Saturday 1 October 2011

#94. THE AFFIRMATION By Christopher Priest

Published : 1981
Pages : 247
Overall Mark : 8/10

Peter Sinclair is tormented by bereavement and failure. In an attempt to conjure some meaning from his life, he embarks on an autobiography, but he finds himself writing the story of another man in another, imagined, world, whose insidious attraction draws him even further in...

CHRISTOPHER PRIEST (1943-)
Christopher Priest's widely acclaimed novels include Fugue For A Darkening Island, The Space Machine, A Dream Of Wessex, The Glamour, The Extremes and The Separation. The Prestige was the winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction and the World Fantasy Award, and was memorably filmed by Christopher Nolan.

VERDICT
This is an interesting, thought-provoking novel that leaves us with a note of ambiguity from the outset as we try to puzzle over which of the characters in the novel is real and which is make-believe. This gives us a permanent sense of intrigue which allows the reader, even in the more subdued moments of the piece, to look for clues as to the answer to the riddle that this novel contains.