From Publishers Weekly
Scottish writer Kelman, author of the Booker Prize-winning How Late It Was, How Late, here offers up a novel that is like a test case of Adorno's famous phrase, "to write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric." Adorno meant that, in the service of mass murder, language had cut itself off from its emotional base, the affection that precedes communication. In Kelman's novel, language is deprived of both its beauty and its grammar, and studded with ugly political jargon and neologisms. A note at the beginning explains that the "accounts" that make up the book are narrations of incidents "transcribed and/or translated into English, not always by persons native to the tongue." The accounts are testimonies from some unspecified killing field, with elements reminiscent of Rwanda, Yugoslavia and even the Cultural Revolution in China. In "sections," which are, presumably, holding areas, enemies of some kind are processed. Women and men are beaten, raped and murdered. People are under observation by "securitys," foreign observers interact with suspicious locals and bodies strew the landscape. Resistance cells, or "campaign formations," engage in self-criticism sessions. The unnamed narrators emerge and vanish in a haze of broken English, through which we glimpse a man in a transit area or camp, a resister and a man who may be with the government securitys, as well as others. The language has an ugly, gears-jamming feel to it, with sentences pieced together like: "All concentration now was on this demonstration, fully placed to the elderly man whose role so was primary." Kelman's experiment ultimately fails, since exhausting and desensitizing the reader does not necessarily lead to insight into the nature of state-sanctioned atrocity. Admirers of How Late It Was, How Late will appreciate what Kelman is trying to do in his newest novel, but even they may find it close to unreadable. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
Kelman's new novel takes place in an unnamed, vaguely European country in the present or not-too-distant future in the midst of what may or may not be a war. Moving through a landscape that appears increasingly bombed out as the book progresses, the unnamed narrator (or possibly, narrators) seem(s) to be involved in some sort of underground group opposing the country's totalitarian rulers. Ostensibly, these fragmented chapters are a series of first-hand accounts collected by another country's foreign office and roughly translated into English (or so the back cover blurb of the book says; there's nothing in the text itself, other than perhaps the title, to indicate this). Episodic by their very nature, these accounts have a shadowy, dreamlike quality that often makes it difficult to determine the actual truth of events described. Eschewing traditional plot, characterization, and dramatic structure, Kelman's experimental antinovel is a tour de force of a sort, but one that will lose all but the most dedicated readers long before its conclusion. For academic literary collections. Lawrence Rungren, Merrimack Valley Lib. Consortium, Andover, MA Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
Booker Prize-winner Kelman, known for taking literary risks, departs from his native Scotland and Scots dialects to provide a literary collage of a land repressed by martial law. This is not the vivid portrait that might be expected from a writer who loves language, as Kelman deliberately mutes his presentation through translation. These 54 accounts, ranging from a single paragraph to 15 pages, are pieces of narrations, reports, letters, and interviews from several individuals, translated with varying degrees of skill into English. Translation flattens the differences between voices, which are from men in different stations in the state, and they combine to describe a climate of state-inspired terror perpetuated by "authoritys" and "securitys" in which there are disappearances, rape, mutilation, torture, murder--and sexual encounters, because life still goes on. Both the fragmentary nature of the accounts and the awkwardness of the translations filter the vividness of events and require the reader to work hard on some passages. Kelman has clearly labored to execute his intriguing concept, and selective readers will give it the effort demanded. Michele Leber
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Review
“James Kelman is one of the new, true masters of millennial English.” —Russell Banks

“A writer of vast and original talent.” —Sunday Times

“Kelman is simply incomparable.” —Independent


Review
?James Kelman is one of the new, true masters of millennial English.? ?Russell Banks

?A writer of vast and original talent.? ?Sunday Times

?Kelman is simply incomparable.? ?Independent

FROM THE PUBLISHER

The novel is set in an unnamed territory or country that appears to be under military rule. It is narrated in the first person, but the narrators remain anonymous, as do most of the other characters. The language used is an atypical English form, but akin to the basic translation that might appear within a department of an overseas 'foreign office'. Perhaps someone transcribed first-hand accounts of certain incidents, events and states of mind, as narrated by participants in the struggle and then passed on the transcriptions for translation; or perhaps the accounts were simply translated first hand into English and edited later. In either case the results were dispatched to a more senior civil servant who later handed them over to an appropriate state agency.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Scottish writer Kelman, author of the Booker Prize-winning How Late It Was, How Late, here offers up a novel that is like a test case of Adorno's famous phrase, "to write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric." Adorno meant that, in the service of mass murder, language had cut itself off from its emotional base, the affection that precedes communication. In Kelman's novel, language is deprived of both its beauty and its grammar, and studded with ugly political jargon and neologisms. A note at the beginning explains that the "accounts" that make up the book are narrations of incidents "transcribed and/or translated into English, not always by persons native to the tongue." The accounts are testimonies from some unspecified killing field, with elements reminiscent of Rwanda, Yugoslavia and even the Cultural Revolution in China. In "sections," which are, presumably, holding areas, enemies of some kind are processed. Women and men are beaten, raped and murdered. People are under observation by "securitys," foreign observers interact with suspicious locals and bodies strew the landscape. Resistance cells, or "campaign formations," engage in self-criticism sessions. The unnamed narrators emerge and vanish in a haze of broken English, through which we glimpse a man in a transit area or camp, a resister and a man who may be with the government securitys, as well as others. The language has an ugly, gears-jamming feel to it, with sentences pieced together like: "All concentration now was on this demonstration, fully placed to the elderly man whose role so was primary." Kelman's experiment ultimately fails, since exhausting and desensitizing the reader does not necessarily lead to insight into thenature of state-sanctioned atrocity. Admirers of How Late It Was, How Late will appreciate what Kelman is trying to do in his newest novel, but even they may find it close to unreadable. (Oct. 16) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal