Eric Sanderson, the protagonist of Steven Hall’s ‘The Raw Shark Texts’, lost his girlfriend in an accident whilst on holiday – and, thanks to a recurring disassociative disorder (according to his psychiatrist, Dr Randle), he keeps losing all memory of his self. When we join Eric, his disorder has recurred for the eleventh time; and, as he tries to make sense of life again, he receives a series of letters signed ‘the First Eric Sanderson’ giving a rather different explanation for his amnesia: that Eric is being hunted by a Ludovician, a ‘conceptual shark’ that feeds on human memories.

All rather far-fetched, of course – until the shark comes a-calling. And then Eric sets out to find Dr Trey Fidorous, the man who told the First Eric Sanderson about the Ludovician and how to keep at bay; and who (Eric hopes) knows how to vanquish it once and for all. So begins a journey through the strange world of ‘un-space’ (forgotten buildings, forgotten parts of buildings, forgotten areas between buildings, and so on) in the company of a young woman named Scount, who may be more (or other) than she seems.

First novel this may be, but Hall has a compelling and distinctive voice. Here, for example, are Eric’s first impressions of Dr Randle:

[She] was more like an electrical storm or some complicated particle reaction than a person. A large clashing event of a woman whose frizzy hack-job of white-brown hair hummed against a big noisy blouse which, in turn, strobed in protest against her tartan skirt. She had strontium grey eyes which crackled away to themselves behind baggy lids. She made the air feel doomy, faintly radioactive. You half expected your ears to pop.

Hall’s fine writing is one of the most enjoyable aspects of ‘The Raw Shark Texts’, though by no means the only one. There’s also the compelling notion that whole species of fish might have evolved out of the interaction of human ideas; an of course one wants to find out more about the author’s fictional world. Hall keeps the pages turning, which is no mean feat, as there are a lot of them.

You may detect a ‘but’ coming, and here it is.

In some ways, ‘The Raw Shark Texts’ feels to me like a metaphysical analogue of a high fantasy quest tale, in that however good it may be (and, make no mistake, it’s good), it is hard not to wish for something more – there’s a sense that the novel does not explore fully the possibilities open to it. Too often it just feels like the story of three people versus a shark, and that the ideational nature of the shark is neither here nor there – when it ought to make all the difference. Hall does make reference to the gap between idea and reality (for example, ‘whatever you write down it’s not the truth, it’s just a story’); but again, one gets the feeling that he could explore this further than he does within the structure he has created. This should not detract from the novel as written; but, ever so slightly, it does.

The protagonist of ‘Remainder’ by Tom McCarthy does not reveal his name, and can’t remember much about his accident; but its lasting effects are all too clear to him: intensive physiotherapy has left him conscious of every little movement he makes, and he longs for the days when he could perform action without thinking – the days when he felt real. A settlement has left our man rich to the tune of eight-and-a-half million pounds, and he wonders what to do with it all. Then one night, at a party, he recalls in great detail a flat he used to live in, where he felt real in a way he doesn’t now. He resolves to recreate those surroundings – right down to the sounds, smells, and neighbours – in the hope of capturing that feeling once again. And he doesn’t stop there…

McCarthy does a great job here of getting the reader ‘on side’. Buy an entire building, fit it out in exactly a certain way, and hire a bunch of people to carry out the same tasks again and again at your very whim? Well, this guy clearly has more money than sense, but one can understand his reasoning entirely. And by the end, when events have taken off into pure absurdity, it’s OK because we knew they would, and then we’re along for the ride. It’s just the middle where the author nearly lost me; I think he ramps up the eccentricity curve a little too quickly – but stick with it and a fine tale emerges.

‘Remainder’ works well enough as a character study, though (not unexpectedly) most of the characters are flat compared to the narrator. It would be fascinating to see more of what others make of his behaviour (particularly professional facilitator Nazrul), but that may well go against McCarthy’s purpose. The book is also satisfying as a story: though its protagonist’s obsession with the smallest details of his projects can become tedious at times (as it inevitably must), McCarthy (like Hall) keeps one reading; and the ending, whilst no ending at all, is at the same time entirely apposite.

More than this, ‘Remainder’ is a neat exploration of the question ‘what is real?’ – not in a literal sense, but in that of what it is to feel real; as the narrator puts it, ‘nothing separating me from the experience that I was having: no understanding, no learning first and emulating second-hand, no self-reflection, nothing: no detour’. It is perhaps ironic that, of the two books reviewed here, the one that engages less literally with ‘reality’ does a better job of examining it.

I said at the beginning that neither of these novels developed along a path I expected; I thought the two protagonists would gradually uncover their pasts and the secrets contained within. In fact, each ends up turning away from his past in some key respect (though it may be fairer to say that Eric Sanderson makes peace with his). I think that what I got is, in the end, more interesting that what I imagined. ‘Remainder’ might have an edge over ‘The Raw Shark Texts’; but this is not a competition and I am not keeping score. Two books, linked in my mind if not in anyone else’s; read them together, read them separately – but do read them.

David Hebblethwaite lives out in the wilds of Yorkshire, where he attempts to make a dent in his collection of unread books. You can read more of David's reviews at his review blog.

© 2006 Laura Hird All rights reserved.