A pesar de estar muy bien escrita, la novela se pierde en hilos argumentales que pueden ser innecesarios y le restan valor a la idea principal. Tal vez demasiadas ideas no completamente desarrolladas.

The Tesseract by Alex Garland is a novel that lets the reader wonder at his/her own insignificance. It is a theme that's already been implanted there, in the modern reader’s sophisticated brain, by Voltaire, and made new again by this generation’s collective and personal psyche, which is quite enormous/ambitious in scope. It’s no travesty to say that the society of 2011 is somewhat the intended dream of our future from way before the millennium--that is, we are living the 2011 version according to 1999, the very oracular year. There is an omnipresent ghost that hovers above it all, called Globalization, and this specter is felt everywhere: from the smallest villages of Thailand to the most industrialized cosmopolitan cities of the U.S. This current feeling had been hinted at way before it even got here.

Alex Garland is a remarkable writer. He says that there is in life, in his novel, “something… you are not equipped to understand.” The Tesseract is "[that] thing unraveled, but not the thing itself.” (249) This conclusion is reached only after having read the three distinct vignettes which finally come together in the impressive fourth act. Cohesiveness is found once all stories are put together, like a jigsaw puzzle. The three stories are completely different from one another in tone and style, though the writer’s voice is identifiable & easy to read (but it strays from the comprehensible by oftentimes entering the realm of the poetic).

This writer has very little to hide: he is definitely more about exposing secrets than hiding them (as opposed to countless other great modern British novels, including Ishiguru’s Never Let Me Go, Hollinghurst’s The Line of Beauty or anything Julian Barnes). The Tesseract is a terrific Masterpiece.

The novel opens like a thriller. A British seaman waits in a seedy Manila hotel for a rich Filipino mafioso. He notices several things almost all at once: the dead phone, the peephole covered from the outside, rusty blood spatters on the bedsheet, a gunshot hole in the ceiling, a room with no exit. The Filipino don is in a car with his crew, weaving through the dark streets of the city, and the seaman takes out his gun, believing that they are coming to kill him.

Gunshots and a chase – the staples of action movies – but what reeled me in were the characters and their personal tragedies, and the fact that Garland set his story of one, stifling night in Manila.

Such a pleasure to read a familiar world, made new and intriguing by Garland’s compassionate treatment of his characters, his insights, and his crisp, clear, high-energy prose: Back in his room, some of the wetter stains on the street began to glow red as the sun dropped from the sky. Dropped, because the sun didn’t sink in these parts. At six-fifteen, the elastic that kept it suspended started to stretch, and at six-thirty the elastic snapped. Then you had just ten minutes as the orange ellipse plummeted out of view, and the next thing you knew it was night. You had to watch out for that in Manila. Ten minutes to catch a cab to the right side of town if you were on the wrong side.

Garland writes about Manila (and Negros and Quezon Province, in some flashbacks) as both an insider and an outsider. An outsider because he wasn’t born here, an insider because he’s been here, and has (presumably) learned much about the language and the culture. Because the familiar is made foreign (and the foreign made familiar) he sees and describes things I don’t normally pay attention to, like that rapidly sinking sun.

He obviously had fun with using Filipino words for places: Patay, Sugat, Sayang, Sarap. He also liked mentioning Filipino brand names whenever he could. Magnolia, Bench, Inquirer.

There are errors. You don’t write “Yes, po” if in your head the characters are speaking in Filipino (better stick with “Yes” or write the proper “Opo”), and you don’t say “Mang Don Pepe” because that’s an awkward double honorific (unless of course “Don” is the person’s first name).

But other than that, this is a highly readable book.

Very poignant. Unputdownable.

Nice book. There's suspense and action but it's woven with a delicate hand. Without the psychology of the characters it could have been a Michael Bay movie, but it's more like an Oliver Stone maybe, if it was a movie. Not sure if the ending was forced... but it gave me satisfaction and closure. I'm not familiar with Manila but I feel like the description of the landscape, neighborhoods, and their inhabitants was pretty accurate. Good for a quickie.

3.25/5
Alex Garland’s first novel, The Beach, is one of my favorite books ever. Possibly #1. So it’s hard not to compare that to The Tesseract. This book is nothing like The Beach - although it’s not bad at all. It takes a nonlinear approach through multiple characters’ lives and timelines, very dissimilar to his first novel. It’s a fairly short book, but several parts seemed unnecessary. And the concept of the tesseract to hold the stories together felt somewhat pretentious. Regardless, I actually liked the final part more than the rest of the book, which isn’t usually the case.

Haunting and Masterful

This book will stay with me long after I finish it. To say I've enjoyed reading it while sitting on the fourth floor balcony of my apartment at sunset each night would be a gross understatement. Beautiful and violent. Three stories woven together by a master seamstress. The only thing wrong with this book is that it ended.

Very interesting and well-written set of interwoven events and stories centered on a single day in Manila. It starts with an English sailor waiting in a hyperdingy hotel to meet with a local mobster. As he waits he becomes more and more convinced he is about to be executed. This is intercut with the mobster in the car with his retinue treading on verbal eggshells. The two meet in an explosive climax, whereupon the book shifts to the story of a woman putting her kids to sleep. This leads to the story of her childhood in a coastal village, her the discovery of love, and we gradually learn how she came to be in Manila, married and with kids. As she talks on a cell phone to her husband, street kids throw some nails in the road puncturing his tire and delaying his arrival home. This segues into the story of two street kids and the psychological researcher who tapes their dreams. At the end, all three stories converge into a brief, bloody resolution of sorts. Garland is definitely a talented writer and I will think about reading his first book, The Beach--which I have avoided as it looks very shallow and annoying.

Alex Garland is a great writer, for sure. I was engaged by this book almost the entire time. Even though the plot feels very small scale (only involving a number of people), Garland has no trouble creating tense moments. To me his writing style is very pleasant and there are definitely some images that were put into my mind by this book that I will not soon forget. I particularly enjoyed the physics-related explanations, they felt very intuitive which is always a good accomplishment for a writer.

However in the end this novel also disappointed me in certain ways, to me it didn't feel as grand, important or thought-provoking as I had hoped it would. The ending was a bit of a let-down for me as well. It's not a book I would easily recommend to others, though I am glad to have read it myself. It did make me think, though perhaps not in the ways I had expected. The novel does feel like it has its own style and it was very easy for me to imagine the events happening and the characters existing in this book. But I can't help but feel let down a little at the end. I'd rate 3.5/5 stars, mainly because I was so engaged by it and wanted to keep on reading.

Formally adventurous and definitely succeeds in that regard, but this was missing quite a bit of depth for me. Last 30 pages won me over though!

The Tesseract: a recap

Sean is in a hotel room that is dirty and also hot

Sean is expecting a phone call from a dude

Sean is kind of cRAZy and there is blood on the sheets

blood because someone got murdered and TORTURED TO DEATH PROBABLY or it was a period or something

NOPE DEFINITELY TORTURE

>we listen to Sean be crazy for 20 pages<

-sean lies down puts a photo of a random girl on his chest and feels calmer (no he does not actually know who this girl is but it makes him feel better but not altogether less cray)

-sean points to a door and says "You," ... "Are all about me." This seems significant for some reason

-sean looks through peepholes and imagines someone killing himself here

--------POV change-------------

the dude sean is expecting is also crazy. crazy cruel gangster dude called don pepe

the driver of the car, Jojo, remembers a story his dad told him while living in a plantation

SUDDEN FLASHBACK

where some dude went crazy when he was chopping sugar canes, but is now a pretty swell old guy

the story also inspires fEAR of don pepe because he made crazy 'red mist' old guy cut off Fatboy's hands (and Fatboy was nice dude)

back to present

THEY RAN OVER A CAT

Jojo is having trouble shooting the cat to end it but then the cat JUMPS ON HIS CHEST and then it dies

meanwhile sean remembers meeting don and jojo and co for the first time. his buddy/leader Alex mentions a crazy old guy who sounds exactly like jojo's crazy old guy except it puts jojo's memory into question as this COG works with boats and cranes, not sugar canes (wat)

in flashback, sean is also established as kind of a weenie

END FLASHBACK

they arrive at the hotel a little late

knockin on the door

Sean suddenly starts SHOOTING EVERYONE and runs out of the door killing don and bubot and runs into another room

jojo and his friend are like WTF okay LET'S KILL HIM

sean runs away, but not before shooting the concierge JUST BECAUSE HE WAS THERE

CROSSING THE LINE THERE SEAN

sean comes across some street kids who will be important later because i read the jacket cover

------------POV change-------------

Rosa is a doctor mother lady person with two kids

one of the kids is super pretty

the other has something ambiguous wrong with his chest

SUDDEN FLASHBACK

rosa grew up and all everyone talks about is marrying and stuff

rosa falls in luuuurve with a boy with a deformed chest. his name is Lito

they can't be together because he is deformed

rosa has a deaf dad who is likeable although he doesn't say anything

rosa is super pretty though, like the prettiest person in town she can get anyone

it's okay deformed kid you remind me of a chocolate bar ilu

any who THEIRS IS A LOVE PURER THAN ANY OTHER

they meet in monsoons and stuff and love love love

END FLASHBACK KIND OF

it is revealed that rosa's husband is not deformed chest kid, it's some dude called Sonny

whelp

sonny has a flat tire and will be home late

more flashback

rosa goes home for her father's funeral

she starts screaming and crying eventually, sonny goes to take their kids away from the spectacle

as he is carrying raphael, his son the crowd won't really move for him

so HE STARTS PUNCHING THEIR FACES FOR NOT MOVING

SUDDENLY ACID

ACID ON HIS BABY ACID ON HIS HAND

a man goes to help them (aka obvs deformed chest lover kid) but wait what the man HAS A BOTTLE OF ACID WITH HIM

that shit is sick man

rosa tells sonny not to hurt him or else she'll leave him so sonny's like okay sure i guess

flashback is interrupted by SOME GUY WHO BURST THROUGH THE WINDOW AND IS USING ROSA AS A HUMAN SHIELD AND KILLED HER MOM AND

guess what

IT'S SEAN

mothereffing sean

PART THREE

you know i still don't know the point of this book i wonder if it will make sense by the end

"The Tesseract is a story of personal tragedies that occur for no comprehensible reason, and investigates the ways in which we explain them, whether through religion, myth, psychology, or science. It is a novel that balances science against religion, and our wills against our fates, asking the ever-elusive question of how we can make sense of events in a world where meaning lies beyond our grasp."

whelp

meaning of what in blazes is going on in this book is certainly still beyond my grasp

Street grit, Multi-pronged Manila-Noir.
The modern city scape of the middle classes sandwiched between Crime bosses and street kids. Rarely intersecting unless it comes from the curiosity journalists, Or the opportunism of the encircling underclasses.

I remember reading The Beach when it came out and really liking it - it was certainly a lot better than the film that followed - so I had high hopes for this. Unfortunately it failed to grip me enough to keep reading. I usually give a book 50 pages to engage me. I gave this one 65 and nothing had happened to keep me interested.

A guy is sitting in a room waiting for another guy to arrive. That was half the 65 pages. The other guy is on his way there in a car. That was the other half.

The quote on the front from the Mail on Sunday says it's 'an exotic speedy thriller'. I don't know what they consider speedy, but it's not the same as me. 65 pages with one bloke sitting still in a room and another sitting in a car isn't speedy to my knowledge, if it was, I'd be winning all sorts of sports awards.

So I have no idea what the tesseract of this book was, or if Loki got to it before the guy sitting doing nothing. It amazes me that books like this get such great reviews when all aspiring writers are told if they don't hook the reader right away, they won't get published. One rule for the haves and another for the have-nots.