'Clear: A Transparent Novel', Nicola Barker

If someone really irritates me, then, assuming they’re not a close relation or sitting at the next desk to me at work, I generally prefer to avoid them. Yes, I’m a self-confessed avoider, non-confrontational First Class Honours. So, it’s hard to know what to do when you just don’t like a first person narrator. Nicola Barker’s book is about a 28 year old, Adair Graham MacKenney, working at the London Council during the illusionist David Blaine’s stunt when he was suspended in a glass box above the Thames and didn’t eat for 44 days. It’s a (fairly) interesting premise, and creates lots of easily accessible themes, but… I just didn’t like the protagonist. Which made it rather difficult for me to like this book; if given the choice, I would have rather avoided MacKenney and allowed someone else (preferably Aphra, his erstwhile love-interest and collector of antique shoes) narrate instead. Instead, it made reading this book an effort when I mostly read to relax.

On a related but entirely tangential note, as part of a corporate ‘’Work Life Balance day’’ on Friday I attended a short course on ‘’Advanced Reading Skills’’ run by a remarkably over-eager English woman who lives in Frankfurt (maybe she was just super-keen to be away; who would blame her?). As part of a discussion about ‘’what reading is’’ (ahem) I said that for me, it’s all about relaxing, and ‘’switching off’’, and was rather surprised that no-one else in the group seemed to agree with me, and found it a drag. In fact, even at work I would far rather read reports than be in a meeting, but that’s my secret introvert coming out (don’t get me started on that one….). I suppose my ‘’Johnny 5’’ (trademark Lisa) abilities may help, although my Words Per Minute test came out at 320 WPM, rather far below the ‘’speed reader’’ average of 500 WPM. It does beg the question though, why would you want to read that fast? The course leader suggested it would be fun to choose a big novel and challenge your friend to who could read it over the weekend… Not sure competitive reading would really cut it for me, but whatever floats your boat (granted, it may be the most interesting thing to do in Frankfurt of a weekend).

So, (fairly) good story, (fairly) interesting ideas, (very) annoying narrator. Treat with caution.