The Prestige by Christopher Priest Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of The Prestige
Book Review: The lengthy calm before the storm
Summary: 4 Stars
A solid novel. The story is intriguing and the characters complicated and deep. But the story takes its sweet time building the suspense and mystery that this reader craves most. Oftentimes, this isn't a bad thing as it can be akin to a leisurely stroll in the park. But this novel promises malice and mystery and deceit...all of which are best served at a boil. By the time you find yourself ripping through the pages and pouring through the prose in a frantic attempt to keep up with the elevated pace (finally!), the last page hits you like a brick wall. You can't help but shake the feeling that the race finishes before it even begins.
The slow pace of the first 80% of the book is helped along with wonderful dialogue and robust information on the cryptic world of magic and the practitioners that dedicate their lives to the craft. Excuse me for saying so, but I honestly believe the forthcoming movie (Christian Bale, Hugh Jackman, director Chris Nolan) will provide the story with a much needed adrenaline shot.
Book Review: The prestige of the book is brilliant
Summary: 5 Stars
I only wait this realm of magic to fade away in my mind, just to enjoy reviving it when I will read this masterpiece again. But this second time I will not fear that the end might spoil the perfection of the whole book. (I must stop reading reviews with less than 4 stars when a master like C. Priest is in question.) I've red 'Inverted World' from the same Priest long ago and have used that book to persuade non-SF friends-readers that the robots are gone from our SF-world and only dream-people are living in the dream-worlds of the master-writers. 'Prestige' is even better example of a genre-free piece of art. I'm not sure that anything in this book was SF, although some advanced gadgets were put to work -just to animate the prestige of the book. And with Tesla (real dream-man from our world) as an authentic creator, you can't be sure how far his discoveries went in bringing magic to our reality.Book Review: Uneven tempo and length keep this book from being better
Summary: 3 Stars
This book was ok. Starts off very interesting and exciting, then lulls--even drags through the latter 2/3 with tedious diary entries that become repetitious and fairly meaningless. In the last 30 or so pages the pace picks up again, but by then I felt like I just wanted to finish the book and be done with it. The payoff at the end was not worth the ride. Given that the ending was the most ingtriguing part of the book, more time should have been spent focusing on that.Book Review: Uneven, but the ending made it worth reading...
Summary: 4 Stars
The rivalry begins in London in 1878 at a fradulent séance. Rupert Angier and Alfred Borden are both young magicians, both working to build their reputations on the stage. And once the rivalry begins, it can't be stopped. As the years go by, both Borden and Angier build illustrious careers for themselves; but still the rivalry burns. The magicians sabotage each other's stage performances and plant spies in each other's camps. Both men develop their own "signature" trick (Borden's is called The New Transported Man, Angier's is known as In a Flash, and both involve foundling electrical experimentation)--and each makes it his goal to discover the secret behind the other's specialty. Soon the rivalry becomes downright dangerous, and it's painfully clear that the fighting won't end until one of the magicians is dead--and maybe not even then.
More than a hundred years later, a young man and woman find themselves drawn together at a stately manor house outside London. Andrew Westley feels an unexplainable connection to a twin that never existed; Kate Angier is still reeling from a traumatizing event that occurred long ago, during her childhood. Kate and Andrew are the great-grandchildren of Alfred Borden and Rupert Angier; and in the night that follows their meeting, everything--their great-grandfathers' vicious rivalry, the strange apparatus in Kate's basement, Andrew's constant feeling of duality--will become clear.
This is the world of THE PRESTIGE. It's an eerie world, a strange one, magical and fantastical and unspeakably dangerous. This book came highly recommended to me, and although it wasn't as good as I expected, I still found it to be an interesting, memorable read. Author Christopher Priest has sequenced the novel brilliantly, keeping the secrets veiled and the revelations restrained until his shocking, suspenseful conclusion. The plot of THE PRESTIGE is admirably complex; Priest's prose is engrossing and genuine.
What disappointed me about the novel, I guess, is that it seemed to take so long to get to the ending. THE PRESTIGE definitely takes its time in reaching its climax, expounding on the marvels of electricity and the intricacies of magic tricks and playing with the idea of the unreliable narrator in great detail. The book's pretty leisurely-paced throughout, and the fast-paced conclusion seems all that much more startling in contrast. I wish the entire novel would have been as exciting and strange as the last 50 pages were!
If THE PRESTIGE were a song instead of a novel, it would be Pachelbel's "Canon in D" or Dave Matthews Band's "Crash Into Me." It has the same effect as both of these songs; it starts off slowly, quietly, gradually building until it reaches a stunning climax. I would argue that THE PRESTIGE is worth reading for the ending alone. But when you add in the novel's creepy imagery, masterful prose, and odd, obsessive narrators, there's even more to enjoy. The thrills may only come at the end--but they're definitely worth reading for!
Book Review: Unexpectedly and Absolutely Riveting!
Summary: 5 Stars
I picked this book up because I heard that Christopher Nolan, director of Memento and Batman Begins, was going to direct a film adaptation. On top of that, Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale, and David Bowie have all agreed to star in said film. I figured if talent of such high caliber saw something redeeming in this novel, I would as well. Thus, I picked it up at my local bookstore.
I was not too familiar with author Christopher Priest. I knew he was primarily a fantasy writer who occasionally dabbled in the world of comic books. I honestly wasn't expecting much from The Prestige, but when I picked it up and saw that it had won a World Fantasy Award, well, it immediately seemed that Christopher Nolan and the previously mentioned actors knew exactly what they were doing.
The first three quarters of The Prestige are entertaining, but I would not necessarily say captivating. In fact, at times, I was quite unsure what the allure of this novel was. However, the last quarter of The Prestige was absolutely riveting and I could not put it down until I had finished.
The book is written from several different perspectives, mostly in a journal format. It spans several generations dealing with a feud that began in the late nineteenth century between two rival stage magicians. We're not talking wizardry here-we're talking good old craftsmen who were at the top of their profession of trickery and illusions through hard work and cunning.
However, early on in their lives they developed a dislike for one another and it continued between the families, even to this day.
What's so interesting is getting both men's perspective on why the feud began and why it continued for so long. Of course, both think they're in the right, and neither seemed especially nefarious when reading their own thoughts.
The title deals with a facet of one of the magician's tricks called "In a Flash." He developed this trick after he saw his rival transport himself from one cabinet to another several feet apart within seconds. His rival called this "The New Transported Man." Hoping to one up his competitor, he discovered means to transport himself even further with the aid of electricity.
Oh, this plot is so full of so many aspects, far too many to convey in such a short review. Let me just say that while this book seems interesting but not inspired for its first seventy-five percent, those foundations prove essential in the last twenty-five percent of the novel. It will leave you breathless and stunned, I promise.
Here's hoping the film will do it justice.
~Scott William Foley, author of Souls Triumphant