So, did anyone read Lanark then?

I've never read Of Human Bondage. Is it worth reading?

It's sad to me that he lived most of his life in financial distress (http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/generalfiction/story/0,,1075875,00.html); I bought Lanark as a remainder, and I'm tempted to send Mr. Gray some money directly.

Of Human Bondage was my favorite book in high school. I haven't read it since, but I really loved it back then, so something must have been great about it. It's certainly not like the Unthank sections in any way, shape, or form, but something about the writing and scenarios in the middle books of Lanark reminded me of it. Just replace artist with doctor, and you're nearly there. I should re-read it myself...

(And I just noticed the date swap above. Oh wouldn't it be bizarre to go back to THAT date knowing all that I know now...)

I tend to get bored at the ends of books anyway. There are few books that leave me wanting more - for some reason, Smilla's Sense of Snow sticks out in my mind as ending too quickly. I'll forgive this one, though. I still really love it, and in semi-autobiographical novels, as far as I'm concerned, the author has every right to go on forever. I certainly would.

I'm actually worried about the return to Unthank, that it might not live up to the dark despair of Duncan Thaw's Glasgow.

The return journey itself is one of my favourite sections. The whole of the Unthank section is very much a typical "dream world", but the return journey is even more like a nightmare turned into a novel.

The Epilogue is shamefully indulgent, isn't it? I did enjoy the references to all the works the author has plagiarised, including the mentions of chapters not actually in the book - did chapters 45-50 ever exist? I sort of hope they did in some form, though obviously that stuff about "the android's seduction of God" and the cloth monkeys vs. the wire monkeys is presumably a joke...

I think this is the idea. I really liked the Epilogue section and I think even Gray himself knew that it was cheesy and that's why he self-deprecates by painting himself as a pompous sadist. I never found this book depressing but maybe that's because I'm a fan of Gray's oevre and I know all along that a lot of the bleak imagery is designed to be purposefully wry.

I loved Book 1 and it's steadily deteriorated since then (midway thru Book 4 at this point). I almost gave up at the Epilogue and then skipped that part.

Surprising to hear the church mural was a real work of his, I thought it was a metaphor for the entire book, equally sprawling. I do think his strongly visual style combined with the absurdist elements is one the things that I have a hard time relating to.

Does he have better books that are less self-indulgent/absurd? Should I read Of Human Bondage? I hated A Remembrance of Things Past, and the painfully awkward bildungsroman bits of Lanark started to grate on me after a while.