There were so many things I wanted to like about this book.

I liked that it was about sex, rather than merely containing sex, which is a tremendous distinction. I liked the absolutism in the author's insistent equivalencies, versus similes, between relationships and economics. I liked the detailed and nigh-prophetic description of a global banking meltdown (note this was published in 2000). I liked the are-they-or-aren't-they ambivalence toward vampirism and aliens. I loved the detailed London setting. I liked the crossword bit. I enjoyed the philosophical chapter quotes, and virtually everything about Louis "Sadly I Do Not Appear in this Book" Bris. I accepted the AI bit as achievably realistic (essentially an inference engine with a natural-language interface aka Siri 2.0, not so much difficult as uninteresting).

However, I found the end a bit of a letdown. Some threads were left frustratingly unresolved, while others were infuriatingly abrogated. I realize that incompleteness, unknowability and the essential absurdity of life were part of the message, and that advanced readers are expected to outgrow the expectation for neatly wrapped-up plots with all characters receiving due justice within 50min television scripts; nevertheless, I feel a bit more effort could have been made by the author to tidy up the myriad storylines he begat.

I suspect this is one of those books I will like more after I've had a few weeks' distance to get over the disappointment of what it lacked, and can positively reflect on the many things it did quite well. I am definitely glad to have finally finished it, after letting it languish some years on my "set-aside" stack.

Lastly, I had no idea this had been made into a movie, yet a quick glance at the trailer makes it painfully obvious that the producer utterly and completely missed the point of this engaging, complex, and modestly challenging novel, choosing only the most banal and predictable plotline to highlight, and crudely at that. ( )

A wide-ranging, meandering slab of a novel that's impossible to summarise. Recently republished (I think) in light of its prescience on the financial crisis. A brave attempt at a 'meaning-of-it-all' grand sweep, technically impressive but ultimately flawed, delivering its pessimistic premise at its close with a 'is that it?' climax. Nevertheless, it's an entertaining 600pages, which stimulates and challenges along the way. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed it, but I'd need to know you before I recommeded it to you. Definitely an acquired taste. ( )

A multi-layered brilliant novel that explores social dislocation, the psyche of financial markets, the depths of the hypothalmus, quantum physics and much much more. Read this when you want to have tour mind stretched and answers explored for all those imponderables you have pushed to the back-burner. The Pan's Labyrinth of literature and the best book I have read in years. ( )