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In Review

08 January 2009 13:40 BST

Enlightenment by Thomas P Cox

Published by Pegasus, out now, paperback, 312 pp, £8.99.

In a nutshell...

Hard work and unfocused; good writing and plot though.

What's it all about?

Trevor leads an incredibly boring and hum-drum life. Until one day: when an e-mail inviting him to find enlightenment lands in his inbox, sparking a number of questions in his own mind about existence, the universe and everything, which Trevor decides to investigate. Within the course of a week, Trevor finds things becoming increasingly strange in his usually predictable life, and by the end of the week is travelling through several dimensions, visiting himself in the past, treading the path to enlightenment.

However, little does he know that a fight between Good (the Hero) and Evil (the Devil) transcends his personal quest, and that he will ultimately become embroiled in the clash…

Who's it by?

Twenty-three year-old first-time author Thomas Cox describes himself as a 'professional optimist', and certainly his punchy and upbeat style of writing only serves to confirm this. Enlightenment is the culmination of more than three years of work and apparently was not written originally with intent to publish.

As an example...

"To say it felt like a weight had been lifted off his shoulders would be so massive an understatement there's a very real possibility that the understatement would collapse in on itself creating an anti-understatement which even light cannot escape from." - p132

Likelihood of becoming a Hollywood blockbuster

With a bit of savvy editing and with a geeky-but-cool actor in the main role (Matt Damon perhaps?) this story could be transformed into a great Hollywood affair.

What the others say

"This book is really funny - it is the first time I have laughed out loud reading a book since Three Men in a Boat." - Helen 'bitstobuy', Amazon.co.uk

So is it any good?

There's just not enough space here to describe the complex mix of emotions I encountered while reading the book. Anger, disbelief, the occasional maniacal cackle and, finally, acceptance. Anger because there are serious problems with the pace (torturously slow), structure and a weakly-constructed narrator. Disbelief at the amount of grammatical errors that have slipped through the copy editor's net; cackling because, hey, after 300 pages, the character of the Devil starts to have an effect. Finally acceptance: once the tempo picks up a bit (we're talking 150 pages in) the story is really quite enjoyable.

The conversational, irreverent tone of the writing is especially interesting; it has a slightly post-modern leaning, with the narrator and characters addressing each other and the reader at different points in the book. A style seldom seen in outer-space end-of-the-world books (Terry Pratchett excepted), this book could potentially appeal to a wide readership as it doesn't take itself too seriously.

4/10

Rebecca Heath