - but I was riveted. For the first 200 pages, this was 5-star stuff. McCarthy's prose lazily goes along, covering little but finding ways to stick in your mind. 60 or so pages in, McCarthy describes a boy on the eve of the radio, searching the airwaves, sifting through the static, getting pieces of Morse code, signals from boats, not really looking for anything, but looking for SOMETHING. Something important, something meaningful.
“The air is rich tonight: still and cold, high pressure, the best time of year. . . . Above 650, the clicks dissipate into a thin, pervasive noise, like dust. Discharges break across this: distant lightning, aurora borealis, meteorites. Their crashes and eruptions sound like handfuls of buckshot thrown into a tin bucket, or a bucketful of grain-rich gravy dashed against a wash-boiler. Wireless ghosts come and go, moving in arpeggios that loop, repeat, mutate, then disappear.�
It's beautiful. Throughout there's a melancholic, isolated tone, like you're sitting on a roof on a clear night, looking up at the sky, feeling small but satisfied.
**UPDATED to 5 stars and favorites shelf. It's been years and I still think about this all of the time.
Tom McCarthy's C takes it a step further. Think about radio waves, satellite transmissions, energy expelled from humans even! Where does it all go? Can we find it again if we need to? There's a lovely little passage where the main character's father goes off on an excited tangent about the possibility of finding and recreating energy and information from people in the past. Is this a way to travel through time? Can we still see a lost loved one? Can we go to the site of the cross and still find Jesus?
Not a lot really happens in C. The pace is super slow, the characters are static, and I can definitely see how many would find this boring - but I was riveted. For the first 200 pages, this was 5-star stuff. McCarthy's prose lazily goes along, covering little but finding ways to stick in your mind. 60 or so pages in, McCarthy describes a boy on the eve of the radio, searching the airwaves, sifting through the static, getting pieces of Morse code, signals from boats, not really looking for anything, but looking for SOMETHING. Something important, something meaningful.
“The air is rich tonight: still and cold, high pressure, the best time of year. . . . Above 650, the clicks dissipate into a thin, pervasive noise, like dust. Discharges break across this: distant lightning, aurora borealis, meteorites. Their crashes and eruptions sound like handfuls of buckshot thrown into a tin bucket, or a bucketful of grain-rich gravy dashed against a wash-boiler. Wireless ghosts come and go, moving in arpeggios that loop, repeat, mutate, then disappear.�
It's beautiful. Throughout there's a melancholic, isolated tone, like you're sitting on a roof on a clear night, looking up at the sky, feeling small but satisfied.
**UPDATED to 5 stars and favorites shelf. It's been years and I still think about this all of the time.
November 26, 2020
This was another of the books I borrowed from my parents's shelves. My only previous experience of reading McCarthy was , which was so over-hyped that I found it very disappointing. This book goes some way towards explaining why he seems so popular with critics.
To some extent the structure is conventional, a chronological and somewhat picaresque journey through the life of Serge Carrefax, which explores some of the key technical advances of the early twentieth century. Without spoiling, it is safe to say that the ending puts a rather different spin on the rest of the book, and I am not entirely convinced it is not over-clever.
Serge is the younger of two children of a gentleman inventor whose discoveries are invariably overtaken by his rivals. His older sister Sophie leads him into her scientific experiments and initially seems much cleverer. She is poisoned and dies in circumstances that may or may not have been deliberate.
Serge's subsequent journeys take him to a spa town in eastern Europe, a career as an air force observer in the Great War, a drug-fuelled trip through 20s London and finally a trip to Egypt where he struggles to understand why he has been sent there. All of these are described with plenty of period detail, making for an entertaining journey.
To some extent the structure is conventional, a chronological and somewhat picaresque journey through the life of Serge Carrefax, which explores some of the key technical advances of the early twentieth century. Without spoiling, it is safe to say that the ending puts a rather different spin on the rest of the book, and I am not entirely convinced it is not over-clever.
Serge is the younger of two children of a gentleman inventor whose discoveries are invariably overtaken by his rivals. His older sister Sophie leads him into her scientific experiments and initially seems much cleverer. She is poisoned and dies in circumstances that may or may not have been deliberate.
Serge's subsequent journeys take him to a spa town in eastern Europe, a career as an air force observer in the Great War, a drug-fuelled trip through 20s London and finally a trip to Egypt where he struggles to understand why he has been sent there. All of these are described with plenty of period detail, making for an entertaining journey.
October 2, 2010
In my review for Jennifer Egan's newest novel I got carried away with digressions and forgot to mention the most remarkable aspect of the novel: the depth and richness she achieved even though the book was only two hundred and something pages, fifty pages were taken up by the powerpoint chapter, and each chapter had the difficult task of having to introduce a whole new cast of characters.
C has a similar-ish task that Egan's book does. Show a persons life through a series of chapters that capture different point in his life. McCarthy only has one person's life (sort of) to deal with (instead of two like in Egan's (but I'm not really comparing these two authors, I'm just using Egan as a hook or something)), and a much shorter life than either of Egan's characters. Of course, a comparison like I'm making so far is silly, there is nothing inherent about page count / length of time that passes in a book and anything. A twenty page short story could conceivably capture a whole life of an octogenarian while a big novel by James Joyce could possibly be about one day in the life of a former jew living in Dublin. But maybe I just couldn't help thinking of Egan because a) I came to reading both novels with a high level of expectation for awesomeness, b) they are each published by Alfred Knopf which bi) means they have similar paper, producing a similar tactile experiencing in touching the pages, and bii) all of the pages have that affectation that the pages could have been 'cut' with a knife a call back to when books were sold with uncut pages and the reader would physically cut the pages as he or she progressed through the book and c) they both carried promises of breaking from the conventional novel.
If I compare C to A Visit from the Goon Squad than the former novel loses. I'm going to stop the comparison now and just focus on the book at hand and any digressions stemming from this novel and nothing else.
A few weeks ago I saw Tom McCarthy read from the novel, and the reading was awesome. His talking about early 20th century art movements and some of the themes that were important to him in the novel was right up my alley. He was pushing all of my dork buttons and making me want to read C even more than I already did.
On it's surface C has a few interesting things going on, but it also reads like a sort of hurried historical novel with a really big vocabulary and a kooky ending.
I'm not sure if I'm just missing things in the novel. Actually, I'm fairly certain I am. This makes me a sad. I count myself as a fairly good reader, I read a little on the fast side, but I think I'm at least average in skill at being able to catch themes and underlying narrative 'tricks'. I like to think that the bar is kind of high on what constitutes a 'difficult' novel that leaves me utterly confused. I think that I bring a fairly decent background of knowledge to the books I read that let me catch at least some allusions and references that aren't one hundred percent explicit. I know that I don't catch everything, especially since I generally only read books once which is suck (sorry, this term is from another book that is starting mess with my internal vocabulary) but a reality. I'm saying all of this because I think that there are things McCarthy is doing that I'm totally missing; things he is expecting the reader to figure out and run with.
For example there is the whole Futurist / Marinetti thing going on, which is never mentioned, but that is pretty clear to me because I've read the Futurist Manifesto, but is that is not something that (I think) can be assumed most readers would automatically have done or make the connection. Catching this allusion made for parts of the book to be richer and I can say, oh that is why McCarthy has (x) going on, but catching this one allusion makes me worried that there are lots of other things I'm completely missing. Things that I would understand or be able to work with if the signposts in the text were clearer.
Most books give some kind of indication about how much work is expected of you. C doesn't. His reputation and Zadie Smith's gushing praise give a little bit of an indication, but that was for another book and can't be applied to this one with any certainty. Am I making any sense?
I had this idea years ago to write a romance novel. It would have been a regular old crappy romance novel, but the text would be a series of codes, word games and OULIPO style hijinks that would make it actually a totally different novel, if the reader could figure out what and where to look in the text to change the book. Of course in my head I wasn't going to give any clear pointers, I would have to just wait for the 'ideal' (non-existent) reader to come along that would catch one of the tricks and then work with the novel until it gave up all of the secrets. Is C a much less extreme version of this?
I have a feeling that it is. That there is a lot there but it needs to be coaxed out of the text, and that I have failed as a reader. Or maybe McCarthy didn't produce as well as he could have, but I'll blame myself for now, if only because I was sick for most of the time I read this novel. Maybe this is a novel I need to return to with a healthy body.
C has a similar-ish task that Egan's book does. Show a persons life through a series of chapters that capture different point in his life. McCarthy only has one person's life (sort of) to deal with (instead of two like in Egan's (but I'm not really comparing these two authors, I'm just using Egan as a hook or something)), and a much shorter life than either of Egan's characters. Of course, a comparison like I'm making so far is silly, there is nothing inherent about page count / length of time that passes in a book and anything. A twenty page short story could conceivably capture a whole life of an octogenarian while a big novel by James Joyce could possibly be about one day in the life of a former jew living in Dublin. But maybe I just couldn't help thinking of Egan because a) I came to reading both novels with a high level of expectation for awesomeness, b) they are each published by Alfred Knopf which bi) means they have similar paper, producing a similar tactile experiencing in touching the pages, and bii) all of the pages have that affectation that the pages could have been 'cut' with a knife a call back to when books were sold with uncut pages and the reader would physically cut the pages as he or she progressed through the book and c) they both carried promises of breaking from the conventional novel.
If I compare C to A Visit from the Goon Squad than the former novel loses. I'm going to stop the comparison now and just focus on the book at hand and any digressions stemming from this novel and nothing else.
A few weeks ago I saw Tom McCarthy read from the novel, and the reading was awesome. His talking about early 20th century art movements and some of the themes that were important to him in the novel was right up my alley. He was pushing all of my dork buttons and making me want to read C even more than I already did.
On it's surface C has a few interesting things going on, but it also reads like a sort of hurried historical novel with a really big vocabulary and a kooky ending.
I'm not sure if I'm just missing things in the novel. Actually, I'm fairly certain I am. This makes me a sad. I count myself as a fairly good reader, I read a little on the fast side, but I think I'm at least average in skill at being able to catch themes and underlying narrative 'tricks'. I like to think that the bar is kind of high on what constitutes a 'difficult' novel that leaves me utterly confused. I think that I bring a fairly decent background of knowledge to the books I read that let me catch at least some allusions and references that aren't one hundred percent explicit. I know that I don't catch everything, especially since I generally only read books once which is suck (sorry, this term is from another book that is starting mess with my internal vocabulary) but a reality. I'm saying all of this because I think that there are things McCarthy is doing that I'm totally missing; things he is expecting the reader to figure out and run with.
For example there is the whole Futurist / Marinetti thing going on, which is never mentioned, but that is pretty clear to me because I've read the Futurist Manifesto, but is that is not something that (I think) can be assumed most readers would automatically have done or make the connection. Catching this allusion made for parts of the book to be richer and I can say, oh that is why McCarthy has (x) going on, but catching this one allusion makes me worried that there are lots of other things I'm completely missing. Things that I would understand or be able to work with if the signposts in the text were clearer.
Most books give some kind of indication about how much work is expected of you. C doesn't. His reputation and Zadie Smith's gushing praise give a little bit of an indication, but that was for another book and can't be applied to this one with any certainty. Am I making any sense?
I had this idea years ago to write a romance novel. It would have been a regular old crappy romance novel, but the text would be a series of codes, word games and OULIPO style hijinks that would make it actually a totally different novel, if the reader could figure out what and where to look in the text to change the book. Of course in my head I wasn't going to give any clear pointers, I would have to just wait for the 'ideal' (non-existent) reader to come along that would catch one of the tricks and then work with the novel until it gave up all of the secrets. Is C a much less extreme version of this?
I have a feeling that it is. That there is a lot there but it needs to be coaxed out of the text, and that I have failed as a reader. Or maybe McCarthy didn't produce as well as he could have, but I'll blame myself for now, if only because I was sick for most of the time I read this novel. Maybe this is a novel I need to return to with a healthy body.
December 31, 2021
I don't know what I was expecting when I picked this audiobook up but unfortunately it still maneged to disappoint. Didn't gel at all with the story and will probably not read anything by Tom McCarthy in the future. But I never know what I might feel in the future
September 23, 2018
shit is weird. i like it. some parts are hella boring tho. don't know if i would recommend it.
March 7, 2016
The C of the title ostensibly refers to the novel’s central character Serge Carrefax but late in this novel we discover it also refers to carbon, the basic element of life. The fax in Serge’s surname provides a clue to the novel’s central theme. Communication in all its proliferating forms during the early part of the 20th century. In C we find ourselves in a world of coded transmissions. The establishing and plotting of networks pervades the novel. The continual extending outwards of technology.
The central character Serge barely changes at all during the course of the novel. He’s much the same at twelve as he is in his thirties. Little more than a conduit for knowledge, for the scientific discoveries of the first quarter of the twentieth century, “the source signal� as McCarthy puts it. Serge gathers rather than alchemises information, like a data base. Not that this means his life journey isn’t compelling. On the contrary parts of this novel are genuinely exciting, especially when he’s flying above German trenches as an observer/navigator during World War 1 or when he visits the excavations of Egyptian tombs.
As a boy Serge is fascinated with charting radio waves � “the static is like the sound of thinking.� His father teaches deaf mutes to speak and his sister, with whom he shares a near incestuous relationship, is studying natural history and is especially fascinated by insects. Each in their own way establishing a connection, a network with a mute or invisible world. We then see Serge in a sanatorium seeking a cure for “black bile� when the novel calls to mind Mann’s the Magic Mountain (McCarthy writes as though post-modernism never happened, reminded me at times of Cowper Powys with his hermetically sealed imagination, eccentricity and free range vitality). Then Serge, at the behest of his cryptographer godfather, learns to become a pilot at the advent of World war one. Unlike the usual template of world war one fiction Serge relishes the experience and never wants the war to end. He remains essentially adolescent. He has a fling with a French prostitute. In fact Serge has a casual affair in every section of the novel. This is a more mysterious motif in the novel. There’s a sense Serge has no interest in heredity, in procreation, in love, in reaching out beyond himself. He craves the sexual act in and for itself, disinterested in all its ramifications, a paradox for someone who is obsessed with plotting and connecting networks of communication. We learn from his drawing teacher that Serge is uncomfortable with perspective and depth. He likes flying because it flattens everything out, conceals depth, makes of the world a map.
After the war Serge attends college. By now he is addicted to cocaine. He meets Audrey, an actress who takes him to a séance. Again we find ourselves in the plotting of an invisible kingdom. Serge is determined to find the trick. Finally Serge is sent to Egypt to help set up a worldwide communications network. Here he is shown around the excavations of tombs and the honeycomb nature of the adjoining chambers with all their cryptic significance. Much of the novel’s symbolism is clarified here. All communication is coded.
McCarthy is super intelligent. This doesn’t always work in his favour as a novelist. He perhaps over indulges in his obvious fascination for analysis at times which renders certain sections of the novel hard work, if not plain boring. On the whole though this was a high flying novel with many exciting depth charges. Brilliantly researched and imagined. In many ways C resembles a road novel. A character who never lingers, both physically but more pointedly emotionally, long enough anywhere to forge binding ties with the world around him but who, paradoxically, learns more about how the world communicates. Also, in many ways, it’s a novel about the internet long before the internet existed.
The central character Serge barely changes at all during the course of the novel. He’s much the same at twelve as he is in his thirties. Little more than a conduit for knowledge, for the scientific discoveries of the first quarter of the twentieth century, “the source signal� as McCarthy puts it. Serge gathers rather than alchemises information, like a data base. Not that this means his life journey isn’t compelling. On the contrary parts of this novel are genuinely exciting, especially when he’s flying above German trenches as an observer/navigator during World War 1 or when he visits the excavations of Egyptian tombs.
As a boy Serge is fascinated with charting radio waves � “the static is like the sound of thinking.� His father teaches deaf mutes to speak and his sister, with whom he shares a near incestuous relationship, is studying natural history and is especially fascinated by insects. Each in their own way establishing a connection, a network with a mute or invisible world. We then see Serge in a sanatorium seeking a cure for “black bile� when the novel calls to mind Mann’s the Magic Mountain (McCarthy writes as though post-modernism never happened, reminded me at times of Cowper Powys with his hermetically sealed imagination, eccentricity and free range vitality). Then Serge, at the behest of his cryptographer godfather, learns to become a pilot at the advent of World war one. Unlike the usual template of world war one fiction Serge relishes the experience and never wants the war to end. He remains essentially adolescent. He has a fling with a French prostitute. In fact Serge has a casual affair in every section of the novel. This is a more mysterious motif in the novel. There’s a sense Serge has no interest in heredity, in procreation, in love, in reaching out beyond himself. He craves the sexual act in and for itself, disinterested in all its ramifications, a paradox for someone who is obsessed with plotting and connecting networks of communication. We learn from his drawing teacher that Serge is uncomfortable with perspective and depth. He likes flying because it flattens everything out, conceals depth, makes of the world a map.
After the war Serge attends college. By now he is addicted to cocaine. He meets Audrey, an actress who takes him to a séance. Again we find ourselves in the plotting of an invisible kingdom. Serge is determined to find the trick. Finally Serge is sent to Egypt to help set up a worldwide communications network. Here he is shown around the excavations of tombs and the honeycomb nature of the adjoining chambers with all their cryptic significance. Much of the novel’s symbolism is clarified here. All communication is coded.
McCarthy is super intelligent. This doesn’t always work in his favour as a novelist. He perhaps over indulges in his obvious fascination for analysis at times which renders certain sections of the novel hard work, if not plain boring. On the whole though this was a high flying novel with many exciting depth charges. Brilliantly researched and imagined. In many ways C resembles a road novel. A character who never lingers, both physically but more pointedly emotionally, long enough anywhere to forge binding ties with the world around him but who, paradoxically, learns more about how the world communicates. Also, in many ways, it’s a novel about the internet long before the internet existed.
January 7, 2025
Мій третій роман Тома Маккарті, і я вже можу точно сказати, що це буде одна з найкращих книжок року!
Роман дуже незвичайний у тому, як і що він повідомляє і що не повідомляє. Думаю, звідси така кількість негативних відгуків. Очевидно, більшість читачів цієї книжки просто виявилися не готовими до того, що автор не робить ніяких висновків; замість того, щоб пояснювати події, вчинки та почуття героїв, він просто їх описує. Тобто сам читач повинен скласти історію як свого роду пазл, виокремити вагому інформацію з набору даних. І якщо саме так до цього підходити, то "С" - це не п'ять випадкових частин без розв'язки (дитинство у англійському маєтку, лікувальний курорт у Чехії, Перша Світова, богемний Лондон початку 1920-х та Єгипет, який щойно отримав незалежність), як пише багато хто у своїх відгуках, а цілісна і трагічна історія героя, який витіснив зі свідомості переживання своєї втрати, таким чином зробивши лейтмотивом свого життя підсвідомий потяг до смерті.
В цьому сенсі "нецікавість" Сержа, на яку багато хто скаржиться в коментарях, цілком логічна і виправдана. Він справді пасивний і просто реагує на події, але лише тому, що в нього немає мотивації жити, і для нього (принаймні підсвідомо) життя є похідним, гіршою копією якогось іншого, загробного світу, який внаслідок дивного асоціативного зв'язку існує водночас і під землею, і в радіоефірі.
Ще одна особливість цього тексту � тут усе має значення. Між деталями з різних місць та епох тут просто величезна кількість зв'язків, які проходять крізь оповідь і крізь головного героя. Це існує постійно і на всіх рівнях, від загальної логіки подій до словесних ігор та жартів. І, знову ж таки, якщо читати цю книжку в "пасивному", а не "активному" режимі, цього можна просто не помітити, і тоді вона справді може здатися пласкою, механістичною та незавершеною.
Словом, роман дуже сильний, особливо концептуально (але й мовно також). А Маккарті � на жаль, один з найбільш недооцінених сучасних авторів...
Роман дуже незвичайний у тому, як і що він повідомляє і що не повідомляє. Думаю, звідси така кількість негативних відгуків. Очевидно, більшість читачів цієї книжки просто виявилися не готовими до того, що автор не робить ніяких висновків; замість того, щоб пояснювати події, вчинки та почуття героїв, він просто їх описує. Тобто сам читач повинен скласти історію як свого роду пазл, виокремити вагому інформацію з набору даних. І якщо саме так до цього підходити, то "С" - це не п'ять випадкових частин без розв'язки (дитинство у англійському маєтку, лікувальний курорт у Чехії, Перша Світова, богемний Лондон початку 1920-х та Єгипет, який щойно отримав незалежність), як пише багато хто у своїх відгуках, а цілісна і трагічна історія героя, який витіснив зі свідомості переживання своєї втрати, таким чином зробивши лейтмотивом свого життя підсвідомий потяг до смерті.
В цьому сенсі "нецікавість" Сержа, на яку багато хто скаржиться в коментарях, цілком логічна і виправдана. Він справді пасивний і просто реагує на події, але лише тому, що в нього немає мотивації жити, і для нього (принаймні підсвідомо) життя є похідним, гіршою копією якогось іншого, загробного світу, який внаслідок дивного асоціативного зв'язку існує водночас і під землею, і в радіоефірі.
Ще одна особливість цього тексту � тут усе має значення. Між деталями з різних місць та епох тут просто величезна кількість зв'язків, які проходять крізь оповідь і крізь головного героя. Це існує постійно і на всіх рівнях, від загальної логіки подій до словесних ігор та жартів. І, знову ж таки, якщо читати цю книжку в "пасивному", а не "активному" режимі, цього можна просто не помітити, і тоді вона справді може здатися пласкою, механістичною та незавершеною.
Словом, роман дуже сильний, особливо концептуально (але й мовно також). А Маккарті � на жаль, один з найбільш недооцінених сучасних авторів...
July 30, 2012
I do seek out such novels as this that try to make sense of our place in the universe. But as usual I find such books a challenge to read and hard to walk away with an easy message (Pynchon's "Gravity's Rainbow" comes to mind as another example). The book "C" covers the evolution of young Brit Serge from the Edwardian period in rural England, through a stint as an aviator artillery spotter in World War 1, to multicutural Egypt around 1920 in the throes of independence. The overall theme appears to be the impact of technology and modern war on individual consciousness. Starting with the influences of his father and the loss of his sister, young Serge appears to imbibe an engineer's approach to reality with defiencies in the ability to experience normal human emotions. I appreciated greatly McCarthy's depictions of his special perceptions of unified space and time and of himself as a radio receiver of sorts seeking universal messages. It feels like a gift, without reference to quantum physics advances at the times or getting labelled as psychotic. He is challenged to see things in a normal perspective or causal progression. Yet the trajectory of his life makes sense and is told plainly and clearly, without resort to "experimental writing" as typical of other post-modernist authors. No event covered in the tale appears to be arbitrary, as each experience covered resonates forward and backward in Serge's world view. I liked the approach, but I can understand that many readers may not feel the same about it.
November 2, 2021
I just finished it and immediately began to read reviews to see what others thought...a lot of 'post-modern' and 'pynchonesque' sorts of adjectives in the reviews but what it really reminded me of on some level is The Magic Mountain, only with a frenetic staccato rhythm. Serge Carrefax as Hans Castorp? Or maybe it's because these are the only two books I remember reading with the word 'naptha' in them. Well, I loved it. A real meditative loveliness to the language. I also loved "Remainder" but I was glad this one was so different from that novel, too.
March 23, 2014
Ambitious
But
Conspicuously so
Doesn't
Every
Fastidious
Golden-
Haired
Individual
Just
Know
Love
May
Never
Overcome
Perilous
Queries,
Radio
Silences,
Theoretical
Undulations,
Variable
Wariness,
X-d out
Yawns
Zymurged?
B
But
Conspicuously so
Doesn't
Every
Fastidious
Golden-
Haired
Individual
Just
Know
Love
May
Never
Overcome
Perilous
Queries,
Radio
Silences,
Theoretical
Undulations,
Variable
Wariness,
X-d out
Yawns
Zymurged?
B
December 14, 2022
4.5 stars rounded up –� a delicious and freewheeling treat you have to take only semi-seriously. Lots of open, loose ends, abandoned subplots, half-implied affects, and skips in spacetime. Just roll with C. It's worth your while.
March 12, 2011
Remember the mid-'90s tune "Everything Zen" by Bush? Remember how everyone loved the song 'cause it rocked, but no one had any idea what it was really about because the lyrics are a goofy mess of seemingly unrelated phrases and ideas? That's kind of how I felt about Tom McCarthy's uber-literary, Man Booker-shortlisted novel C.
There's a pretty straightforward story here that I enjoyed strictly on a "beat and rhythm" level. And then there's what it really means. McCarthy creates a laundry list of themes, images and ideas that recur throughout the novel. The meaning of these in terms of how they fit together and complement each other and the story holistically is frequently tough to decipher.
The story is Serge Carrefax's, who is born to English wealth right before the turn of the 20th century. Serge's father runs a school to teach deaf children to talk and experiments with various wireless communication technologies, and so Serge becomes infatuated with the burgeoning field of radio from an early age. He fights in World War I as a navigator, parties in post-war London and then moves on to Egypt to scout locations for new communications ventures.
Serge is a bit of an odd ball. He finds out early in his life during an art class that he "just can't do perspective: everything he paints is flat." And Serge's lack of perspective � in the broader sense of the phrase � is a cornerstone of the story. Serge is an impartial observer to his own life. In fact, oftentimes, the reader is left to form his/her own conclusions about things Serge tells us about, but doesn't understand or doesn't care enough about to explain more fully. Is that his sister he sees having sex in an early scene in the novel? Or is it something else he's describing? It's hard to tell.
The novel also has its own unconventional logic and rules, which McCarthy uses to pack in his list of tropes and tricks. For instance, he'll mention something seemingly inconsequential at the time, only to have the idea re-emerge later in a more symbolic context. Serge and some of his fellow soldiers discuss free will vs. determinism, and then soon after, they're building a tunnel to nowhere and no one is in charge of its construction. The effect is disorienting � it's hard to figure out which instance is the one McCarthy intends you to decode and add to the meaning of the story. And then there is the recurrence of several images and themes: Insects, wireless communication, descriptions of shapes and geometry, and drugs all flit in and out of the novel. What do they all mean?
C is not difficult, as some reviewers have purported. But extracting meaning might be. You constantly feel like you're missing something or left out of a joke or not understanding a reference. And that can make reading frustrating at times. There's so much going on here, it's obviously a novel meant to be read several times � like a Charlie Kaufman or David Lynch film is meant to be viewed several times to pick up a little more each time. The story's interesting, but I'm not sure it's enough of a draw to get me to read again. So, three out of five stars for C.
There's a pretty straightforward story here that I enjoyed strictly on a "beat and rhythm" level. And then there's what it really means. McCarthy creates a laundry list of themes, images and ideas that recur throughout the novel. The meaning of these in terms of how they fit together and complement each other and the story holistically is frequently tough to decipher.
The story is Serge Carrefax's, who is born to English wealth right before the turn of the 20th century. Serge's father runs a school to teach deaf children to talk and experiments with various wireless communication technologies, and so Serge becomes infatuated with the burgeoning field of radio from an early age. He fights in World War I as a navigator, parties in post-war London and then moves on to Egypt to scout locations for new communications ventures.
Serge is a bit of an odd ball. He finds out early in his life during an art class that he "just can't do perspective: everything he paints is flat." And Serge's lack of perspective � in the broader sense of the phrase � is a cornerstone of the story. Serge is an impartial observer to his own life. In fact, oftentimes, the reader is left to form his/her own conclusions about things Serge tells us about, but doesn't understand or doesn't care enough about to explain more fully. Is that his sister he sees having sex in an early scene in the novel? Or is it something else he's describing? It's hard to tell.
The novel also has its own unconventional logic and rules, which McCarthy uses to pack in his list of tropes and tricks. For instance, he'll mention something seemingly inconsequential at the time, only to have the idea re-emerge later in a more symbolic context. Serge and some of his fellow soldiers discuss free will vs. determinism, and then soon after, they're building a tunnel to nowhere and no one is in charge of its construction. The effect is disorienting � it's hard to figure out which instance is the one McCarthy intends you to decode and add to the meaning of the story. And then there is the recurrence of several images and themes: Insects, wireless communication, descriptions of shapes and geometry, and drugs all flit in and out of the novel. What do they all mean?
C is not difficult, as some reviewers have purported. But extracting meaning might be. You constantly feel like you're missing something or left out of a joke or not understanding a reference. And that can make reading frustrating at times. There's so much going on here, it's obviously a novel meant to be read several times � like a Charlie Kaufman or David Lynch film is meant to be viewed several times to pick up a little more each time. The story's interesting, but I'm not sure it's enough of a draw to get me to read again. So, three out of five stars for C.
March 17, 2025
Whenever I choose to read a novel written in the last 10 - 15 years or so, especially one that comes with lots of critical praise both on the outside and inside of the book's cover, I am more often than not so underwhelmed and left scratching my head as to what it was these critics found so great about it: but not this time. I found this to be a really interesting historical novel by a super smart writer, and if there was to be any head scratching at all, then it's wondering just why the hell this has such a low average rating on GR. I found it so intellectually stimulating, gripping, at times very moving, and refreshingly original, as McCarthy delves into the communications frenzy, the signs and the codes, at the beginning of the last century, and how this shapes the life of his enigmatic protagonist, Serge Carrefax, as he adventures into a world of phantasmal technology, where the dots and dashes; the hums and whirs; the electric ripples felt in body and mind, ends up with him having an interim existence, that stands as a dazzling mnemonic for the ruthless by-product of the modernist technological age. Whilst McCarthy does for early transmissions here what Pynchon did for science and the V2 rocket, his finest and most vivid writing comes when depicting the carnage of the WW1 Front, where Serge works communications in Royal Flying Corps. But along with his early childhood in the country, staying at a European spa, his time spent in London during the Roaring Twenties, and finally Egypt and its ancient burial grounds, it's not a case of liking certain parts better than others, as the whole thing really pleased me.
February 9, 2019
Očit je talent ovog pisca, jedino to me držalo do kraja knjige. Zašto onda pisac s tolikim talentom napiše ovakvu knjigu? Previše svega u pokušaju da se nešto događa. Prvi svjetski rat, početak radia, mrtva sestra, heroin, kokain... stalno sam čekala da se nešto dogodi , neki wow trenutak , ali trenutak nije došao.
June 19, 2019
C è un romanzo complesso, che dietro l’apparenza di uno stile “classico� nasconde una ricerca quanto mai moderna. In superficie corre una trama lineare ma metafore, sottotesti, simboli e intertestualità aprono gli spazi a interpretazioni e chiavi di lettura che scavano parecchio in profondità. Un Pynchon travestito da E.M. Forster, verrebbe da dire, per un libro che si può leggere sia in orizzontale che in verticale.
Le vicende di Serge Carrefax, il protagonista della storia sono legate a doppio filo con il tema portante del romanzo, la divulgazione delle informazioni: da quella verbale al linguaggio dei segni, dai primi esperimenti di trasmissione senza fili alle onde sonore ai messaggi subliminali, con corollario di crittografia e interferenze. Terreno complesso sul quale si combattono conflitti non da poco, come quelli tra ordine e disordine, superficie e profondità, corpo e anima, razionalità e arte.
C è un romanzo circolare (che inizia e finisce con il richiamo kafkiano allo scarabeo) e complesso, a cominciare dal titolo che allude in mille direzioni diverse senza indicarne nessuna: C come Carrefax, ma anche come cloroformio (che usa la madre di Serge), cianuro (la sorella) e cocaina (il protagonista stesso). C come crittografia, carbonio� C come altre mille parole che saltano fuori dalle pieghe della storia e che individuano altrettante piste che il lettore potrà divertirsi a seguire, magari con il rischio di approdare lontanissimo da dove era partito.
C, in ultima analisi è un romanzo sul messaggio e sulla sua interpretazione, sulla ricerca del punto ultimo, quello dove spazio e tempo si fondono, sul tentativo di trovare un senso alla vita, senso che McCarthy, in accordo con la sua appartenenza alla International Necronautical Society, sembra voler individuare nella morte.
Al punto fermo del mondo che ruota. Né corporeo né incorporeo;
Né muove da né verso; al punto fermo, là è la danza,
Ma né arresto né movimento. E non la chiamate fissità,
Quella dove sono riuniti il passato e il futuro. Né moto da né verso,
Né ascesa né declino. Tranne che per il punto, il punto fermo,
Non ci sarebbe danza, e c'è solo la danza. (T.S. Eliot � Quattro quartetti)
Le vicende di Serge Carrefax, il protagonista della storia sono legate a doppio filo con il tema portante del romanzo, la divulgazione delle informazioni: da quella verbale al linguaggio dei segni, dai primi esperimenti di trasmissione senza fili alle onde sonore ai messaggi subliminali, con corollario di crittografia e interferenze. Terreno complesso sul quale si combattono conflitti non da poco, come quelli tra ordine e disordine, superficie e profondità, corpo e anima, razionalità e arte.
C è un romanzo circolare (che inizia e finisce con il richiamo kafkiano allo scarabeo) e complesso, a cominciare dal titolo che allude in mille direzioni diverse senza indicarne nessuna: C come Carrefax, ma anche come cloroformio (che usa la madre di Serge), cianuro (la sorella) e cocaina (il protagonista stesso). C come crittografia, carbonio� C come altre mille parole che saltano fuori dalle pieghe della storia e che individuano altrettante piste che il lettore potrà divertirsi a seguire, magari con il rischio di approdare lontanissimo da dove era partito.
C, in ultima analisi è un romanzo sul messaggio e sulla sua interpretazione, sulla ricerca del punto ultimo, quello dove spazio e tempo si fondono, sul tentativo di trovare un senso alla vita, senso che McCarthy, in accordo con la sua appartenenza alla International Necronautical Society, sembra voler individuare nella morte.
Al punto fermo del mondo che ruota. Né corporeo né incorporeo;
Né muove da né verso; al punto fermo, là è la danza,
Ma né arresto né movimento. E non la chiamate fissità,
Quella dove sono riuniti il passato e il futuro. Né moto da né verso,
Né ascesa né declino. Tranne che per il punto, il punto fermo,
Non ci sarebbe danza, e c'è solo la danza. (T.S. Eliot � Quattro quartetti)
September 25, 2020
I couldn’t stay engaged in Remainder, so I tried this one instead. Where Remainder seemed predictable, I could only tell where this was going right at the end. Each turn picked up shreds of foreboding set up at the beginning, but still left many questions of fragments running through my head. I found this book to be intriguing, to satisfyingly leave me unsatisfied� kind of like Men in Space.
January 1, 2011
I absolutely loved this book, though like a few others here I'm not completely sure why. I think it was something to do with the extremely weird feeling I had when reading it, which had a lot to do with the relative blankness of the main character, Serge. I think McCarthy displays a true mastery here, making Serge a kind of conduit (or even an antenna) for information rather than a fully developed human being. He seems to only exist to try and make sense of, and report on, his spectrum of experience. Even his role in the war was one of "observer", and this was continued in his later life by the way he kind of drifted along, partaking of life in the most rudimentary sense while trying to unravel its connections and identify patterns in his experience.
Far from "not caring" about Serge I actually found him quite likable. It's possibly because I had a similar childhood fascination with short-wave radio that I identified with the passages that described Serge's inner landscape as he tuned into different broadcasts. It was quite amazing to read these things described in such depth as I'd only ever held these as private memories. McCarthy's skill in this area extends to describing many other interior experiences in an engaging way.
Far from "not caring" about Serge I actually found him quite likable. It's possibly because I had a similar childhood fascination with short-wave radio that I identified with the passages that described Serge's inner landscape as he tuned into different broadcasts. It was quite amazing to read these things described in such depth as I'd only ever held these as private memories. McCarthy's skill in this area extends to describing many other interior experiences in an engaging way.
September 19, 2010
Dazzling, like an intricate puzzle with a variety of themes held together with delicate threads. The sets were superb. Each vignette was special and illuminating in its own way. Juxtipositions of science and art, attraction and repulsion, life and death were compelling. The writing was dense throughout, requiring utmost concentration to fully appreciate. For readers so inclined, well worth the effort.
May 11, 2017
McCarthy, as he demonstrated in Remainder (2005), is interested in the human capacity for perception and cognition stripped of affect, and in the tradition of European modernism he pursues the strange beauty of life's forms understood as forms. This is a way of saying that not every reader will have the patience for this book. I enjoy this kind of writing more than most casual novel-readers, and even I found it tedious at times. The "life story" of protagonist Serge Carrefax is a different kind of story, because it is about a different kind of life: not the joys and traumas and other indications of subjectivity that conventionally animate characters, but pure information—messages and signals of all kinds, textual to chemical—in response to which the human creature twitches into awareness. The "C" of the title is carbon, the basis of all earthly life, but more accurately the symbol for that element, which is meant to suggest that the communicable sign of the thing is as essential to life as the thing itself. Serge spends some time in the last part of the book as a clerk generating paperwork loosely documenting (or, rather, evincing) the erosion of the British Empire, a task that leaves him coated in the dust of carbon copies. You see what I'm saying. Living things, like all other forms, are reproductions—amalgamations of information with no discernible point of origin, only networks of transmission. At the pinnacle of his/this life, Serge fantasizes himself an Egyptian scarab inscribed with mysterious messages directed to the living and the dead alike, and this, I think, is what McCarthy imagines the human being is: a hyperliterate insect shuddering into meaning. It is poetic, and fascinating, but it is a version of the human that never seems to achieve full sentience.
November 27, 2011
I loved the first 50 pages or so, then the writing started to get surprisingly lazy: the sister says something shocking to her brother, and he feels like the earth is falling away from him, stuff like that. And it deteriorates for a time, in the resort section that culminates in a shockingly figurative sex, then makes a come back with seances and the heroin flapper, and then kind-of tappers off again. Serge is boring and an asshole, so that one actively roots against him. Other characters act in bizarrely non-human ways (cave sex anyone?) but not in a compellingly non-human way like in Kafka or anything French. It seemed like McCarthy had a bunch of topics that interested him--communications and silkworms, resort towns, WWI fighter pilots, seances and heroin addicts, the British in Egypt--and sculptured a book around those things, with some half-conceived metaphors and dog shit and leaves trying to glue it all together. What the book proves, I guess, is that's not a good way to write a novel. If he'd have done short stories, or better yet essays, we wouldn't have to be saddled with a dolt like Serge, or feel guilted into inquiring into McCarthy's disingenuous mysteries.
October 7, 2010
Tough to review: Some sections were blindingly brilliant while others were crushingly dull. C is about patterns and signals but the avalanche of information adds more static to the circuit than McCarthy probably intends. The surge at the heart of the book - the death of Serge's sister - doesn't quite trip the breakers either. But plenty still comes through - charging the parts about erotic childhood games, listening to early radio transmissions, flying planes in WWI, scoring drugs in London, and digging up tombs in Egypt with real resonance. C rewrites the historical novel as a Nouveau Roman. This carefully constructed work rewards close reading, but it's also eminently put-downable. Mush on though, it's worth it.
November 9, 2010
A metatextual mess -- that is so intriguing you want to start over again with it the minute you put it down. Serge is a blank character who observes the advent of the modern world (ca 1890 - 1920). And he is also the most interesting of heroes caught up in circumstances he can't even begin to fathom. WWI flying Ace? Egyptian necromanticist? Freudian snitarium patient? Strange and inviting.
November 23, 2020
Comparisons to Remainder can be cast away. If Remainder is Louis XIV then this is Hennessy. Chart a course for reviewing C from that starting point. It’s cromulent. It’s capable. McCarthy channels all his amazing powers of research and chicanery to write a novel that bobs about in the water for two hundred pages and then sinks.
3.5
3.5
August 27, 2022
Communication, code, cocaine, Carrefax, carbon. So many C's.
I enjoy stories that take place on the edge of modernity where society is changing and people are caught in the transition. Thomas Hardy is particularly good at this. Usually it's railroads, the industrial revolution, increased opportunities for education and for women to live richer lives, changes in the world of art, etc. But here it's something different. Here it is the world on the cusp of the information age. Radio comes into its own; there are hints of television. We see the beginnings of more complex ideas of encryption. With airplanes and altitude, the view of the world is greatly expanded. Decoding is applied to interpretation of ancient Egyptian artifacts. And Serge is caught up in the web of this information overflow. There are endless possibilities and the flow of data allows Serge to see the wholeness of things in ways that his parents and other members of the older generation cannot. At some moments it seems to give him access to spiritual revelations.
But there is a dark side of this too. Serge is flat, without affect. He is unable to see perspective in two dimensional drawings. He has no emotional connection to anyone but his sister who dies young in mysterious circumstances. The possibility of family, emotions and personal relationships can be seen in his mother's side of the family - the hopelessly artisanal silk business that is willfully unmodern and is wiped out by a mulberry blight that kills off the food for the silkworms. Serge cannot find his human connection there, so he spins out of control into the modern world of hopeless brutal war, drug addiction and serial loveless sexual liasons. It's the disenchantment of the world that is the price of modernity. Still I see some hope here because there seems to be a chance for Serge to pass through the information induced veil of tears, to go down the rabbit hole and come out the other side as an enlightened person, even if he has to die (and be reborn?) in the process. Or is all of that just illness and drug induced hallucination that is the logical outcome of a meaningless existence? Mr. McCarthy suggests that it could be either. Or maybe both.
I enjoy stories that take place on the edge of modernity where society is changing and people are caught in the transition. Thomas Hardy is particularly good at this. Usually it's railroads, the industrial revolution, increased opportunities for education and for women to live richer lives, changes in the world of art, etc. But here it's something different. Here it is the world on the cusp of the information age. Radio comes into its own; there are hints of television. We see the beginnings of more complex ideas of encryption. With airplanes and altitude, the view of the world is greatly expanded. Decoding is applied to interpretation of ancient Egyptian artifacts. And Serge is caught up in the web of this information overflow. There are endless possibilities and the flow of data allows Serge to see the wholeness of things in ways that his parents and other members of the older generation cannot. At some moments it seems to give him access to spiritual revelations.
But there is a dark side of this too. Serge is flat, without affect. He is unable to see perspective in two dimensional drawings. He has no emotional connection to anyone but his sister who dies young in mysterious circumstances. The possibility of family, emotions and personal relationships can be seen in his mother's side of the family - the hopelessly artisanal silk business that is willfully unmodern and is wiped out by a mulberry blight that kills off the food for the silkworms. Serge cannot find his human connection there, so he spins out of control into the modern world of hopeless brutal war, drug addiction and serial loveless sexual liasons. It's the disenchantment of the world that is the price of modernity. Still I see some hope here because there seems to be a chance for Serge to pass through the information induced veil of tears, to go down the rabbit hole and come out the other side as an enlightened person, even if he has to die (and be reborn?) in the process. Or is all of that just illness and drug induced hallucination that is the logical outcome of a meaningless existence? Mr. McCarthy suggests that it could be either. Or maybe both.
October 22, 2010
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Author Tom McCarthy can write, there’s no question there, but what he chooses to write about in C, or rather the way he goes about it, can be painfully dull for a large chunk of the novel. The main character Serge isn’t very likable or relatable either. Though this isn’t always a requirement for a novel to be good, it would have helped if this character had at least some semblance of a direction or goal in mind. Instead he wanders through life as if nothing at all matters or is of any consequence.
The theme of communication, or lack thereof, is repeated throughout the novel so much so that it overwhelms much of what is being described of Serge’s life. There are great moments, like the first section of the book that describes his childhood, and a piece in the last section where he cleverly debunks a fraud psychic, but there are interesting plot points that are setup early on that are never fully revealed. Serge’s sister Sophie is such an interesting character and to not receive follow-up or closure in this regard was very disappointing.
Another plus for the novel was McCarthy’s dedication in researching the time period. The school for the deaf, the depictions of the war, and Egypt all felt very real, though once again, my main complaint for historical novels like this is that one character always seems to have all of the information of the world and must explain it in detail to every one else. At different points throughout the book Serge does in fact get “lessons� from the various people he meets on his travels.
I really wish Serge gave a sh*t more. Maybe that’s the way I’m supposed to feel? I don’t know, maybe that’s the point McCarthy is trying to drive home, that in the end nothing is worth caring about very much. If so, that’s a pretty bleak message to put forth and one that I’d rather not dwell upon or support. I can’t help but think that if everyone shared that view the world would be a much worse place to live in.
Author Tom McCarthy can write, there’s no question there, but what he chooses to write about in C, or rather the way he goes about it, can be painfully dull for a large chunk of the novel. The main character Serge isn’t very likable or relatable either. Though this isn’t always a requirement for a novel to be good, it would have helped if this character had at least some semblance of a direction or goal in mind. Instead he wanders through life as if nothing at all matters or is of any consequence.
The theme of communication, or lack thereof, is repeated throughout the novel so much so that it overwhelms much of what is being described of Serge’s life. There are great moments, like the first section of the book that describes his childhood, and a piece in the last section where he cleverly debunks a fraud psychic, but there are interesting plot points that are setup early on that are never fully revealed. Serge’s sister Sophie is such an interesting character and to not receive follow-up or closure in this regard was very disappointing.
Another plus for the novel was McCarthy’s dedication in researching the time period. The school for the deaf, the depictions of the war, and Egypt all felt very real, though once again, my main complaint for historical novels like this is that one character always seems to have all of the information of the world and must explain it in detail to every one else. At different points throughout the book Serge does in fact get “lessons� from the various people he meets on his travels.
I really wish Serge gave a sh*t more. Maybe that’s the way I’m supposed to feel? I don’t know, maybe that’s the point McCarthy is trying to drive home, that in the end nothing is worth caring about very much. If so, that’s a pretty bleak message to put forth and one that I’d rather not dwell upon or support. I can’t help but think that if everyone shared that view the world would be a much worse place to live in.
July 24, 2013
C is the kind of book that takes a few days of rumination to determine how you feel about it. On the surface, it is a biography of a boy born at the turn of the 20th century. The boy travels from England, to Bavaria, to the fronts of WWI, to Egypt. Normally, this would seem like a mundane plot. But, the story is not plot-driven by any stretch. A friend of mine absolutely raved about how amazing it was, so I checked it out. While I didn't leave the novel completely floored, I was left with a sense of the complexity of the story. Reading other reviews, I was interested to see how differently people took the prose. It's actually a great book for a book club or English class to discuss the many layers.
One of my interpretations was that the author was trying to portray a sense of eternity. He showed this through a motif of insects throughout time and place. The novel was divided into four sections and nature, particularly insects, played a strong role in all of them. Evolution, and the main character's lack of it, are also factors as you see some of the more basic natures play out.
Another theme was that of destiny, or, more aptly, lack of free will. Serge Carrefax, the main character (who, I found remarkably unlikable), continually finds himself situations and locations. He rarely makes active choices. When he does make choices, it is more of a hedonistic choice of convenience. As a reader who likes to like the main character, this was frustrating. However, it made for a believable (to a certain extent) character, and was also an interesting literary choice.
Finally, I took away a sense of omnipresence. If I think about my three themes, I see that we have birth, in the sense of evolution. I see life in the sense of destiny or free will. In the final theme, I see death and eternity in that our "essence" continues, whether it be merely enriching the soil and serving as insect fodder, or if it be in some "other" realm. Our lives continue, much the same way a radio wave continues on for eternity.
One of my interpretations was that the author was trying to portray a sense of eternity. He showed this through a motif of insects throughout time and place. The novel was divided into four sections and nature, particularly insects, played a strong role in all of them. Evolution, and the main character's lack of it, are also factors as you see some of the more basic natures play out.
Another theme was that of destiny, or, more aptly, lack of free will. Serge Carrefax, the main character (who, I found remarkably unlikable), continually finds himself situations and locations. He rarely makes active choices. When he does make choices, it is more of a hedonistic choice of convenience. As a reader who likes to like the main character, this was frustrating. However, it made for a believable (to a certain extent) character, and was also an interesting literary choice.
Finally, I took away a sense of omnipresence. If I think about my three themes, I see that we have birth, in the sense of evolution. I see life in the sense of destiny or free will. In the final theme, I see death and eternity in that our "essence" continues, whether it be merely enriching the soil and serving as insect fodder, or if it be in some "other" realm. Our lives continue, much the same way a radio wave continues on for eternity.
July 5, 2012
OK--I am SO not intellectual enough to enjoy this book. Either that or, it's a case of the Emperor's new clothes. I can't decide which, but I'm leaning towards the latter.
I found large portions of this book dull and tedious. The only reason I pressed on was because I'd read so many reviews of this book that insisted it was a rich and rewarding kaleidoscope of meaning, and how "everything ties together." I was convinced it was all going somewhere. Well, it wasn't--at least in my mind. Then again, I could be totally clueless and just missed it all. It's very possible, since I was so bored I was skimming large portions of it!
There were some sections that somewhat redeemed themselves, because they were more interesting story-wise and had a plot. There were definitely themes going on here--primarily those of communication and ironic human foibles--but it definitely didn't "all come together" for me. It was more like random mentions: threads of themes that (in my mind) just got dropped.
I found large portions of this book dull and tedious. The only reason I pressed on was because I'd read so many reviews of this book that insisted it was a rich and rewarding kaleidoscope of meaning, and how "everything ties together." I was convinced it was all going somewhere. Well, it wasn't--at least in my mind. Then again, I could be totally clueless and just missed it all. It's very possible, since I was so bored I was skimming large portions of it!
There were some sections that somewhat redeemed themselves, because they were more interesting story-wise and had a plot. There were definitely themes going on here--primarily those of communication and ironic human foibles--but it definitely didn't "all come together" for me. It was more like random mentions: threads of themes that (in my mind) just got dropped.
June 1, 2021
Alternative Titles - Gee, I Sure Like Describing Electrical Signals, and, Is It Just Me, Or Is My Sister Life-Ruiningly Hot?
This has been one of the joyless reads of my short life. Tom McCarthy really likes World War I, Egypt, early wireless technology, botany, and a plethora of other things. Unfortunately for his readers, Tom doesn't like writing stories.
C is a collection of disparate historical tidbits masquerading as a novel. Our protagonist is a limp, anemic clod who is so utterly purposeless that Tom can justify flinging him in whatever direction he likes.
This novel is devoid of humanity. It has no plot, its characters are lifeless, its theme of human communication and connection is never explored, but rather exploited through sophomoric prose drowning in machinelike engineering lingo which helps us see the world through the eyes of our emotionally dead protagonist. Thanks, Tom.
This has been one of the joyless reads of my short life. Tom McCarthy really likes World War I, Egypt, early wireless technology, botany, and a plethora of other things. Unfortunately for his readers, Tom doesn't like writing stories.
C is a collection of disparate historical tidbits masquerading as a novel. Our protagonist is a limp, anemic clod who is so utterly purposeless that Tom can justify flinging him in whatever direction he likes.
This novel is devoid of humanity. It has no plot, its characters are lifeless, its theme of human communication and connection is never explored, but rather exploited through sophomoric prose drowning in machinelike engineering lingo which helps us see the world through the eyes of our emotionally dead protagonist. Thanks, Tom.
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