Senseless

I picked up Senseless on a Saturday morning, ran some errands, came home and cracked it open, just to read the first couple pages. For the next few hours I white-knuckled my way through this stunningly original, utterly terrifying and yet beautifully written novel. I was reminded of Damage, by Josephine Hart and Ian Mcewan at his finest. The prose is surgical-steel clean, and just as sharp. Yet it is not the sheer suspense or unfathomable evil that makes this book so powerful, but rather the humanity and vulnerability of the central character who is so realistically drawn that I felt I knew him. Senseless is astonishing.

A brilliant portrayal of how a fanatics mind might work. A mind-numbing story of what it might truly feel like to lose your freedom in the blink of an eye. As a short novel this book suceeds on every level and leaves the reader wishing for more.

I found "Senseless" to be utterly riveting. I was drawn into a bizzarre world of psychological gamemanship as soon as I picked up the book and never looked back. It's a wild ride, and makes you question many of the underlying assumptions about guilt and innocence that we take for granted. As soon as you realize the powerlessness of the narator in his situation, you become one with him, waiting to find out what will happen next, and what he did to deserve his fate.The writing is taut and economical, and the story moves briskly. One of the most compelling novels I have read in years.

Not to focus too much on the Book Description (see above), but to call this novel "Orwellian" misses the point, I think. Certainly a publisher can't be blamed for trying to characterize its books in accessible terms. But having read the bound galleys of "Senseless," I can say that it's far removed from Orwell on at least a couple of counts--and all the more astounding for that.First of all, the universe that protagonist Eliott Gast inhabits is no totalitarian superstate, but rather a recognizable--if extreme--version of our own world. Granted, Gast finds himself in horrifying circumstances that have some of the schematic feel of, say, "1984." But in the novel's apparent focus on global capitalism and the latter-day culture of "reality-based" entertainment and instantaneous information-transfer, Stona Fitch addresses a thoroughly contemporary set of concerns that even Orwell didn't quite anticipate.And in any case, "Senseless" is not "about" these subjects, exactly--or at least not in the way in which "1984" and "Animal Farm" were most definitely about the nightmares of 20th-Century totalitarianism. In the face of his intractably painful, terrifying, and ultimately numbing predicament, Eliott Gast finds himself slipping further and further into a sort of meditative reflection on his past--and particularly on the joys and deceptions of his sense-saturated life before captivity. Rather than offer a simple cautionary tale on the Orwellian mold, Fitch would have his audience consider the personal foundations of a globalized reality: this seemingly universal society that is in fact based on the interconnectedness of billions of individual appetites, in which the individual is as vulerable to the appetites of others as he is responsible for his own.To say that "Senseless" is both hard to read and hard to stop reading is the highest compliment I can offer it, and one it richly deserves. As with the most compelling "reality show" yet unimagined, you want to know what will happen next--even as you suspect that the answer will horrify. But if the action is at times wince-making, the writing never is: Great writing never is, and that's what the author offers here. Great writing, in a great, unforgettable, and singular work of art.

Senseless is a riveting, one-sitting novel that takes an unsparing look at the escalating role of sensationalism in today?s global culture. Although I read the novel before the World Trade Center tragedy, I am more convinced than ever that this tightly-written study of terrorism is relevant and even instructive. Its tough view of the motivation and execution of a horrifying crime might have seemed exaggerated last year; today it feels ominously possible.Without giving anything away, I?d like to add that the power and hope of the book come into a thrilling focus on the final page. First lines in literature are plentiful, but it?s a rare book that closes as effectively as Senseless. The final sentences fire your mind and urge you to rethink the entire novel.