Customer Reviews

The End Of Alice

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

This book is a very disturbing story but is well written. I have read and will be reading other books by this author as her style is unique. Not a book for the faint of heart.

...

Let me say that you will only enjoy this novel if the idea of pedophilia--and the advancement of pedophilia--arouses you in any way. I read with one eye closed, afraid to read the each successive paragraph for fear of what would happen next. It's one thing to dislike a character or two in a novel, it's another thing to despise all of them.

I am giving the book 2 stars (instead one) only because it is written fairly well. But the disgust factor knocks the rest of the stars out of there.

Disturbing and portentuous at its best, lyrical at its worst, this book is one of the better ones written by fiction starling A M Homes, who [is great. More consistent that Moody, infinitely more readable than Eggers, and darker than Lorrie Moore, it's a terrible world if readers would find this a novel one with unredeeming qualities. Sho there.

Slip right on into the skin of a paedophile going about his daily business. Obviously schizophrenic (having to cope with the "real" world and the "other" one), then murdering his victim in panic of being discovered (a situation not exclusive to paedophiles). An eye-opener for those who can still see.

Like rolling hills, interwoven themes in "The End of Alice" take the reader here and there--often playfully "tossing" him (her); and as the themes appear and disappear, the reader is moved along, unable to put the book down. This book really is not about sex--although there is a lot of sex in it--but more about "inner psyche" (whatever that is) and the art (and craft) of novel-writing. Surely the novel is not dead; it's ALIVE AND WELL! Reminiscent of Virginia Woolf's writing, A. M. Homes gives us a rare treat; she's daring and dark, yet often funny too. Sex, perhaps, is just a device for Homes' undaunting creativity (and expression). --And if her lacy-collar blouse is buttoned to the neck, so what! She pours it all out, without censorship. Yes, the novel is alive and well. Kudos to Homes! Blows your mind.

A.M. Homes has accomplished something remarkable here. She has unflinchingly examined the dual taboos of pedophilia and childhood sexuality without ever bringing her hand to our eyes to block out these truths: An adult might seduce a willing child. A child might seduce a hesitant adult. Without passing judgment, this recognition of the odd fantastical world of prepubescent sexuality is stunning. Ms. Homes does not deal in stereotypes and caricatures here; she creates complex, fully-fashioned individuals, each with their own quirks and reasons, each with a unique psychology driving them.

The End of Alice may be the most horrifying not in its final and bloody depiction of the title, but in its success in allowing the reader to sympathize - even momentarily - with a creature as sickening as a pedophile. It is hard to read about a sociopath as a whole person. It is hard to get into the grey areas of the world, to slide from the easy black and white of wrong and right. But here you have it: the monster as man, the monster as teenage girl, the monster as someone you smile at on the street. The monster in you.

After multiple reads over the past five years, this book still holds me fascinated - by its subject, by its skill, and by the poetry in Homes' language. This isn't exactly a pleasant read, but it will shake you in a way you may not have been shaken before - and it is worth it.

Sometimes it is necessary for one person to look at and analyze the darker elements of our human condition, ensuring that we as a mass populous are able to understand it better. A.M. Homes is that person who examines dark elements for us, and is that person who may just become VERY successful in doing so.

The End of Alice is written in a very silky, and laid out fashion. The jumps from the narrator Chappy's story (both while incarcerated and while he was free) and his 19-year-old wannabe protege are cinematic to the point that a reference to the great work of Oliver Stone may be suiting. However, the changes occur without disruption in the flow of the overall story, which to me, is the sign of an excellent writer.

Alice deals with some very heavy social issues, and I feel that I should place a disclaimer on this book, in case there are those who may be offended easily. There is a great deal of descriptive sexual relations scene, which just go one step smutty, and are deliberatly shocking to us. ALso, keep in my mind, the relationship between Chappy and his protege is an intellectual one, where a student wants to learn the motivation for pedophilism from another.

Putting the subject matter aside, Homes weaves a surrealistic dreamworld for us to get lost in, and does a brilliant job in doing so. I would definetly recommend this to any reader who can handle the matter, and is up for the challenge.

A.M. Homes is good. But this book dwelled too often on
material aimed at disgusting the reader merely for effect. There
wasn't enough substance behind the writerly trick for it to stick
to me. The better parts of the book are actually the creepy,
non-disgusting ones, in which we are simply living in the skin
of a character we know is a sleazebag. To have set him up and
portrayed him as a sleazebag really didn't require Homes to go
imitating Bret Easton Ellis. In fact, at times the really ooky
child molester parts just feel like knockoffs on an established
style that surely played well at some writer's roundtable... not
*cheap* knockoffs, mind you, but still knockoffs.

Music for Torching is by far a better work for Homes: more
insightful, observant, and ultimately more cathartic, confusing,
and troubling about society. That sounds strange, given
the subject matter of End of Alice... but Homes doesn't get extra
credit from me just for choosing a difficult piece of subject
matter. She manages to *almost* live up to this choice,
but in the end, this is no Nabakov.

(...)I got this for the squick factor--the need to be shocked and the need to have a hard core, descriptive and graphic read. And that is what I got. Beneath the meandering, flowery and wordy prose is a story that shocks, horrifies... It was like a car wreck with visible fatalities; horrible yet you cannot draw your eyes away from this carnal, gory mess laid out for you.

It is a twisted sort of love story; between both our nameless inmate and the co-ed writing him, and also between Alice and her 'man'. It comes to a steam-of-consciousness end that I could not put down... And don't think about crawling into bed with your lover for a couple of nights, once you're done with it. The imagery lingers and so does the bad aftertaste it leaves in your mouth.

Nothing in this book is really original, unless you count the sick fetishes like eating scabs. If you want to read the best book on pedophiles, read Lolita. It will make you cry and puke at the same time. The End of Alice will only make you do the latter. One of the flaws is the excessive introspection by the main character. Unlike Humbert Humbert, he's just too charmless and pathetic to derive any sympathy from readers. At the end, I didn't really identify with him. I could have gotten a better story from Penthouse Forum.