The Affirmation

Critics

• Christopher Priest: The Affirmation

  From time to time (well okay, three times in over two years), authors post comments on this blog. Most memorable was Christopher Priest’s appearance to correct my misattribution of his opinion on John Wyndham. One effect of that was to make me invest ... (read full critics)

  theasylum published on Fri, 10 Sep 2010

2 Reviews

• 

  who are you?

  Peter Sinclair is 29, and, following his girlfriend’s attempted suicide he runs away from London, to the countryside. There he is supposed to be redecorating and doing up a family friend’s cottage in return for being allowed to stay there. But he gets distracted and begins to write his autobiography ... (continue)

  Peter Sinclair is 29, and, following his girlfriend’s attempted suicide he runs away from London, to the countryside. There he is supposed to be redecorating and doing up a family friend’s cottage in return for being allowed to stay there. But he gets distracted and begins to write his autobiography. In the course of writing this he discovers that the real truth can only be found within metaphors and through creating an alternate version of his past. And so he begins to write of his past in Jethra. He renames and recreates his family and friends. He recreates a reality.

  In Jethra Peter has just won the lottery, and the chance to undergo treatment that’ll leave him virtually immortal. But it will also wipe his memory. And if he is the sum of his past remembrances how can he really go through with that. He won’t be himself any more.

  If I’d never read a Priest novel before I really don’t know how I would have reacted to this. However because of my previous experiences with his stories I was expecting some shifts from the more standard story-telling methods. But talk about your shifting realities and unreliable narrators.

  The story shifts without warning; ever so slightly disorientating to the reader. And making you wonder what you should expect next.

  The ending did make me hmm a little. I prefer some sort of closure, even if it is open-ended closure. If that makes sense. The whole lack of resolution frustrates me slightly. At the same time however I don’t really see how any resolution would have worked with the book as a whole. The Affirmation is all about differing realities, insanity, and whole nature of reality. And that’s only to start out with.

  Is this helpful?

  Dee said on Jun 9, 2008 | Add your feedback

• 

  A disconforting insight into human mind

  Simply brialliant, original, daunting. A true masterpiece.

  Is this helpful?

  LS said on May 14, 2008 | Add your feedback

Book Details

• Rating:
  (3)
  • 5 stars
  • 4 stars
  • 3 stars
  • 2 stars
  • 1 star
• English Books
• Paperback 256 Pages
• Edition: New Ed
• ISBN-10: 0575075775
• ISBN-13: 9780575075771
• Publisher: Gollancz
• Pub date: Feb 09, 2006
• Dimensions: 1290 mm x 839 mm Just how big is that?

Prices Change currency & sellers