Reviews of Rohan Quine’sThe Imagination Thief
Seewww.rohanquine.com/press-media/the-imagination-thief-reviews-media for all links to the following and other reviews.
“Rohan Quine is one of the most brilliant and original writers around. HisThe Imagination Thief blended written and spoken word and visuals to create one of the most haunting and complex explorations of the dark corners of the soul you will ever read. Never one to do something simple when something more complex can build up the layers more beautifully […] suffice to say he is the consummate master of sentencecraft. His prose is a warming sea on which to float and luxuriate. But that is only half of the picture. He has a remarkable insight into the human psyche, and he demonstrates it by lacquering layer on layer of subtle observation and nuance. Allow yourself to slip from the slick surface of the water and you will soon find yourself tangled in a very deep and disturbing world, but the dangers that lurk beneath the surface are so enticing, so intoxicating it is impossible to resist their call.”http://danholloway.wordpress.com/2014/02/22/the-platinum-raven/
“The Imagination Thief is one of those books that has originality stamped across it with a pair of size 12 DMs. An incredibly dark yet full and balanced with shafts of light picaresque through the recesses of the human psyche, it is an uncomfortable, troubling immersive experience that mixes text, audio and video taking us into places we would rather not go. It could be described as a cubist novel, taking each aspect of the torn mind and laying them out on separate planes through the different media.”www.amazon.co.uk/review/R14T4LILL9WXLH
“Rohan is one of the most original voices in the literary world today—and one of the most brilliant.”http://on.fb.me/1iXSRt9
—Dan Holloway, novelist, poet andGuardian blogger; and see hisGuardian review athttp://bit.ly/13rR45R
“Another difficult to classify book, but that’s precisely why it works so well. Part literary fiction, part fantasy, it is a surreal experience which makes the most of its equally offbeat location. With a cast of unforgettable characters and a central premise both intriguing and epic […].
[…] In Asbury Park, New Jersey, an abandoned holiday resort, preparations for the strangest and biggest show on earth continue. They encounter an eclectic bunch of characters; lovers, enemies, slaves and masters, all of whom provide Jaymi with a wealth of material. But information is power, and more than one person wants access.
The swooping eloquence of this book had me hypnotised. Quine leaps into pools of imagery, delighting in what words can do. The fact that the reader is lured into joining this kaleidoscopic, elemental ballet marks this out as something fresh and unusual. In addition to the language, two other elements make their mark. The seaside ghost town with echoes of the past and the absorbing, varied and rich cast of characters.
It’s a story with a concept, place and people you’ll find hard to leave.”
—JJ Marsh, novelist, inBookmuse,http://bookmuseuk.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/the-imagination-thief-by-rohan-quine.html
“An intriguing book that addresses many big issues (love, sex, death, power, the nature and reliability of human memory, history, culture, human potential, the constraints of 21st century society, and more) […].
[…] described with a larger-than-life intensity that put me strangely in mind of Coleridge’sKubla Khan—and occasionally its drug-induced origins too!
It’s not an easy or comfortable read, particularly when closely examining mental and physical cruelty and violence between some of the characters. I read with a constant sense of foreboding. However even the most shocking passages are underpinned by the compassion, pity and tenderness of the narrator for all but the most brutal characters. There’s also some very welcome, very British understated humour to offset some of the horror. The brevity of the ‘mini-chapters’ was well-judged—I felt I needed to come up for air after some of the short episodes, and to assimilate the latest action before moving on.
The immediacy of the story is more keenly felt because it is written in the present tense—always more demanding on the reader, I find, and even more so in this case because although most is in the first person, there are also many second-person narratives, where Jaymi is reading the minds of other characters and addressing them: ‘You move closer…’ That the author is able to keep the reader not only engaged but tantalised by this difficult mode of storytelling indicates the power of his prose.
Though
