Highly recommended. I have read all of Thomson's books, except "Soft", and found that his first 2 ("Dreams" and "5 Gates") are his best. What seems to work is the off-kilter realism of the characters combined with the surrealism of the setting (a coast town based on the funeral business in "5 Gates" and a town no one is allowed to leave in "Dreams") and stories. "5 Gates" is an eerie read where you always feel submerged in the dreamy water-world of Moon Beach or its surrounding deserts where things mostly move in slow motion until drawn to a quick conclusion.

Beauty and ugliness collide with such a tremendous impact, that there are points when we are not sure which is which. Thomson illustrates this; here are two central characters; Jed, the ugly one, and Nathan, the beautiful one. The story follows each, as he is swallowed by the endless decandence of Moon Beach, a city obsessed with death, and built on an industry of funeral parlours. Each witnesses beauty and ugliness in many forms, presented in wonderful prose. Thomson has a talent for describing things in unconventional forms, while somehow never moving away from the thing in question. He solidifies emotion, and liquifies solid objects, in language that bounces and cascades. Ther supporting characters fulfill their requirements - not only do they 'support', but they add depth to the two central characters. Vasco the gang leader, Creed the mysterious head of the corporation, Harriet the Au Pair - each has their own place in Thomson's magical city. This is a decidedly blue book; anyone longing for brighter colours should look elsewhere. However, if lue is your scene, then this might very well be the shade for which you've been searching.

At least read this book, even if you don't buy it. There are few novels able to capture the imagination with such magnificent force and effect. I felt like a butterfly lost in caverns of sulphur, walls that glitter in the noxious light, I had to stay, I wanted to fly further, deeper, I had to know . . .

Like all Rupert Thomson's settings, the (almost) inescapable village in this novel is strange not because it is alien but precisely because it is so familiar. And yet, things aren't quite right. This village is run by the tyrannical Inspector Peach with his macabre little police museum and his cardboard policemen to scare would-be leavers.

As so often in Thomson's novels, this is a story in two parts. Moses, the child, does escape, to an equally familiar and unfamiliar city where he finds his place at a triangular pink night club...

All very weird, but compelling, and only a bit first-novel-ish. Recommended if you like to be made uncomfortable by a slight twisting of normality.

Rupert Thomson starts off his brilliant literary career with `Dreams of Leaving'. A young father with dreams of leaving a small English village puts his son (appropriately named Moses) into a basket and floats him down a river. Moses grows up never knowing his real past (being the only one to ever "escape" from the village). Sounds interesting? Don't worry, the story doesn't matter. The author's narrative brilliance will dazzle you. I found myself stopping continuously to admire Thomson's ability to describe even the most commonplace event. Thomson definitely defined his superb style with this novel.

Check out `The Insult' another tribute to his craft. David Bowie has Thomson (and `The Insult') on his list of recommended reading.

Read entirely whilst incapacitated following an operation, Dreams of Leaving was a beautiful and profund account of attempting to belong, and the desperation for security. Moses Highness represents the secure element; he has been allowed to grow and evolve within the city. In contrast, Chief Inspector Peach (whom I believe to be the true central character), is a man who believes in his apparent security, nursing a secret fear and distrust for the outside world. The crucial point is when Moses visits New Egypt. He is able to look upon it as another village, and is not frightened, although he remains an outsider. Conversely, Peach's childlike innocence (as a result of ignorance) is his burden as he travels to the big city. Dreams of leaving is about change; gradual and sudden, and how individuals evolve accordingly. However, it deals with fear - the fear of difference, and especially the fear of ultimately having to accept change, and live within it. There is a piece of Peach in all of us.

Gore Vidal once said the novelist's job is to create a world.

Thomson certainly does that here. His 1890s Baja California is a microcosm of race and class and climate and culture. It is a love story, but like all good love stories it puts you there and makes you feel how love is: like hypnosis, like drugs.

As always, Thomson's prose is iridescent. Things jump into life in his prose. Also as always, he treats the dark and harsh things of life with loving detail and great humor.

My initial thoughts on this novel were not of the immediate love of his other books, but as a fan of Rupert Thomson, I couldn't bear to leave it. And I'm awefully glad I didn't. This book sets emotion and senses running, it truely encapsulates the sensation of early Mexico and the lives that were a part of it. This is certainly one of Thomson's best, masterfully written and extraordinarily researched novel. The book follows the lives of two quite different young people who find themselves in Santa Sofia at the same time. It is a delightful yet gruesome tale of the events surround the town and these two lives. It's a tale of falling in and out of love and the confusion of lives lived in a small town of different races and classes. This is truely a brilliant piece of art work...

I guess I'm always expecting disappointment when I read a book I love and then go find another by the same author. "Dreams of Leaving" was an amazingly good read, but I'd never heard of this guy otherwise, got that one remaindered in fact, so it must have been a flash in the pan, I thought. Not so, I'm happy to say! Maybe he's better known in Britain but I can't imagine why they're not crying his name from the bell towers here. Great stuff, really solid, "literature" instead of fiction. This is a beautiful, sleepy-sad story of human near-misses: a marriage that doesn't quite gel, a mix of cultures that fractures under stress, failures in understanding based in both sex and class, a son pondering the meaning of his father's failures without knowing if there really is a moral to the story of his life. The strength of the novel lies not only in the poignancy in which these misses and their consequences are recorded, but in the sustained hope that lives beside the despair: the Mexican baker who finally masters the art of making baguettes on the day of the riots, etc. Highly recommended!

Prince Rupert of the Rhine, the best general of the English Civil War, had a British mother (Elizabeth Stuart, the Winter Queen), but was raised a German prince. Having fought gallantly for the Protestant cause in the Thirty Years War, he came to England to defend his uncle, King Charles I, against the Parliamentary uprising. Through his dazzling performance as head of the Cavalier horse, he continued the royal tradition first established by King Harold (and centuries later embodied by Prince Albert): the foreign prince who, through his exertions wins the awe and respect of the locals. Despite Charles' execution, he prosecuted the Royalist cause well into the 1650s as a naval privateer and commerce raider, and, after the Restoration, became one of King Charles II's admirals. (Indeed it could be argued that his naval career was his most remarkable achievement.)

George Malcolm Thompson, a former journalist, relates Rupert's story with verve - then again, Rupert's vigorous life is a story that really tells itself. A fine portrait of a great hero.

Martin Blom, victim of a random shooting, is rendered blind. As the story unwinds he finds he can see but only at night or in the dark. He begins to create a life around this odd existence. Moving slowly, narrating the story in 1st person, we are allowed to casually observe his meanderings and his eventual settling at a dingy hotel/brothel. Add to this neo-noir mix the beautiful mystery woman Nina, and her mildly twisted craving for Martin in his blindness. The later abrupt disappearance of Nina, coupled w/ suggested furtive movements by his ex-doctor, prompt Martin to head to remote locales in search of a family history which may explain Nina's whereabouts. The second part of the novel is the wistful recounting of Nina's grandmother's difficult life and how it eventually ties to Nina and threatens Blom himself. The style of narrative at the half-way point shifts to the grandmother, and it almost sounds like a different author. I found the story to be a similarly winding, round-about sort of mystery as Asylum by P. McGrath. The last hundred-plus pages were consumed in one sitting, as things began to rapidly unfold, I realized that Martin's story was now effectively secondary to the tragedy described by the grandmother. The tone and tragedy in this novel were subtle, and subdued. It did not produce a strong emotive response during the reading, one does not cheer for Martin, or feel for him in any way. He's a bit of an anti-hero, in the narrator vein of Poe's work. Every character here is broken in a way, which leads to a dulling moroseness in their interactions, which we watch in a detached clinical manner. Still, I found it an interesting work, to be read, if possible, on a rainy, grey day.

Martin Blom, victim of a random shooting, is rendered blind. As the story unwinds he finds he can see but only at night or in the dark. He begins to create a life around this odd existence. Moving slowly, narrating the story in 1st person, we are allowed to casually observe his meanderings and his eventual settling at a dingy hotel/brothel. Add to this neo-noir mix the beautiful mystery woman Nina, and her mildly twisted craving for Martin in his blindness. The later abrupt disappearance of Nina, coupled w/ suggested furtive movements by his ex-doctor, prompt Martin to head to remote locales in search of a family history which may explain Nina's whereabouts. The second part of the novel is the wistful recounting of Nina's grandmother's difficult life and how it eventually ties to Nina and threatens Blom himself. The style of narrative at the half-way point shifts to the grandmother, and it almost sounds like a different author. I found the story to be a similarly winding, round-about sort of mystery as Asylum by P. McGrath. The last hundred-plus pages were consumed in one sitting, as things began to rapidly unfold, I realized that Martin's story was now effectively secondary to the tragedy described by the grandmother. The tone and tragedy in this novel were subtle, and subdued. It did not produce a strong emotive response during the reading, one does not cheer for Martin, or feel for him in any way. He's a bit of an anti-hero, in the narrator vein of Poe's work. Every character here is broken in a way, which leads to a dulling moroseness in their interactions, which we watch in a detached clinical manner. Still, I found it an interesting work, to be read, if possible, on a rainy, grey day.

Martin Blom, victim of a random shooting, is rendered blind. As the story unwinds he finds he can see but only at night or in the dark. He begins to create a life around this odd existence. Moving slowly, narrating the story in 1st person, we are allowed to casually observe his meanderings and his eventual settling at a dingy hotel/brothel. Add to this neo-noir mix the beautiful mystery woman Nina, and her mildly twisted craving for Martin in his blindness. The later abrupt disappearance of Nina, coupled w/ suggested furtive movements by his ex-doctor, prompt Martin to head to remote locales in search of a family history which may explain Nina's whereabouts. The second part of the novel is the wistful recounting of Nina's grandmother's difficult life and how it eventually ties to Nina and threatens Blom himself. The style of narrative at the half-way point shifts to the grandmother, and it almost sounds like a different author. I found the story to be a similarly winding, round-about sort of mystery as Asylum by P. McGrath. The last hundred-plus pages were consumed in one sitting, as things began to rapidly unfold, I realized that Martin's story was now effectively secondary to the tragedy described by the grandmother. The tone and tragedy in this novel were subtle, and subdued. It did not produce a strong emotive response during the reading, one does not cheer for Martin, or feel for him in any way. He's a bit of an anti-hero, in the narrator vein of Poe's work. Every character here is broken in a way, which leads to a dulling moroseness in their interactions, which we watch in a detached clinical manner. Still, I found it an interesting work, to be read, if possible, on a rainy, grey day.

This was'nt a great book,but very well-written (and it was like taking a trip to London without the jet-lag.) I won't describe the plot,all I can say that it was strange and at times surreal. A good off-beat thriller with a sense of humor.

This is a fine addition to the Rupert Thomson collection of novels. The interwoven tales of seemingly unconnected characters come together in an enevitable but intrigueing climax. This is a wonderful storyteller, and one book that should be read just on the merit of the writer. You will be amused and consider the dark humor of the novel a fine read.

Soft is quite simply one of the best English novels of 1998. It is subtle. It is clever. And it could only have been written at the end of the century.

But it is not a conventional thriller. It is not a Tom Clancy style 'Character A is motivated by factors XYZ and will therefore by the end of the book have murdered Characters BC and D'.

It's much, much better than that. It's one of those rare books which reflect the complexities of life. It accepts that people's fates are interlinked but delves darkly into how the small choices we make can have ultimately disastrous consequences.

The opening section in particular is one of the finest psychological profiles you will ever read about how the less fortunate in our society are inevitably trapped by circumstances beyond their control. It debunks any idiotic myths that the 'proles' know no better and deserve what they get.

This is a fantastic study of human beings wanting to do well, yet failing. I'd certainly put Thomson up there as England's answer to Pynchon and De Lillo.

This book starts off with an interesting premise that never comes close to its potential.
Maybe it's the stereotypical English reserve, but I never got the impression that the protagonist was all that traumatized by his capitivity or the aftermath. When his girfriend of six years leaves him immediately after his return, he just shrugs it off like it was meant to happen and that was that.
Later, even five years after the event his inability to tell anyone about what happened makes no sense either since he didn't seem too traumatized to begin with. He just uses the experience to drop out of life and become a drifter without trying to deal with the experience and move on with his life. This is inexplicable since again, the experience didn't seem to bother him too much to begin with.
Another small issue, having been to Amsterdam once, it didn't appear that the author had ever been there. The few details he gives about Amsterdam and Holland could have been lifted from any tourists guide. He also appeared to know little about the Dutch language.
This was the first book I have read by Rupert Thomson and it doesn't give me the desire to read another. I'm glad I picked it up at a second hand bookstore.

The blurb on the back cover of "The Book of Revelation" suggests that the novel "fearlessly exposes our darkest fears to reveal the sinister connections between sex and power and how we are shaped by our experiences." It is a bold claim for Rupert Thomson's work, and one that, ultimately, cannot be sustained.

"The Book of Revelation" tells the story of a talented, successful young dancer and choreographer living in Amsterdam with his girlfriend of seven years, Brigitte. One day he goes out to buy cigarettes for her and is drugged and kidnapped by three black-hooded women. They keep him chained and captive in a stark white room for eighteen days, where he is emotionally and sexually abused, made to masturbate and perform, and, ultimately, mutilated, before being released. This occurs in the first half of the book and is narrated in the third-person. The man is never identified by name and the third-person narrative voice has the desired effect of distancing the reader from the victim's experience, making the reader feel the stark, dehumanizing experience of the dancer. This first part of the book is psychologically disturbing and erotically charged, in a dark sort of way; it is, in other words, a powerful piece of writing.

The second half of "The Book of Revelation" is written in the first person and relates what happens after the dancer is released by his captors. The victim remains unidentified by name, but the first-person narrative voice now brings the reader intimately into the mind of the dancer. Unfortunately, this part of the book requires the reader to suspend belief, the dancer's behavior seemingly at odds with what the claims of realism demand. Thus, upon his release, he makes his way back to his apartment, where he sees his girlfriend Brigitte. He does not tell her what has happened to him, nor does he tell anyone else. All he can say, at this point, is "how difficult it is, sometimes, to find the right words, or any words at all." In some ways, his inability to communicate with his girlfriend (and others) is adumbrated at the beginning of the story, when he gets into an argument with Brigitte about her smoking, an argument that seems curiously devoid of any real interpersonal relationship. The effect of all this is to make the reader (or at least this reader) feel that the dancer's problems are as much a result of his own disfunctionality as they are of his bizarre kidnapping and captivity.

From this point forward, the story is propelled by the dancer's unmitigated attempt to find the three women who held him captive. His only touchstones are the identifying marks he had observed on the naked bodies of those women. He is thus compelled to embark on a misogynistic crusade to sleep with every woman he meets in the hope that he can identify one of them by the revelation of her nakedness. This is one of the possible meanings of the book's title, a meaning suggested by the book's epigraph: "Will there ever be anything other than the exterior and speculation in store for us? The skin, the surface--it is man's deepest secret."

In the end, the dancer becomes a victim of his own obsession and his own inability to communicate, his inability to verbalize his experience and intimately share that experience with others. His redemption, if it will come at all, can only occur if he can overcome these inabilities, if he can "reveal" his kidnapping, his humiliation, his disturbed motivations; if he can tell his story, a book of revelation.

"The Book of Revelation" is an interesting book which keeps you turning the pages, wanting to know what happens in the end, whether the dancer will ever find his captors. Rupert Thomson is also a writer with great imaginative and writing ability. It is certainly a book worth spending time with, but not quite deserving of some of the critical acclaim it has received.

Rupert Thomson (1955) has written a fascinating and compelling sixth novel, and once you start reading 'The Book of Revelation', it's difficult to put the book down. A nameless 30-year old english dancer/choreographer lives and works in Amsterdam. He has a succesful career and for some years he's been living happily with his nice girlfriend Brigitte, also a dancer. In his life there are no real troubles, until... everything changes forever. He's abducted in Amsterdam by three cloaked and hooded women, who hold him captive and chained naked to the floor of an anonymous white empty room for eighteen days. For no apparent reason. During his captivity the only option there for him is total submission. The young women, presumably of his own age, appear often naked -though always hooded- to him. They have their way and play all kinds of games with him, mostly for their sexual pleasure. When the women's demands become more fierce, total dehumanisation and humiliation follows. The man is defenseless against this depraved performance of power, domination and desire. The ordeal he's subjected to includes rape and even brutal mutilation. For the reader this is a shocking nightmare as well.

The captivity-part of the book reminded me of Pascal Bruckner's bizarre and weird, but brilliant novel 'les voleurs de beauté' (1997), and of two films where a similar sort of events takes place: Pasolini's 'Salo: the 120 days of Sodom' (1975) and Michael Haneke's 'Funny Games' (1998). What happens there is that you're forced to witness extreme atrocities, while you know there will be no escape from these brutal violations of human dignity. And of course, as a 'witness', it makes you sick, you feel horrible. It's the same with Thomson's 'Book of revelation', with one big difference, ... a relief. The man regains his freedom. After eighteen days the women all of a sudden decide to release him.

The book is really about what follows then. Of course, after his release he's not really free. He will carry the horrible events he endured in captivity for the rest of his life, probably without ever knowing the identity of his torturers. In a brilliant way Thomson manages to describe the psychological process that accompanies the quest that now lies ahead of this deeply wounded man. His life-after looks like an endless re-evaluation. How to live with yourself, with these scars, how to deal with your sexuality, with the people around you, and how to put your life in some sort of right track again... Facing all these problems the man begins a search for the women who made a ruin of his life. A search that will also bring his innermost self to the fore, in a way he never could have imagined.

The outline and structure of the novel is well balanced, and the shifting of perspective, using the first person ('I'-form) and third person ('he'-form) alternately in different sections of the novel, works fine and efficient. I read all Thomson's novels and one of his best writing skills throughout his work is the use of analogies. In 'The Book of Revelation' display of that skill may not be as abundant as in 'The five gates of hell' and 'The insult' -his most mesmerizing and intoxicating novels- but the outline and the psychological development of the main character is as good as ever. And, what's more, in 'The Book of Revelation' Thomson reveals a deep wisdom to everyone of us about the essences of life, concerning relationships, sexuality, human dignity and freedom. A remarkable achievement, and taking into account the difficult subject Thomson is dealing with here, I consider 'The Book of Revelation' a succesful 'tour de force'. In an oeuvre that's far from complete I hope.

NB: also recommended: Pascal Bruckner - les voleurs de beauté (Grasset et Fasquelle, 1997) I read this brilliant French novel -overlapping Thomson's 'Book of Revelation' in theme and mood- in dutch translation, titled 'De dieven van de schoonheid' (De Bezige Bij, 1998)

I bought 'Book of Revelations' at a ridiculously cheap price at a London bookstore. The back cover listed rave reviews, and I remember a colleague telling me it was "disturbing". So I bought it, read it, and got grossed out. Sometimes indeed, most sadly, you get what you pay for.

'Book of Revelations' has an intriguing premise. A male dancer in Amsterdam is abducted by three masked women who are part of some sexual-sadistic cult. He goes through some rather awful experiences, and is released. The last half of the books focuses on how his life has been changed by this experience.

Unfortunately the actual substance of the novel doesn't match its promise. Firstly, the author goes into perhaps a bit more detail into the sadism element of the story than is justified. He concentrates too much on the actions and not enough on what the victim feels. So after this reader was completely grossed out I was hoping for an intriguing story of how this horrible episode affected this man's life. Well, this was a lost opportunity. I found this element of 'Book of Revelations' to be most contrived. I can accept sadistic cults exist in the world and the possibility of women being extremely cruel but I cannot accept how the main character 'changed' from his ordeal. True, everyone responds to physical abuse in different ways. But what the author presents is pure nonsense.

Bottom line: put this book on your 'must miss' list. Miss it twice.

I started reading this book and could not stop. Long after I finished reading it I find myself wanting to go back to it and read it again. In the beginning I was courious and disgusted. It was unreal what the young dancer has to go through and most of time I thought it was unbelivable. I kept thinking, "nobody would do that for real, this is just a crazy fiction". Sort of the same responses the dancer can expect from others. But like every good novels do the make you forget that they are novels. So I forgot. And I got into it and I went through all the emotions with the dancer. And after the three women that kidnapped him release him, I felt the tention in the text. I was always waiting for the to pop up somewhere either attacking him again or for him to find them. The three women are always there present in his mind and in his body and in the mind of the reader. Rupert Thomas writes a wonderful text that is so calm despite all the tention. He creates characthers that will stay with you long after you have finished reading the book. He reminds the reader of the little control he has over his destiny. And even if we believe we are walking on solid ice, a crack might be hidden under our next step and bring us down.

I have million things I want to say about this book but that might lead to me giving up the ending. But there is one thing I can say, this book is truly genious.