9788425321986

Well, this is annoying. The cover in this review matches the cover of my book, but if I plug in the ISBN from my book, a completely different cover image pops up. I don't like that! Who is in charge of data entry / scanning / cover image matching around here and may I please have their job?

Anyway, this is my second McGrath novel and I enjoyed it way more than [b:Dr. Haggard's Disease|23020|Dr. Haggard's Disease|Patrick McGrath|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1347758109l/23020._SY75_.jpg|3180595].

The Grotesque was a real page turner and also reads a bit like a 1930s screwball comedy. Sir Hugo has had a stroke or something so he's telling us his story while locked inside his own body, unable to move or speak. Everyone but his daughter thinks he's a vegetable. Even his doctors. The man he suspects of murder keeps turning Sir Hugo's wheelchair so that he's facing the wall.

This book is only 178 pages and could easily be read in one sitting but I wanted to take my time with it so I kept forcing myself to do other things, like laundry, dishes, meal planning, etc.

Unfortunately, the movie with Mr. Bates from Downton Abbey, Queen Cersei from GOT, Sting and wife Trudie Styler, is bloody awful. Don't waste your time. ( )

As the title suggests "Grotesque" about sums this dark, disturbing, twisted tale to a tee.

A new butler & housekeeper (sans references), a young couple (one murdered), the Narrator husband due to an "accident" is now a "Grotesque" an "Ontological Vegetable" trapped in his body, and the wife who is in thrall with the new butler.......

For myself, this proved a difficult read, for these are old "mannered" people of country gentry and the narration bespeaks that manner....

It was thrilling and chilling at the same time...the dark foreboding manner made me shiver and I skipped some of the longer seemingly pompous narratives....
( )

Failure to adapt = extinction. Fine!!! I’ll seat on the freaking new chairs but that don’t mean I have to like em!!! ( )

Not up to McGrath's usual work, but an enjoyable book none-the-less. The first chapter sets up intense foreboding and import. The creepiness factor is high. I love how throughout the course of the narrative, Sir Hugo keeps telling us that he's a "scientist" and that his empirical sensibility has been tested, but not bested. Even without his spasms of superstition - Unreliable Narrator alert! Still, I can't help but love the guy. Here's what he thinks of the popular press -

"I was much relieved when, after a few days of rabid excitement, they [reporters] lost interest in us, having fresh rubbish with which to titillate their readers. And mass literacy, they tell me, is a boon." p. 64

OMG, what would he say in the face of the media now? Reality TV? The internet? Oy. Poor Hugo.

As much as I love McGrath and savor his books, I can't rate this one very highly in comparison with his others. I kept waiting for the magical moments of madness. None came. Sir Hugo's irascibility and humorous asides were terrific, but sane. And I also kept waiting for the illusion to come down, for Fledge or someone else to come fully into the light and make us realize our assumptions were wrong. Usually in McGrath's books the narrator's unreliability is finally shown in piteously harsh light, but not so in this one. George's death and Fledge's flaunting are interesting and stir up our emotions, but Sir Hugo is helpless and there isn't so much likable about either man to stir pity. Still, it's a rich character study and a voyeuristic look inside a dysfunctional household. ( )