The Raw Shark Texts: A Novel Paperback – April 11, 2008

When he is shown an inkblot as part of a Rorschach test, Charly, the protagonist of Daniel Keyes'  Flowers for Algernon  says the line I quote in my review title. Charly is mentally handicapped, and can't use his imagination the way others can. He can't visualize what the ink MIGHT be, just what it is.Steven Hall's debut novel is a clever play on that psychological trope, right down to the title (RAW SHARK TEXTS = Rorschach tests), and although it is one of the most intelligent and imaginative books I've read in a long time, by the time I was done, all I saw was ink. Lemme explain.The story is about Eric Sanderson who wakes up with amnesia. A cliched but always compelling opener. As he tries to piece his life together, he runs into a suspicious psychotherapist, a doctor of language and memes, a curiously helpful Scout, and a host of predatory sea creatures. Except, the sea creatures don't technically exist, at least not on any kind of tangible plain. The only clear way to put it? Imagine an imagination. Now imagine that the imagination eats ideas. Can you picture it? Or do you only see ink?Hall has tried to combine psychological wordplay with science fiction with a love story at sea. He has tossed in some vague Samurai history, a lot of literary landmarks and allusions, and a fantastical thriller masquerading as mystical solipsism. Sorry. I'm getting opaque. Must be the book. The point being, unlike his antagonist, Hall doesn't have several layers of razor sharp teeth, and I'm afraid he has bitten off more than he can chew.The book is obviously meant to toy with readers' ideas of life, reality, and even with the concept of beginnings and endings. The book is very much like a psychological experiement, with the reader being the unknowing subject. There are so many avenues of interpretation, so many ways to look at this story, that although some people might find it enjoyable and thought-provoking, I found it as fun as flipping through 428 pages of inkblots.Okay, well, I found it more fun than that. I was engaged on an intellectual level once Hall began to talk about conceptual loops and un-space. And when Eric begins to receive letters from himself in the past, my interest was piqued even more. But when it came time (I thought) to delve into the nuts and bolts of these issues, Hall chose instead to muddy the waters with more and more random ideas. A giant, personality consuming entity named Mycroft Ward. An underground lair made entirely of written words. A completely pointless cat named Ian (the name is supposed to be humorous, but perhaps only to Brits, because I don't get it). For those who have the time and inclination, the book is chock full of variables and mental equations (there is even a viral marketing campaign, a sort of global scavenger hunt, that revolves around negatives, or un-chapters of the book). If I were to rate the effort and thought that Hall put into the novel, I'd given him ten stars. It's that impressive.However, if I were to sit down with a brush and dot-by-dot paint one of those  Magic Eye  paintings by hand, it would certainly be impressive and cool, but not what I (or anyone) should call art. I was going to give the book three stars, but then I got to the end and realized that the whole thing was the equivalent of a quantum physicist using a scientific calculator to mathematically describe the transcribed parabola of two twiddling thumbs. Beautiful, amazing, brilliant, boring.I was reminded of other authors who bend and twist the form of novels but to far greater effect.  House of Leaves  is a common comparison. I also thought of everything ever done by  David Mitchell  and  Jonathan Safran Foer . Authors who aren't just smart and creative, but who have real and powerful points to make BESIDE their creative and mind-bending gimmicks.There is a very, very real chance that all of this complaining is the result of my own psychological response to the novel. I'm willing to concede the possibility that what Hall has written is a true Rorschach novel, a story that reveals and reflects nothing but what readers will put into it. Maybe -- just maybe -- I don't like the novel because I don't like myself. But I don't think so. The writing is pedestrian (functional) but also manages to sound labored and repetitive. The characters I found inconsistent and uninteresting. For instance, they readily accept all sorts of bizarre nonsense, including typographic bombs and fish made of words, but when Eric is told that a companion had part of her personality stolen, he says incredulously, "You're not making any sense."Ha ha ha. No, Eric, it doesn't make much sense. The novel is a collection of magnificent mind games and thought-provoking ideas, wrapped in a tedious and unimpressive "thriller." Imagine, if you will, an imagination. If you can do that, then you're already one up on the book.

[SPOILER ALERT]The Raw Shark Texts is a mildly interesting story hung on a framework that's so inconsistent, confusing, and insufficiently explained that the result is just absurd.This book to me epitomizes the problem with disregarding consistency when making the rules of your fictional universe. The funny thing is that Steven Hall doesn't hide the inconsistency at all. On numerous occasions the protagonist asks very reasonable questions about things that don't make any sense, and is met with a response from another character: "Yeah, probably best not to think too hard about that. Just accept it."Q: "Why would we need to park this vehicle right here in order to enter un-space?"A: "That's just the way it works."Q: "Why did we need to travel through all these weird places to get to our destination instead of just driving here in the real world?"A: "It's like how the London Underground map doesn't match up to the street map above."No, it's NOT like that! That makes no sense!Q: "How am I supposed to make these strips of paper turn into water?"A: "Just keep trying."Q: "This isn't a boat. It's just bunch of stuff."A: [Interesting Matisse story, that COMPLETELY contradicts the conclusion!:]Matisse's point is that a representation of an object is not the object itself. From this, Fidorous concludes "We're building the woman, not the painting." No you're not. You're building the painting! And if you're going to make this point about representation vs. reality, how can you not use, or at least give a shout out to, Magritte? Ceci n'est pas une pipe!And trying to explain the inconsistent nonsense away with a dream, or insanity, or the afterlife, or whatever the resolution was supposed to be, is the ultimate cop-out.Dreams do not make sense. That's why other people telling you their dreams is the most boring thing in the world. When things don't make sense, there's no suspense, there's no conflict, there's no growth. There's just stuff that happens followed by more stuff that happens. That's not a story.Stories that that lead you to believe one reality and then pull the rug out from under you to reveal another reality (like Fight Club, Jacob's Ladder, or Shutter Island) are compelling and enjoyable because of their rigid consistency. The initial reality is completely believable, and when weird or slightly inconsistent things happen, they're always clues to the reality that will be revealed. When the reveal happens, everything clicks into place and those seeming faults in the story turn into mortar that holds the story together even tighter than before.A story that starts by giving you a nonsense reality, and then later tries to explain away the nonsense reality with a pointless reality has the opposite effect. The story doesn't make any sense on multiple levels, which is worse than it not making sense on one level.Waking Life is a relatively unknown movie that is mildly successful working with the whole "end of life dream" premise. It's not great, but it's not terrible, and what makes it okay despite being one big dream is that it focuses on ideas and maxims, instead of story.So what is the moral of The Raw Shark Texts? What are we suppose to learn from it? Steven Hall lays it out there pretty clearly: "You didn't do anything wrong. Sometimes things go wrong and there's nothing anybody can do about it." "It wasn't your fault."There is it, folks. Don't feel guilty about things you can't control. You'll just make yourself miserable. If you can just let go of that guilt, you can be happy again. Except, ummm... the protagonist ended up crazy and dead. So, yeah... good conclusion, nice job.

Excellent, unput-downable, charming, thrilling, and niggles at your sense of reality. Whose reality are we in anyway? It's mine, all mine...I can see why some people would not like the book, it's challenging to go fully into the idea that we are capable of defining our own reality, yet what is fiction above all, if not that? This book is not about counting the teaspoons in the kitchen sink, but about the grander issues of memory, idealism, and, in a sense, madness. So, take off your workaday blinders and settle down to a rattling existential yarn: you are in for a major treat. It's thought-provoking to say the least and it rings surprisingly true if you are interested in the untidy edges of reality. If you enjoyed the movie "What the **** do we know?" you will go for the ride in this novel and come out a little changes. How many things can you say that about?If you liked "Cloud Atlas" you will love this. Cloud Atlas: A Novel The only thing I didn't like was the title, which provided a clue but seemed like a labored pun. Good titles are hard to come by and I didn't figure the pun out until after I read the book (I bought it as i boarded a transatlantice flight and read it straight through without referring to the cover too often).

I started the sample and really enjoyed the premise of a man who had lost his memory, but had the forethought to send himself packages and letters to help rediscover the truth. I bought the book based on the sample, but after a couple of hundred pages lost interesting. It got a bit silly, predictable and boring. It does not build upon its intriguing premise, instead becoming like a semi-romantic Matrix spin-off. I’m surprised by the high rating it gets.

Some say there is a fine line between genius and madness. Well, this book rides that line like Einstein on a mad cow. A man wakes up and doesn't have a clue of who he is, his past memories all gone. He finds an envelope that states 'Open Me' from then on all hell breaks loose. I wonder what section they would put this book in at the library? There's mystery, romance, suspense, technology, horror,movie homage, murder and madness. The writing is exquiste. Hall takes you into this world where literally anything can and will happen. The book is bursting with weird notions and ideas but unlike some books where crazy stuff happens every turn of page, here it somehow all makes sense. I never felt lost or confused,never having to skip back to re-read to get the story straight, you get sucked into this tale and it all seems logical and, to be honest a little frightning in a 'what-if' kinda way and all that is to the credit of Steven Hall. Some have compared it to The Matrix or The DaVinci Code, personally I compare it to nothing because this book doesn't fit like that. It's truly original.Plus,it has a cat in it called Ian. Brilliant,compelling and mad.Never dull,predictable or slow. Read it and remember,always keep watch for the shark, even on dry land. Thank you.

Sean Lock's suggestion that sharks only attack you when your wet is no longer true.The story of Eric's attempts to regain his memory lost lead into an adventure in language. However rather than just sit down and try and remember, his journey includes an unusal boat, a large shark and a cute scout. Difficult to give to much of the plot without giving it away but the book flows well, and also play cleverly with the layout and format of the text. My other half was especially impressed with the shark attack "action" on my Kindle version. (And will probably have the jaws theme in your head as you read parts of it)The ending whilst not especially original wasn't the one that I was expected which is always welcomeOverall a clever bit of fiction and look forward to something more by the author.

This is a really excellent read. The idea behind it is wonderfully original and the framing of this idea plays out in a manner that manages to be simlutaneously both fresh and nostalgic. The story develops in a satisfying way, with the mystery unfolding within a world that blurs and plays with the boundaries of reality. The review on the front of the book referencing The Matrix, Jaws and The Da Vinci Code, doesn't do it justice in the slightest (particularly given how awful the latter is). Yes, there are elements of sci-fi, horror and thriller, running throughout its pages, but its world building and characterisation are deep and emotive. My only regret is that the book did not develop some its fascinating ideas further.

This is one of those books that I read, knew what was happening and finished it. After finishing I sat there and wondered if I had actually enjoyed the book. Thinking it all through I realised that I did infact enjoy and like the book. That doesn't sound like a compliment but it is because it was a book that made me think a bit more about what I had actually read and not just move onto the next book without a second thought.Yes it takes a bit of thinking for parts to know what is happening but that makes a nice change to the books where you just read and get fed everything in a simplified way.Jump into this book and enjoy, just watch out for sharks.