{"id":4702,"date":"2018-03-12T00:32:52","date_gmt":"2018-03-12T04:32:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.e357.net\/beingernest\/?p=4702"},"modified":"2018-05-01T12:41:20","modified_gmt":"2018-05-01T16:41:20","slug":"the-body-library-by-jeff-noon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/e357.net\/beingernest\/the-body-library-by-jeff-noon\/","title":{"rendered":"The Body Library by Jeff Noon"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"The Body Library is a brilliant piece of writing that does a satisfying job of merging noir, magical realism, and a love of all things literary. John Nyquist, a small town investigator, is back in his second book (following A Man of Shadows)<\/strong>, and he\u2019s on a case that started out as a short story, a way to make ends meet, but has quickly become a larger work, one that may draw all the characters in this town into its arc. Once you start it, you\u2019ll find yourself drawn in as well, and you may never look at books the same way again.<\/em><\/p>\n

The streets of Storyville aren\u2019t just mean, they\u2019re metastasizing narratives woven around its denizens. In Storyville, noir meets magical realism with a literary motif. It\u2019s hard to say whether books are a metaphor in which its inhabitants immerse themselves, or if there\u2019s more going on. There\u2019s the police, like there always are, but they\u2019re nothing compared to the Narrative Council. As one character says, \u201cI hate those bastards. They should leave well enough alone. Let the people live the stores they want to live.\u201d The council sends monitors around to keep track of everyone\u2019s stories, and they\u2019re rumored to have ways of getting through your block if the story isn\u2019t forthcoming. As a private investigator, John is used to shading his tales a bit to protect the innocent, or his clients.\u00a0 But as this case unfolds, he must go to new levels of redaction to stay on the street, because in a town that already boggles the mind, things are getting strange.<\/p>\n

Nyquist follows his quarry into what seems like an abandoned apartment building, and that\u2019s when thing start to get weird. Hotel California weird. He winds up getting attacked by the man he was supposed to \u201cjust keep an eye on,\u201d tangled up with a poetic prostitute, and beaten to a pulp by characters whose story is tied up with what\u2019s going on in the building, which is where the magical realism kicks into high gear. Nyquist winds up back on the street with more than one murder to deal with, and more lost and alone than ever.<\/p>\n

Moreover, something is going on with a mysterious book called \u201cThe Body Library,\u201d and a drug epidemic that leaves victims with words crawling all over their skin, never making any sense, but creating a compelling narrative. Somehow, it\u2019s all tied to the building, but Nyquist is only human and the affairs here seem beyond his ken. All the same, he\u2019s the one person with a chance to figure it out.\u00a0 He has this story he\u2019s chasing, filled with danger, loss, and the hope of redemption, and it isn\u2019t one he can put down.<\/p>\n

In the theme song for the Bond movie You Only Live Twice<\/strong>, Nancy Sinatra tells us that you get one life for yourself, and one for your dreams. In The Body Library<\/strong>, author Jeff Noon adds the inevitable consequence that twice is the way you die as well.<\/p>\n

To get Noon\u2019s writing, you must let your mind go and just follow where he leads, even if it takes you through dark and twisty paths. If you can do that, if you can just close your eyes and fall back into his writing, he\u2019ll catch you and the experience will be immensely satisfying. His prose is as crisp as Chandler\u2019s, his imagination is on the order of Lovecraft, and his understanding of the human condition ranks with Bradbury.<\/p>\n

The Body Library<\/strong> is an exceptional treat for lovers of any and all the genres. I\u2019m looking forward to more from Jeff Noon, and who knows, maybe John Nyquest will make some headway with the novel stuck in his typewriter: A Man of Shadows<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Body Library is a brilliant piece of writing that does a satisfying job of merging noir, magical realism, and a love of all things literary. John Nyquist, a small town investigator, is back in his second book (following A Man of Shadows), and he\u2019s on a case that started out as a short story, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4702","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/e357.net\/beingernest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4702","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/e357.net\/beingernest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/e357.net\/beingernest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e357.net\/beingernest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e357.net\/beingernest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4702"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/e357.net\/beingernest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4702\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4704,"href":"https:\/\/e357.net\/beingernest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4702\/revisions\/4704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/e357.net\/beingernest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e357.net\/beingernest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e357.net\/beingernest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}