The Tesseract (Taschenbuch)

With that said, I have mixed feelings about this book. The first part is misleading - taut, psychologically compelling, more-or-less a return to the territory Garland first explored in "The Beach". What follows though is a book that strives to be multi-layered (like a jigsaw puzzle, if you will - hence the meaning of its title)with seemingly disjointed sections all coming together for a big bang-'em-up ending. While the whole is rather perversely satisfying, the sum of its parts don't always make for a compelling read.

The central focus of the plot is the story of a young village girl named Rosa who has a brief - and fatefully aborted - relationship with a semi-deformed young fisherman whose family seems cursed by physical deformity. She moves away to study medicine in Manila, marries a decent, loving husband, and has two children by him. When she and her family revisit her village upon the death of her father, tragedy strikes in the form of a reunion with her ex-childhood lover.

Another section of the book revolves around a Ph.D candidate's thesis interpreting the dream-lives of Manila's street kids.

All of these disparate elements come together in a conclusion that is surprising, well-crafted, and really very exciting. Upon closing the book for the last time, I found myself reflecting on all that had come before, piecing it together and then tying it into the book's title "The Tesseract".

Unfortunately, I found a good portion of the novel slow-going. The writing certainly isn't bad - Garland has a terrific feel for naturalistic dialogue - it just didn't keep me anticipating what was coming on the next page. Again, however, I really enjoyed the pay-off at the end as well as scattered passages throughout.

This is the work of a serious novelist-in-development. I eagerly await Mr. Garland's next book and look forward to the development and maturity of his craft.

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If you read the reviews, you'll get the impression that this is a crime novel, too. I think that would be a mistake... Others may focus on characters (a mistake, too).

I believe this novel's star is its structure. The story threads that are here (there are basically three of them) are all fine, but they are laid out so as to support Garland's effort at an intricate structure. The novel starts off somewhat linear, but then retraces itself from another character's view... And with each retelling, it gets less linear, and the non-linearity gets more complex. Now, the interesting thing for me is that as Garland build in ever greater complexity from the weaving of the story lines, the characterizations do not suffer. The story could have been more linear, and the story would have been just as fine - - that is, the characters would made as much sense, and the story would have made as much sense. But Garland has made a clear choice in his telling, and I'm all for it.

* * * * * * * * * * *

OK, beyond the structure, what do we have? As several other reviews point out, it's basically three character lines which converge. One involves a smuggler holed up in a hotel for a meeting, who misinterprets a series of events, and the same sequence of events from others' eyes -- leading to an intense gun battle. The second story involves a family whose lives will intersect with the escaping smuggler, and the events that led to their point in the story. The third involves two street urchins and their pursuit of the gun battle (and events leading to their chase). Each narrative is gracefully provided with details to make the thread seem rich with emotion and independence. As a result, no one thread dominates, and characterizations of this as a "crime novel" pay too much attention to the initial thread surrounding the smuggler.

I truly enjoyed reading this novel - - it's a great display of artistry and skill.

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