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    Unavailable
    Quilt
    Unavailable
    Quilt
    Unavailable
    Quilt
    Ebook172 pages1 hour

    Quilt

    By Nicholas Royle

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    Facing the disarray and disorientation around his father's death, a man contends with the strange and haunting power of the house his parents once lived in.He sets about the mundane yet exhausting process of sorting through the remnants of his father's life -- clearing away years of accumulated objects, unearthing forgotten memories and the haunted realms of everyday life. At the same time, he embarks on an eccentric side-project. And as he grows increasingly obsessed with this new project, his grip on reality seems to slip.Nicholas Royle challenges and experiments with literary form to forge a new mode of storytelling that is both playful and inquisitive. Tender, absorbing and at times shockingly funny, this extraordinary novel is both mystery and love story. It confronts the mad hand of grief while embracing the endless possibilities of language.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMyriad Editions
    Release dateAug 26, 2011
    ISBN9781908434029
    Unavailable
    Quilt
    Author

    Nicholas Royle

    Nicholas Royle is the author of five short story collections – Mortality, Ornithology, The Dummy and Other Uncanny Stories, London Gothic and Manchester Uncanny – and seven novels, most recently First Novel. He has edited more than two dozen anthologies and is series editor of Best British Short Stories for Salt, who also published his White Spines: Confessions of a Book Collector. Forthcoming is another collection, Paris Fantastique (Confingo Publishing). In 2009 he founded Nightjar Press, which continues to publish original short stories as limited-edition chapbooks.

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    • 4/5
      Wow, what does one say of this? I've spent two days trying to come up with the words for a proper review that sufficiently reflects the complexity and charm of this slim volume, but I'm afraid my muse has deserted me; or rather, has been humbled into awed silence by the erudite extravagance of Prof. Royle's mesmerizing monograph. That, and I'm still trying to figure out the ending :-)

      I suppose Quilt qualifies loosely as a novel, in the sense that it has characters (really just the two), time more-or-less flows forward in linear fashion, and the author shows a grudging nod to such plot niceties as beginning, middle, and end. However, it's also free-association stream-of-consciousness poesis, in which the writer gives full rein to his obvious infatuation with ontological wordplay.

      The book starts out as a reasonably coherent if lyrical tale about a man dealing with his father's demise, but quickly develops a Kafka-esque quality as the protagonist waxes weird on the philosophical and theological import of...wait for it...stingrays. As it happens, I have a thing for sharks and their compressed cousins myself, so was delighted by the professor's unexpected dive into the philological murk of our subconscious substrate; however, crafty readers hoping for allusions to actual quilting will be much surprised, as mantuas are masked by mantas, and purls passed over for pearls.

      Four stars, for reminding us that syntax is our servant, not master, and that words were created expressly to share thoughts, feelings and dreams which could not otherwise be communicated simply by pointing to rock, and grunting.