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Book Review of Lanark: A Life in Four Books

Lanark: A Life in Four Books
perryfran avatar reviewed on + 1177 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1


Finally finished this one after reading it on and off for almost a month! Not sure what to say about it - quite a strange book. I really felt like it should have been broken up into two separate novels (books 1&2 and books 3&4). Books 1 and 2 were from what I could tell, pretty much autobiographical while 3 and 4 were more of a dystopian story in the vein of 1984 or Brave New World attempting to "expose the ills that threaten modern society." The way Gray presented the novel was also a little disconcerting: starting with book 3 and then 1, 2, and 4. I actually enjoyed books 1 and 2 a lot more than the other two books, especially the scenes hiking up the "Bens" in the Scottish highlands, etc. Overall, I felt the book was definitely worth reading and parts of it reminded me of other authors including Ray Bradbury and Thomas Hardy.