This, by Erica Wagner in The Times, was the first published review of If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things. It’s no longer available online, so we’re quoting it here at some length:
“McGregor takes his time. This novel owes as much to poetry as it does to prose. Its opening, an invocation of the life of the city, is strongly reminiscent of Auden’s Night Mail in its hypnotic portrait of industrialised society: here are ‘Sung sirens, sliding through the streets, streaking blue light from distress to distress, the slow wail weaving urgency through the darkest of the dark hours..’ The writing in the rest of the novel moves from moment to moment in a way that recalls To The Lighthouse or Mrs Dalloway: it charts with confidence and subtlety the slight shifts of emotion that can change relationships with seismic force… If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things is a dream of a novel. It has the slow-motion hyperclarity of the images that fill our heads in sleep; its liquid prose is precise enough to draw time nearly to a stop, to stretch out moments and describe the spaces between them. It is a novel that is “about” hardly anything at all, and in this very modesty its ambition is revealed.”
Ben McNally, in the Toronto Globe and Mail, wrote that:
“This remarkable first novel.. is understated, adventurous and elegantly crafted.. a major achievement. (..) Combining poetic exactitude of language with the clinical observational skills of a journalist, McGregor artfully bottles the scattered energy of the street, and reminds us of the mystical qualities of ordinary life. This is a supremely bold and accomplished work, ironic without being cynical, stark without being grim. It is a treat.”
And Caroline Gascoigne, writing in the Sunday Times, called If Nobody Speaks
“a sensationally accomplished, powerful and moving book that easily stands comparison with those of our best writers… by the final page, you have been vouchsafed a convincing and powerfully moving vision of contemporary Britain, rooted in reality.”
The rest of these reviews are available online:
“McGregor’s ability to perceive the universal and epiphanic in the mundane that makes this work a great one. That the audaciousness of its closing pages succeeds is testament to this one particular skill among many.”
“…An immense respect for the character’s unsung lives, and for the miraculousness of the everyday.”
“This is a novel where the contrived metaphor, the struggling simile, the romantic reference all come first.”
Julie Myerson, The Guardian. Very much not a fan..
“This is a story of tea being drunk… you won’t read anything much more poignant than this.”
William Leith, The Daily Telegraph.
“Jon McGregor’s first novel – a surprise inclusion on the Booker Prize longlist – is at once an irritating and a moving paean to the small moments in life that often pass unnoticed or go unremarked.”
Abbie Fielding-Smith, New Statesman. Not impressed.
“is Brueghel’s ‘Landscape With The Fall of Icarus’ come to life on an unnamed urban street in England… Like Brueghel and Nicholson Baker, McGregor is fascinated by the magnificence of the mundane.”
David Wiegand, San Francisco Chronicle.
“The writing here is absolutely resplendent, the work of a true seer, who does for urban England what John Cheever did for Westchester County. McGregor intimately understands his subjects and portrays them in all their specificity, their poetry and their shortcomings… McGregor has rewritten the rules of structure and dramatic action, letting the drama of the unknown event seep backward into the entire day that preceded it.”
Sarah Goodrum, Nashville Bookpage.
Meanwhile, on the blogs, CultureWars called the novel “an English student’s creative writing assignment.” Ouch.
But Bookmunch said that the novel was “like a small bird’s egg”, which seems like a good thing.
And Eisha at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast has some really very nice things to say. Take a look.
And although not quite a blog, ‘S.Thomas’ at Amazon.com had this to say:
“Tricks don’t make for good reading. I agree the guy’s a poet – he paints pictures like nobody else – but every character seems sweaty, half-naked, and unemployed. If I wanted that, I’d walk through my own neighborhood. What I wanted was a story, but what I got was little Jimmy Joyce in a circle jerk with his MFA buddies.”
To which nothing much more needs to be added.
Meanwhile, on the Goodreads site, there are about 130 reviews which veer wildly between love and hate. It seems that if you come across a second-hand copy of If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things with a damaged spine and a creased cover, it’s because someone has recently thrown it across their room.
And finally – Neil at Unified Review Theory appears to have thrown the book across the room and enjoyed it after a much later second attempt. Good perseverance skills!
