Falling Out Of Cars by Jeff Noon
01/12/2003 . Source: Tomas L Martin 
pub: Black Swan. 381 page enlarged paperback. Price: £ 6.99 (UK). ISBN: 0-552-99970-9. Buy from Amazon US - Buy from Amazon UK
nb: US titles may only be available from Amazon US, and UK titles from Amazon UK. check
out website: www.booksattransworld.co.uk
Have you seen the scene in the film
'Being John Malkovich' where John Cusack's character crawls through
a tiny door into Malkovich's head?
If so, you'll understand a little about the feeling you get reading Jeff Noon.
Brilliant, weird and more than a little unsettling.
 'Falling
Out Of Cars' is a fractured, disjointed novel but this is a good
thing. Noon writes assuredly and any confusion or inconsistencies
in the plot are there because he put them there, purposefully.
The style is inconsistent and unreliable because the main character,
Marlene Moore is. The way the words are ordered on the page matters
as much to the finished novel as does the actual events that occur
within it.
In Noon's world, a peculiar sickness has enveloped the people, slowly driving
them insane. The disorder warps perceptions. Music and melody are destroyed by
white noise, words twist unreadably and disappear from the page and people are
unable to look at their reflections. A drug, Lucy, can be taken to stop
the affliction and regain clarity of perception but take too much and you become
catatonic. A similar fate awaits you if you don't take it at all. Beside the road,
signs by the drug company say: 'If you can read this, you are alive.'
It's
a weird Britain that Noon has created, full of cyberpunk distopia and Carroll-like
episodes of strangeness. Noon alludes to 'Alice In Wonderland' on numerous occasions,
as the main characters travel around the south of England in search of magical
shards of what may be Alice's mirror. All the while, they succumb to the sickness.
It's a wild ride. Noon's highly stylistic prose feels very cinematic and
it is not hard to imagine 'Falling Out Of Cars' becoming a film someday, directed
by Davids Lynch or Cronenberg. For much of it you can do little but admire with
which Noon carves his tale and the little details that bring life to a wonderfully
melancholic urban fantasy.
This is a book about madness and written
in a mad style. While this makes 'Falling Out Of Cars' an extremely interesting
and sometimes awe-inspiring read, it also limits the enjoyment of the story. As
the main character's grip on the world falters, so does the coherency of the plot.
There are times when I just wanted to know what happened and found the style limited
my enjoyment of the book.
I don't think I could read this novel twice
but I am very glad I did read it. It messed with my head in the way only truly
brilliant weird writers can and this experience feels visceral and exciting. Noon's
prose is sublime and, though the plot suffers somewhat as a result, it doesn't
matter. It is a book about the reading and could be the most impressive stylistic
novel of recent times.
Tomas L. Martin 
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