Gods Without Men
-
-
4.1 • 7 Ratings
-
-
- £3.99
-
- £3.99
Publisher Description
Gods Without Men is Hari Kunzru's epic novel of intertwined lives and a vast expanse of American desert.
In the Californian desert . . .
A four-year-old boy goes missing.
A British rock star goes quietly mad.
An alien-worshipping cult is born.
An Iraqi teenager takes part in a war game.
In a remote town, near a rock formation known as The Pinnacles, lives intertwine, stories echo, and the universal search for meaning and connection continues.
'Kunzru's great American novel' Independent
'Readers speak of it in hushed tones as conveying the secrets of the universe' Newsday
'Extraordinary, smart, innovative, a revelation. Has the counterculture feel of a late-1960s US campus hit - something by Vonnegut or Pynchon or Wolfe. Genuinely interesting and exhilarating. Extremely enjoyable' Guardian
'Astonishing, mind-blowing. One of the most original novels I've read in years' Counterpunch
'One of the most socially observant and skilful novelists around. Consistently gripping and entertaining' Literary Review
'A great sprawling narrative, as vast as the canvas on which it is written' Washington Post
'Reverberates long after you finish reading it' New Yorker
Hari Kunzru is the author of the novels The Impressionist, Transmission, My Revolutions and Gods Without Men, and the story collection Noise. He lives in New York.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
As characters in acclaimed British novelist Kunzru's pitch-perfect masterwork tinker with machines for communicating with an interplanetary craft circling the Earth, their desperate quest for meaning is interrupted by a nonlinear m lange of other strange endeavors that span centuries and cross the Mojave Desert: British rocker Nicky Capaldi's escape from L.A. in a convertible with a gold-plated Israeli handgun stowed in the glove box; beleaguered parents Jaz and Lisa Matharu's disastrous vacation with their autistic four-year-old, Raj; former hippie commune "Guide" Judy's return to the desert, strung out on meth; and traumatized Iraqi teen Laila's participation as an actor in U.S. army war game facsimiles of Iraq. Presiding over it all are the Pinnacles, three fingers of rock that bear mute witness to Raj's disappearance and the ensuing frantic search. Also on board are Fray Francisco Hermenegildo Tom s Garc s, a half-mad Jesuit missionary intent on converting Native Americans at the close of the 18th century; Deighton, a disfigured ethnologist, annoyed by the young, "half-educated" Eliza's failure to recognize "the distinction he'd conferred on her by asking her to be his wife"; an aircraft mechanic named Schmidt working in the '40s who feels betrayed by what the Enola Gay unleashed over Hiroshima; a working-class mother seduced by the possibility of fellowship with benevolent otherworldly beings; and a local girl who once lived with the hippies and who even though she returns years later to run the motel where Nicky, Jaz, Lisa, and Raj briefly stay suspects she has never quite returned. Kunzru's (My Revolutions) ear for colloquial speech creates a cacophony that overlays his affectionate descriptions of the desolate landscape, creating a powerful effect akin to the distant cry of urgent voices crackling up and down the dial on a lonely drive through an American wasteland.
Customer Reviews
Gods Without Men Rocks!
Gods Without Men was my big read on vacation this year and I loved every delicious moment of it. I was captivated by this cunningly spun tale of generations of folk who've all come to look for America. What they find is a kind of eschatological Picnic at Hanging Rock in the Mojave desert via the strange-attractiveness of The Pinnacles, a notable and mind-bending bit of geology.
The disparate cast span centuries and include a Conquistador padre, the Loki-like, quasi-mythological character of Coyote, a Koreshesque cult and a contemporary stock-market analyst who loses his soul, his wife and his son and finds his search just begun when it seems at an end. There are many more lives unfurled and each is fascinating, revealed with an acute and frank humanity.
The author succeeds brilliantly, effortlessly to conjure the intersecting worlds of the characters with a total mastery of the kind of detail that makes them ring clear and true. He does that wonderful thing that great artists and story-tellers do, of opening/expanding your mind with an absolutely lean, elegant phrase, illustration, nailed-on description of something you've felt but couldn't pin down. Like watching a Robin Williams set in his heyday, the voices, settings and prose styles flash past without ever losing veracity and integrity. Hari Kunzru writes breezily, almost gossiping about scenes and events fantastical, relationships deep and real and complex with an unblinking exposition of his characters' sexuality which I found thrillingly honest.
Although he's not American, I think this work is an important piece of contemporary American literature. It feels to me to capture something elemental about America and the quest of generations of her children to find meaning and sustenance from the earth, rocks and heavens.
Read this book. It's a trip.
Wasted Potential and Disappointing
Having read 'Transmission' which I thoroughly enjoyed, I thought 'Gods Without Men' would be its equal. The story starts well, but never really gets going until almost at the end. It then finishes in the most unsatisfying way, without resolution. There are snippets of enjoyment throughout, but I didn't think the flitting between time zones worked. The subject matter has great potential which is never truly exploited, and I found the whole read disappointing. Sorry, but I can't agree with previous reviews.