This is a very good book indeed, perhaps an outstandingly good one but to be fair my opinion of the novel may be coloured by its being exactly my cup of tea: The language is simple, unadorned, the atmosphere is overwhelming, the uncanny elements aren't pondered nor explained nor resolved. The characters are simply that, characters, without distinct personalities and each chapter is simply an episode, not a building block in a plot. Indeed, conventional characters and plot would have been jarring in a book of quietly strange experiences befalling a wanderer who views unfamiliar places and people through a veil of ceaseless rain. People disappear, reappear, issue incomprehensible warnings and utter strange statements that the narrator try as he may cannot understand. Dark Company isn't though weird fiction nor is it remotely like Kafka despite the publisher's description; it's too subtle, too misty to resemble either. The only description that occurs to me is that it's a haunting literary novel whose disquieting eeriness is born from the mundane and suggests the ineffable. ( )