Naval-gazing
The Raw Shark Texts, Steven Hall, Canongate, 2007
When I received this novel to review, before I placed it on my ominously tall ‘to read’ pile, I took a brief flicker through its 400+ pages and discovered the image of a shark, carefully made up from particles of text. Nor was there only one shark image; letting the book’s pages run through my fingers, I discovered that what I was thought was a singular sea mammal was actually just one frame of an animation that showed a shark coming closer and closer.
Having spent a fruitless and wasteful year of my life doing post-graduate literature study at Sheffield Uni and being forced to read the navel-gazings of Kathy Acker, William Burroughs and Paul Auster, it immediately crossed my mind that I was going to hate The Raw Shark Texts.
I really enjoyed it although I wouldn’t lavish the same praise on it that most reviewers have and will do.
It begins with Eric Sanderson waking in his house not knowing either who he is or anything about his life, and it’s over the course of his journey that Eric begins to piece together his past aided, firstly, by parcels, sent by himself before the onset of memory loss. While I don’t wish to give anything of the plot away, I’m happy to reveal that a shark is involved.
Before The Raw Shark Texts loses focus in its final acts, it’s a wonderful and brilliant treatise on the natures of love, longing and memory, with each facet explored as Eric tries to fathom both what is chasing him and what happened to Clio, his true love, on Naxos. Balancing realism and surrealism is a difficult act, but Steven Hall manages to nimbly tread the fine line between the convincing confusion of Eric Sanderson’s existence and the warped Alice-in-Wonderland journey that he undertakes.
The Raw Shark Texts is going to be a cult hit and maybe even a mainstream one. Steven Hall deserves it due to the inventiveness and fearlessness he’s brought to his debut novel. Watch out for it on undergraduate reading lists within the next two years. Or buy it now so you can discuss its perfectly balanced and ambiguous ending before the academics get their hands on it.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER
Pete Carvill lives in the North of England and writes currently for The Sweet Science. He has also written for Aesthetica, Generation: Live and Seconds Out and blogs his own stuff on his MySpace page for the world to see.
First published in 3:AM Magazine: Sunday, February 18th, 2007.
