A Spy in the Ruins by Christopher Bernard

A Spy in the Ruinsby Anonymous

Reader Rating:
See Detailed Ratings

September 18, 2005: Spy offers up lyrical virtuosity with a truly unique narrative style in which prose and poetry blend transcendently into 'stream of dream'. The story is absolutely original as it's highly personal: it's compelling and crafted with a sensibility in the writing that in places left me literally awestruck. The writing was sensitive, vivid, layered, intelligent, textured, inspired, deeply felt and profound. The story unfolds in epiphanies amid the backdrop of a wasteland in the rubble of war. But delving deeper, the real story is about a man caught up in the existential depths of his own life seeking earnestly to come to grips with its higher meaning. The writing style is one of a kind and is reminiscent of Joyce, but more accessible, and the existential prose of Beckett. The writing is so skillfully wrought that it's the many lyrically tender passages, where the transcendent prose ascends into lyrical poetry that I will revisit. I kept telling myself, 'God, this is beautifully expressed.' The net effect of the series of epipanies, portrayed without dialogue, is a stream of dream narrative technique that builds upon stream of consciousness with an original, ethereal and unique signature in the author's voice. When the writing excels, as it does here, the signature voice is the mark of supreme literary talent. If you eschew the vapid mainstream of best-sellers and seek out intelligent literary novels, then you absolutely must read this watershed novel for there is genius in this book. Spy is one of the finest novels I've read in years and delivers a literary legacy that should be read slowly, aloud in places, savoured and treasured. I was absolutely astounded by the power and creative sensibility manifest in this great novel, which measures well against the benchmark of some of America's finest literary novelists. Spy is a real literary gem.