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3.0 out of 5 stars
Over-analytical and tedious, Oct 18 2001
Some writers can do a lot with a bare premise for a plot, expertly weaving interesting subplots and characters around in a mosaic that captures the reader's imagination even though the reader may ultimately remember little of the story. William Gay and Richard Russo are examples. Other writers, like Tim Parks, take what should be very entertaining premises for novels and turn them into psychological tales of guilt and deception, sapping almost all of the entertainment out of a good story. Shear is an example.I had previously read Europa by Tim Parks, and while that book didn't overwhelm me I recognized Parks' writing skills and thought I should give him another try, considering the acclaim he receives in England and elsewhere. Having read Shear, I have to face the fact that maybe he just isn't my type of author. Shear takes place on a sunswept Mediterranean island, although we seldom learn very much about our setting other than that. The protagonist is geologist Peter Nicholson, sent from his home office to investigate a rock quarry and to write a report explaining a slab's collapse in a construction project that killed a worker in Australia. Peter is not a terribly sympathetic character, he brought his 22 year old mistress Margaret along for a little fun in the sun, (he is 40 with a pregnant wife and kids at home). Peter receives a fax from his wife announcing her pregnancy, and much of what constitutes "drama" in the novel surrounds Peter's guilt at his inexplicable failure to respond, by phone or even by fax, to his wife's announcement. Peter is desperate to prolong his relationship with young Margaret, sensing that she is about through with him, and yet he wastes no time in bedding a beautiful interpreter on the island named Thea, even as he realizes she was probably put in his path to soften the blow of his report on the construction mishap. You would think with all this infidelity, and with the drama surrounding a contruction accident (the widow from Australia shows up demanding answers, and determined to find a guilty scapegoat), that the plot would be fast-paced and dramatic. Wrong. Parks endlessly piles on these rock metaphors, and spends so much time exploring Peter's guilty psyche that basically every other character is simply along for the ride. We care little for Margaret or Thea, cause the author barely describes them. At times, when Peter is crawling in or out of bed with one of them, I had to go back a page or two to find out which girl he was sleeping with presently. We know nothing of how the affair with Margaret got started, and have no real visual picture of any character in the novel. As for setting, Joseph Conrad in Nostromo made his Central American mining locale a principal player in the story; here there is nothing very unique or memorable in the locale. The book was relatively short, at about 200 pages, but seemed longer to me since after about 25 pages a night I put it down. Many love Park's psychological style, as the editorial reviews and positive Amazon feedback attests, but in this reviewer's humble opinion Shear was a swing and a miss.
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