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| Engleby (Vintage International) | 
 enlarge | Author: Sebastian Faulks
Publisher: Vintage Books USA
Category: Book
Buy Used: £9.90
Avg. Customer Rating:  91 reviews
Media: Paperback
Edition: Reprint
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 336
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.1 x 0.9
ISBN: 0307387887
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9780307387882
ASIN: 0307387887
Publication Date: September 9, 2008
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Condition: Ships from US; Please allow 14-24 business days for your book to arrive in the UK. Reliable customer service and no-hassle return policy.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 86 more reviews...
 Astounding study of personality and memory November 9, 2008
This is an engaging, knowledgeable piece of fiction which studies and explores the vicissitudes of memory and the nature of a disordered personality and how it views the world. Like Faulks' Human Traces, the authenticity of the psychiatric material in this book is astonishing and yet it is presented lucidly and directly.
Don't read the other reviews until you've read the book! November 5, 2008
I know many people (me included) like to read Amazon reviews before deciding whether or not to read a book.
In this case, due to the fact that saying almost ANYTHING about it is a "spoiler" I would urge you not to. Go and read it (I didn't much like Faulks' other books, but I recommend this one unreservedly) and then come back to see if you agree with the reviewers.
ALL I will say is that this is a classic "unreliable narrator" book that has echoes of Ruth Rendell, "American Psycho" (but not in terms of gratuitous violence), the "Adrian Mole" books (really!) and the TV series "Life on Mars".
That's all I'm going to say, beyond the fact that I think it's brilliant.
A book with a 70's Soundtrack November 4, 2008
The ultimate accolade - reading this on a twelve hour flight, I felt dismayed when we were coming in to land.
The plot is very basic: Engleby is a Cambridge university student in the early 70's who has a massive crush on a fellow student who mysteriously disappears.
Anyone who was at university in the 70's is going to love this. There should be an Engleby soundtrack, with every single one of the tracks he mentions so nostalgically. For him, music ended with Don't you Want Me in 1981...he pines for Focus and Cream, Amen Corner and Yes. (If only there could be a CD of the book). And anyone who knows Cambridge and London is going to relate to the detailed geography of the book as well - as well as the pubs and politics of the 70s and 80s.
It's an intelligent, thought provoking look at life, what it entails, whether one truly engages with it fully, or is "conscious but not aware" - and especially what "being normal" entails. It is full of lines like "one of the hardest things about being alive is being with other people" and asides such as "her voice was gentle and low, and excellent thing in woman" - I got this one but probably missed many more, Sebastian Faulks being highly erudite as well as getting in a few sly digs about modern education, including the fact his protagonist despairs at someone he is teaching (who he knows is bad at maths) getting an A* for his GCSE.
We should not like Engleby the man; but strangely we do. We get inside his head, and inside the head of the missing Jennifer through the pages of her diary, which leaves us feeling so uplifted and optimistic about life. But it is Engleby who really understands her love of life - though he himself could not be more detached from it.
 Worth a Read October 23, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
This book is OK but still nothing special. Well written, different and a quickish read. However, it becomes relatively easy to see where the story is heading from fairly early on. There is yet another foray into psychiatry, and I really hope Faulks gives this topic a rest now from his books. Maybe he has been well acquainted with the couch himself, or has Psychiatry friends, but he needs to write about something else. Overall, this book is still worth a read though.
One of his best October 18, 2008
This is one of his best novels yet! I couldn't put this book down and I will definitely read it again - not something I often do. The subject matter is very different compared to his other novels but he still provides the reader with his trade mark of excellent research and attention to detail. Looking forward to his next one!
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