Angelica's Grotto

Russell Hoban

Editions

Review

Harold Klein, widower, expert on the work of Odilon Redon, collector of videos and CDs, one day finds that his “inner voice” has disappeared. Unable to control his utterances, he repeatedly finds himself in Casualty after helplessly making salacious remarks… So he goes to a shrink.  He also starts surfing the Internet and tumbles across Angelica’s Grotto, a site which seems to offer lurid sexual fantasies for free.  He returns to the site again, and again, only to find himself the (not unwilling) subject, or victim, of an unusual academic study.

As ever, Rusell Hoban’s quirky vision, wry humour and dazzling verbal agility have produced a unique work: it could be written by no other author.  Being set in the present, however, and vividly located in London, this novel is more readily accessible than some of his books.  There is the same cosiness that appears in Turtle Diary, which comes fom the conjunction of ordinariness and determined eccentricity which is to be found in the main character; there is the excitement about technology which appears most obviously in Fremder; the historical awareness of Riddley Walker pbk £9pbk £6.99.

As in all his work, there is a consciousness of mythic resonances.  Themes and images recur which seem to have a special significance - owls appear regularly, for example, as do lions and something called the kraken and much else.  (This is the first of his novels in which I did not notice the word tawny.)  The weirdness and the sense of connectedness, which is present both in the text and as an essential element of Hoban’s vision, make him a natural cult author.  But it would be a mistake for anyone interested in fiction to suppose that his appeal must therefore be limited: he is a brilliantly inventive and original novelist. - review by Johnny de Falbe