Interesting interview with McGregor here:
http://dovegreyreader.typepad.com/dovegreyreader_scribbles/2010/03/dgr-asksjon-mcgregor.html
New Collectibles - Jon McGregor
I picked up If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things a couple of years ago and keep thinking back to it. Not something I do often. There are few books that really stick with me, but Remarkable Things has. I picked up my paperback copy second hand and was intrigued only by the title - I remember the occasion vividly; I was not in the habit of buying books I hadn't heard of (it was a car boot sale, and I'd have too much to carry). But this book had something about it, so I bought it and started reading it that night. The book is very well crafted, you're expectations are set from the off and that keeps you going, until finally a magical moment, almost unprecedented, finishes the book.
Born in 1976 in Bermuda, Jon McGregor now lives in the UK. Remarkable Things is McGregor's first novel and waspublished in 2002 by Bloomsbury in the UK. It met very good reviews. With good reviews (and often with good novels) come awards. The book won the Somerset Maugham award along with Hari Kunzru and William Fiennes, and was long-listed for the Booker Prize. The reviews were almost condescending in some sense, everybody adored the prose, not daring to suggest it's overwritten or full of sentences that are just mouthfuls. It is somewhat overwritten, but so is T.E. Lawrence's translation of The Odyssey. The book has zest, and it's the zest that makes the book. Set in a street like 99% of all streets in the U.K. the book is easy to relate to; my mind's eye just looked out my own front door. Anyway, enough, this isn't a review. It should be, but it's not. The book is very good, a pat on the back from all the literati for Jon - well done.
Five years later, along comes So Many Ways To Begin of course every review begins with a comparison to Remarkable Things and that's not unreasonable. Gone is the flowery prose, colourful but inept metaphor, excited phrasing. Or so they say. Gone from where exactly? It was all a bit judgemental. McGregor appeared to have 'matured' (please, don't join the elite). Published again by Bloomsbury, in a very similar style, the book didn't sell as strongly as it's predecessor, but it circulated reasonably enough - though Amazon did 'remainder' it recently. The book appears to have had European translations in French as Il n'y a pas de faux depart and German as so oder so (excuse my butchery if I've mistyped), but, like Remarkable Things never made it to other English-speaking countries (perhaps the settings wouldn't translate).
And finally in 2010 Even The Dogs is coming. Favourable reviews are pouring in, and as soon as I saw the familiar font on the cover, but this time in yellow, I got a good feeling. I want the book in the same way I wanted that first copy of the first book. Is it clever artistry or something else? I don't care, I just want it. Rumours and speculations abound, but we'll just have to wait and see.
So what made me write a New Collectibles article on the premise of one Booker-nominated book and a sequel some years later, neither of which has really made it big. Well, partly because of a post on the forums here, but I was thinking of it prior to that omen. There's just something special about Jon McGregor and I think his great work is just round the corner.
As far as the current market is concerned, there are copies out there, probably at inflated costs, signed copies and first editions. It's not that collectible yet, but our view here at Hyraxia is to try and get a first edition of Remarkable Things and buy a copy of Even The Dogs straight off the shelf. Let's revisit in six months.
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