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All Quiet on the Orient Express: A 'hilariously surreal' novel from the Booker Prize-shortlisted author

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passes, but there was a limit to how much enjoyment could be derived from this, especially with all the cars travelling nose to tail everywhere I went. Admittedly the roads would be quieter now that the majority of tourists I'd inadvertently become his servant.'' But the discovery changes nothing. The narrator continues to perform the jobs that are doled out to him and the weeks continue to pass, with him no closer to India.

Well, I'm between things at the present. I've been working all summer to save some money so I can go East during the winter.'I'd made up my mind about that, and was just brewing the tea, when a movement caught my eye. Walking down the narrow concrete road that led from the house came a teenage girl in school uniform. I looked Maybe only the English write books like this. The narrative unwinds slowly. The plot reveals itself in the most deliberate increments. Much is suggested, little explained. Hints of incipient drama along the way lead nowhere in particular. Characters who will eventually become pivotal drift in and out, making scant initial impact. There are strong inklings of an overriding daffiness. Not until the end are readers aware of just what has happened, and even then doubts linger." - James Polk, The New York Times Book Review

I've rarely come across an author who can so successfully create an atmosphere without ever showing a concrete reason for it. The book that was tugging at the edges of my memory the most was Evelyn Waugh's A Handful of Dust.The arrival of Magnus Mills on the British literary scene is extraordinarily refreshing. He represents a genuinely avant garde voice who has breathed new life into the genre (if it can be called a genre) by flouting all expectations of what a novel can be about... Mills is genuinely unique, but if he is to be placed anywhere in the jigsaw of literary history, he will have to slot between Albert Camus and Enid Blyton. [He is] oneof the handful of British writers to work in a unique fictional universe. For this, Mills is to be treasured and revered. You cannot ask more of a book than for it to make the familiar seem fresh, strange and scary. In a modest, sneaky way, Mills pulls this off better than any other writer at work today. -- The Independent on Sunday, 19 September 1999 After taking a shower I zipped up the tent and set off on my lakeside walk, going out through the main gateway, then across the public road to another gate leading into a second field. Until yesterday this Last year, Magnus Mills joined a special category of English writers with his first novel, ''The Restraint of Beasts,'' an elaborately dark farce featuring two memorable Scottish louts, relentlessly vapid dialogue, miles of newly installed

Mills himself has talked about punishment and reward as being key themes in his work, particularly in The Restraint of Beasts. [12] The leaders of the teams in Explorers of the New Century struggle with punishment as a means of encouraging and disciplining their mules, never able to achieve quite the results they desire, but fearful of interacting with the mules by any means more complex than punishment and reward. While I was waiting for it to boil I sat in the grass and wondered how I was going to occupy myself today. That was the only trouble with this place: the scenery was great and everything, but there was nothing Magnus Mills has a keen eye for human nature, and his portrayal of the narrator as a nice bloke who doesn’t want to offend anybody is beautifully realised. As the agendas of the locals begin to become clear, the narrator’s desire to please and to fit in becomes squirmingly realistic. To the reader, it’s obvious that the character is being exploited by almost everybody he meets; the narrator, however, attempts to rationalise and excuse the situation, consoling himself with the thought that his predicament is strictly temporary. All Quiet', in my opinion, credits the reader with being able to (a) fill in missing pieces of the story as needed and (b) let the story unfold by itself without trying to impose a particular direction on it. Of course the main character could leave if he wanted to. Of course he could tell Mr Parker to shove it. Of course he could demand his baked beans and custard creams from Mr Hodge. But then it wouldn't be the same book, and that's the point. in for a lunchtime drink, though, as I didn't want the day to dissolve into an alcoholic blur. Once I'd bought my supplies I would have to think of something else to do in the afternoon.The money arrangements aren't too clear, but there's always something to do and the narrator doesn't really worry about thinking too far ahead. The structure and strength of both [his] novels comes from their dialogue, which is natural yet as stylised as Pinter... There is little in the way of story and less description. The atmosphere is powerful and lies somewhere between comedy and horror. -- The Observer, 12 September 1999 At this time I happened to be working with the gate half open and half closed, so that I could get at both sides easily. The man now came round the end of the gate and stood beside me, observing. `Well,' he said at length. `You seem to be very handy The tradition of sinister English villages and their tight-lipped, staring inhabitants is an old one, and a classic gothic crutch. Here, our somewhat gormless hero (or is he?) slides beneath the surface of life in this place as easily as another man might slide beneath the surface of a lake. The chain of obligation, of nothing else to do, drags him under, and he finds himself staying on, and on, for a week, then another, then 'just until Christmas'. He ceases to be a tourist, an oddity, a burden to bear, and begins to be a member of the crowd, a teammate, an odd-job man, a friend. about to test a third one when for some reason all the showers came on together. The water seemed quite warm so I got under one of them straightaway and began applying some soap. It wasn't as steaming hot as it had

I was slightly surprised by this. There'd been quite a lot of people staying here when I first arrived, and I more or less assumed I'd gone unnoticed before today. After all, I was only one tent really bothered. It was actually quite nice to have something proper to do for a change, and so as soon as I'd dumped my groceries in the tent I set off up towards the house.I've got to say it was strangely readable despite the intentionally sparse dialogue and simple narrative style. The author had a clever way of putting little odd things in here and there that made me want to keep reading till the end- to find out if there were answers (and there were. At the very, very end. To a few questions anyway). However, I was aware that my supply of baked beans was running low, so I decided to take a short walk along the side of the lake and get some more. There was a place called Millfold about a mile away at the

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