The Amnesiac

I must admit that when I started this book, I almost put it down - it reminded me of what a bad trip on LSD would be like. But the story slowly pulls you in and I thought the author walked the fine line of effectively blurring reality and fantasy with excellent writing. I finished the book today after reading it over two weeks, I think I didn't want to miss a detail or a clue - but it is less than 400 pages. I am still not sure what exactly happened and I don't think I like the ending. But as I titled this review, I will be mulling this one over for a long time, which for me is the perfect book.

The use of a novel within a novel too often distracts the reader, and in this story it becomes more complicated by the use of a Victorian mystery within a contemporary dilemma. In this book 29-year-old James Purdew, after breaking his ankle and remaining virtually homebound for six weeks, begins to recall his past--except he cannot remember three years. He returns to the city where he attended university, where he finds both strange and familiar sights and fleeting glimpses of the past. He is fortunate when he is selected to live in and rehabilitate a house in which he had lived when in school. It is filled with tragic memories. This is a haunting tale, and it is well-written. However, many readers no doubt will be overwhelmed by the prose and plotting, much less the above mentioned technique. Nevertheless, the book is more than worth the effort of plodding through all the metaphysics and philosophy and parables, and is recommended.

Reading Sam Taylor's The Amnesiac is like experiencing someone trying to remember a dream. The book's protagonist, James Purdew, who's just turned 30, realizes in a vague way that he's forgotten things. He starts having flashbacks--or perhaps he's had them all along and forgot--of events he otherwise doesn't remember. There are several years of his life that he can't account for in any clear way. He kept journals during that time but for some reason locked them away in a box to which he doesn't have the key, and which can only be opened otherwise by explosive. He starts to investigate his past, haltingly, because sometimes time just slips away from him. And various clues start to coalesce. Eventually he and the reader come to suspect that someone is playing with him, controlling the clues, engineering his rediscovery of his past or attempting to prevent it. And certainly at least one person is watching him: our omniscient narrator sometimes surprises us by alleging that he is actually in the scene he's describing. Taylor's story is both ingenious and confusing. Having finished it, you'll find yourself rethinking the complex plot, trying to fit pieces of the story into the puzzle. The novel is just shy of 400 pages, not unusually long, and yet it's one of those books that seem to take an inordinately long time to read. I don't mean by this that the book is dull: it's not (except for one chapter towards the end, which purports to be a biography James is reading and which slows the story down considerably). Perhaps the feeling of slowness is due to the story's complexity, or because reading it one feels some of the frustration of the protagonist, for whom understanding is tantalizingly near but elusive. The book, both detective story and gothic romance, is at the same time an exploration into the nature of memory. (Be sure to notice the disclaimer on the copyright page, the one that usually reads, "Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.") It is in fact the very sort of book that James imagines might be written about his predicament: "Someone should write a true-to-life detective story, James thought bleakly; an existential mystery in which the answer is not to be found, clear and logical, at the book's end, but only to be glimpsed, half-grasped, at various moments during its narrative; to be sensed throughout, like a nagging tune that you cannot quite remember, but never defined, never seen whole; to shift its shape and position and meaning with each passing day; to be sometimes forgotten completely, other times obsessed over, but never truly understood; not to be something walked towards but endlessly around." As you can see, the author plays with blurring the boundaries between reality and text. The Amnesiac is challenging and intriguing and would, I think, make a good film--part Memento, part Posession. It will be interesting to see if filmmakers show any interest in the book. -- Debra Hamel

The Amnesiac by Sam Taylor is the story of James Purdew, a 30-year-old Englishman living in Amsterdam, who after breaking his ankle decides to write the story of his life in order to try and capture three years that are missing from his memory. But as he probes those missing years, pieces of his life gradually start to slip away: his girlfriend, job, apartment, and eventually his own idea of self. The tighter James tries to cling to world he knows, the less real it seems to be. Packed with stories within stories, this multi-layered story evokes Sartre's Nausea. Warning: reading this book can seriously mess you up! Turn off the TV, find a comfy chair, and retreat from the world to completely immerse yourself in this debut novel. What is the nature of memory? How much of what we remember is truly accurate or is it a construction of stories, pictures, and daydreaming? And if we lose part of our memories, do we lose a part of ourselves? Does it change who we are? Does memory mark us indelibly? Taylor asks all of these questions and more about the nature of hope and fear. Hope is fear unrealized, and fear is hope unrealized. They are opposite sides of the same coin. James is a tragic character of his own creation who is too afraid to face his own past giving him no future; his fear keeps him from hope. A novel like this is a precarious thing. If the author doesn't balance things just so and create a flawless ending, the entire book collapses upon itself. But Taylor writes this slippery, illusory novel with panache, and the ending (which I read twice) is perfect. This book was so good, it was difficult to pick up another book after it. I am spoiled by reading a book that so utterly engaged my mind.

Thomas De Quincey wrote, "...All-powerful memory is able to exhume any impression, no matter how momentary it might have been, if given sufficient stimulus." But just how much stimulus is necessary to recoup three years of lost memory? And how accurate will those memories be as they are restored piece by piece, clue by clue? When all is said and done, what will it mean to the identity of James Purdew? Is he really willing to face what he thinks he seeks in this blank period of his so far meaningless life? By his own description, this wandering, lost soul named James Purdew is looking back on his life as a "self-destructive party animal, the boring, self-righteous sub-editor, the depressed English supporter" and more in order to fill an existentialist gaping hole in his life that swings him toward alternating feelings of intense, almost maniac happiness and sadness. Breaking up with the love of his life, Ingrid, he is determined finally to return to the city of H in England to see if there is a past link that connects to the briefest of flashback memories terrorizing his psyche. Memoirs of an Amnesiac is a text James finds that leads him to write his own memoirs - backward - in an effort to stimulate his search. Hired by an anonymous employer to restore an old house on the familiar Lough Street, who might or might not be a former acquaintance, James finds an account entitled Confessions of a Killer as well as later coming upon a philosophy text that seem strangely similar to some vague thoughts and feelings he knows he has lived. James will also undergo traumatic meetings with a psychologist, neurologist and other unsavory characters who will bring him closer than ever to the devastating truth. Words cannot possibly convey the intelligence, wit, twists and turns of this most memorable work of contemporary fiction that defies classification as mystery, thriller, literary account, psychological and philosophical treatise or fictional memoir. The Amnesiac is a brilliant, creative, superbly-crafted, thrilling work of fiction sure to delight those who love a good murder mystery, near sci-fi futuristic tale or fiction that yields a unique life perspective. Sam Taylor is a master artist who deserves the highest praise for this unusual, novel approach to writing fiction! Stunning! Reviewed by Viviane Crystal on July 3, 2008