Reviews

The Pesthouse by Jim Crace

hetvi_307's review against another edition

sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? N/A
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.5

tsharris's review

3.0

Meh. I just don't see the point of this novel. Artfully written, but that's about it. Ideally post-apocalyptic literature offers some lesson or some world-building or some other reason for being. There was none of that. The only reason I'm giving three stars instead of two is that the final third of the book was pretty suspenseful and moved quickly, unlike the rest of the novel which I found incredibly slow.

meghadutam's review against another edition

having thoroughly enjoyed two of Jim Crace's earlier books - Quarantine and Being Dead, I am now struggling with this book.

Quarantine was a wonderfully interesting and beautifully written account of a group of people in the Judean desert, participating in a fast, while an enigmatic figure (Christ perhaps) is fasting nearby.

Being Dead is a "can't put it down" account of the death and bodily decay of two people on a beach. It combines personal narrative about their lives with intriguing and accurate descriptive prose about what is going on in their cells, their body chemicals, and the numerous scavengers that come to find them. I have never read a book quite like it.

But Pest House... hmmm.. so far (I just finished the 5th short chapter) it reads far too much like Cormac Mccarthy's "The Road". Set in a post-apocalyptic world, Pest House starts wuth two brothers, journeying along a road to some uncertain safe place...

I admit that books are one thing I have little patience with. If they don't get my attention by about page 10 I put them down. This is such a book. I doubt I will finish it.

[edit] - Well I finished it. Skimmed much of it. Strange book. I never quite understood the context. Post-apocalypse? Plague? I don't know. This is the book that ruined Crace for me. It's a shame...

emma_leoni's review against another edition

adventurous medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

martymohito's review against another edition

3.0

I found this book quite engaging. At first you think that the book is set in the 1800s, pioneers in the mid-West of America heading East for better fortune after an apocalypse of some sort. However the more we get into the story it seems that in fact we are some time in the future but America has gone back to basics, clothes, transport, living, even the dialect is 1800s. THe story is interesting enough but the parallels with The Road by Cormack McCarthy are very obvious. Both books revolve around a family unit escaping from an apocalyptic event across a grey landscape. The meet a group of bandits along the way, they travel along a road to the East to the sea, which is a symbol of hope. Only in both novels the main characters are disappointed when they reach the sea. It is not the gateway to a better life that they both expected. I had to check which novel was written first to see who might have influenced who (The Road was first, published in 2006). Still, I enjoyed The Pesthouse. A little simple, the plot takes a few big jumps along the way. I'm glad I read it and it kept me interested to the end.

christiek's review against another edition

5.0

Excellent. I really like Crace's voice, and this story comes around so beautifully it's just great. My only quibble is that we never have any clues as to how America comes to be this wasteland of migrants moving east to the ships for a better life. Because we don't have those clues, sometimes it is hard to sink into his imagined world because we can't always see or imagine how the "rules" of the have played out into the vision that Crace sees.

appalonia's review against another edition

4.0

Interesting story, and the writing was excellent. The story begins in an unfamiliar America that seems to have regressed to a pre-industrialized age. Two brothers head east toward the ocean, where there are ships that take people to Europe, supposedly where living conditions are much better. At the beginning of this book they arrive in Ferrytown, which serves as a crossroads for people heading to the ships. The younger brother Franklin has injured himself, and it is decided he will stay on the hill outside the town while older brother Jackson heads to town to obtain supplies and arrange passage across the river. In the morning when Jackson has not returned, Franklin heads to town to search for him, only to find all the people and animals in it have mysteriously died in the night. Presuming his brother dead, Franklin befriends the only other survivor of the town, a woman who was banished to a sick house high over the town to either recover from her illness or die. The two decide to travel to the ships together, and so begins their adventure. Although this story was dark, it was not depressing and had a hopeful ending. And there was something intriguing about reading a story where you had no idea what was around the next bend of the road.

rachelp's review against another edition

3.0

This book was as much about the budding relationship between Franklin and Margaret as it was about their struggle to make it to the eastern coastline. It was an interesting read, although there are definitely better post-apocalyptic, plague-stricken America type books out there. I did like that even though the story occurs years and years in the future, when our buildings and roads are in ruins and factory made items are rare treasures, it feels like the past. The men all wear beards and the women all wear dresses, people travel on foot or by horse and cart, etc.

leksikality's review against another edition

medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Crace avoids many of the tropes these sorts of settings - have - wild, lawless places with people desperate to survive - while still acknowledging that they are a real worry for the characters. 

Rather than possessing a superhuman uniqueness or good fortune, Franklin and Margaret survive through sheer determination.

In some ways it's a very quiet book - the journey itself lacks frequent bouts of intense drama but it still provides a fairly compelling journey of the choices people make, why they make them, and what they're willing to sacrifice to pursue them. 

cindywho's review against another edition

3.0

This is an odd little backwards pioneer story. A few generations after the collapse of industrial civilization, Americans are heading for the east coast to try and get a berth to Europe. A man and woman meet in a pesthouse where she's been recovering from sickness and team up for the various adventures on their way. It was OK, but not compelling.