Whilst I agree that this has been oversold as far as unswervingly highbrow or hard SF readers are concerned, it's got plenty going for it as a character-driven fantasy novel, and Scarlett Thomas is becoming my new favourite comfort-reading author. (Even within my friends list, opinions of The End of Mr. Y range from "highly intellectual yet accessible" to "completely stupid", so this isn't the easiest review I've ever written.)



The book is, admittedly, comfortable because of its blend of familiar

[who doesn't like characters experiencing unrealistically fulfilling romance, despite sometimes having falling asleep to ridiculous merging dreams like the final chapters. Still, it shows plenty of insight into the characters' psychology as it's an impossible wish-fulfilment concomitant with their troubles - to which the realist contrast is what Burlem says on p.411 (hide spoiler)

Whilst I agree that this has been oversold as far as unswervingly highbrow or hard SF readers are concerned, it's got plenty going for it as a character-driven fantasy novel, and Scarlett Thomas is becoming my new favourite comfort-reading author. (Even within my friends list, opinions ofrange from "highly intellectual yet accessible" to "completely stupid", so this isn't the easiest review I've ever written.)The book is, admittedly, comfortable because of its blend of familiar things I already love: impoverished postgrad Ariel has adventures whilst investigating work of fictional Victorian author (, though the C19th pastiche extracts aren't half as good), drinks magic potion like Alice, encounters concepts from Pratchett'sand enters other minds like Granny Weatherwax gone borrowing or all those body-swap movies from the late 80s, and there's sometype stuff for good measure. The overall tone is reminiscent of some of the stories in Neil Gaiman's wonderful collection, the narrative and plot being pushed by a protagonist with a strong personality and a darkish past and present, rather than by the SFF content itself. There's an argument for Scarlett Thomas's work as weirder, darker, more academically-inclined chicklit, but on the other hand, Ariel's angst and lust, and Thomas' moments of acute insight into messed-up people (esp. p277ish; also 345, 411 and all over the place really) are hardly different from the portrayals in Gaiman's male character-focused stories. (Unlike chicklit characters, Ariel never goes "huh! men!", tacitly seeming not to find them particularly 'other', and she hardly ever makes whole-gender-based generalisations. She spends a helluva lot of time thinking about other things [interesting things, not handbags and bad chardonnay] as well as love and sex, without seeing that as an either/or ... Thomas keeps writing characters I want to be friends with.) And as in, there are a couple of scenes sexier than plenty of stuff marketed as erotica - though there isn't as much shagging as some of the blurb quotes imply.Reading posts about entirely different books made me realise thatwill be of interest to people who like reversal of traditional gender roles in fantasy stories. Ariel is driving the adventure throughout, and her male love/lust interests are, as the adventure gets going, as peripheral and helpmeetish as they would be for a man in a typical action movie. This is perhaps less the case towards the end but I might just see it that way because I'm a bitter old hag (view spoiler) . At the same time I could still think of plenty of stories in which the they would have been the other way round.There's ample comment on Goodreads about inaccuracies in the characters' academic discussions (especially re. physics and the "linguistic turn" of philosophy and literary theory. The people who are complaining that homeopathy has an effect in the book simply need a reminder that this isand that the works of Ben Goldacre can be overapplied.) The media has presentedas formidably clever - to the chagrin of people who picked it up expecting some novelised- but the tone of everything I read between the covers is casual musings from bright non-specialists ... it sounds like (and in some cases in the book) conversations with friends after which you might realise you got something slightly wrong. If, for instance, Eng lit, theology and biology academics are riffing semi-drunkenly about what they've read in popular science books on quantum physics, what's here sounds fine in that context. (If I was joining in the pickiness, I'd say that Lamarck was presented as entirely infra-dig, although epigenetics - a topic that had already found its way into BBC documentaries a couple of years beforewas published - has given a new slant on his ideas. But then I realised that wasn't necessarily the point or the spirit of the book.) However I would have liked to have seen a little more determined accuracy from the narrator in tone as well as content in some of her home subject areas - if you're a postgrad you need to do that alongside the flights of enthusiasm.But in the end the academic conversations are icing; you don't really need them to enjoy the rest of the book if you don't like them. The fantasy story is fine regardless - the chat and speculation is just how the characters look at their experience. Which I find more interesting than an unreflective adventure, though they do go on a bit sometimes.I may only have given it four stars due to its faults and moments of derivativeness but I really lovedas I love too few books as an end in themselves. (Often I don't understand what the rest of you are on about re. loving books generally... A couple of years ago, a remover said, seeing the book cases, "So you like reading then?" The first, silent, response that came into my head, "Not really, but what the bloody hell else am I supposed to do?" ...Aloud, I made a vaguely affirmative non-verbal noise and started talking about cardboard boxes.) I was glad it was there when I couldn't sleep, I span it out so I could keep going back into its world - its plot analogy for addiction to an imaginary world actually applied - rather than trying to get it finished and ticked off. I'd have been delighted were it 1000 pages not 500, or if it was part of a series as long as Discworld.