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The Informers
Sat Dec 5 17:54:45 GMT 2009
Throughout The Informers I kept thinking that I knew where Ellis was going with the novel, that the jumble of characters and situations he assembles, chapter by chapter, would suddenly crystallise into a coherent structure.
I was mistaken. Although some characters do appear in more than one of the narratives there seems little pattern or meaning to their reappearance. Indeed at times Ellis seems almost to taunt the reader with these embryonic links, rousing false hope that some meaning, some relationship will emerge from the noise.
Frankly, it left me wondering what the point of the book was. This is not to say that it is without merit, since there is certainly a kind of poetry that emerges from the apparent meaninglessness of each passing chapter. Moreover, the very lack of emotion and reason in the situations of the estranged figures populating is itself strangely affecting as one struggles to empathise with the people hidden between the pages.
And yet, I cannot escape the feeling that there should be more to a novel than that. As an exercise in dehumanisation and apathy, the book works. As a collection of bleached desert snapshots, captured with a sparse lyricism reminiscent of Kerouac, the book works. But don't go looking for anything more.