The End of Mr. Y: A Fan's Review
Why Ariel Manto's Bizarre Adventure is a Must for Bookshelves
"And then, in an instant that feels thinner and sharper than the edge of a razor, I'm falling. I'm falling into a black tunnel, the same black tunnel that Mr. Y described in the book."
- Scarlett Thomas, The End of Mr. Y, (Harcourt Books: 2006)
So begins Ariel Manto's mysterious journey into Thomas' thought-provoking representation of a fourth dimension where the thoughts and consciousness of the past, present and future exist together. However indigestible some of these concepts might seem, there are a number of methods Scarlett Thomas employs to give shape to her ideas to make them more understandable, and even enjoyable, to the lay reader.
The Plot of 'The End of Mr. Y'
The story of 'The End of Mr. Y' begins when Ariel Manto, a down-on-her-luck PhD student sharing her threadbare aprtment with mice and the biting cold, discovers a rare book by a little-known 19th century author by the name of Thomas Lumas, renowned for giving life to his so-called 'thought experiments' through his works of fiction.
But the book, also titled 'The End of Mr. Y', is supposedly cursed and whoever reads it dies soon after.
Overcome with curiosity, Ariel spends the last of her dwindling funds on the book and is soon skimming over the first of its fatal pages where she comes across a recipe for which Mr. Y squandered his fortune, his marriage and his livelihood for. Intrigued by the realism of Mr. Y's experience in the Troposphere, the world the recipe transports him to, Ariel is soon following his instructions and entering the bizarre world herself.
Inside the Troposphere, Ariel soon discovers that she has access to the thoughts of every person that has ever lived, but with others eager to learn the secret for themselves, Ariel's life is in danger and the book's fabled curse soon becomes an inescapable reality.
For more on the book and to read more extracts go to the official website The End of Mr Y.
A Thought Experiment Within a Thought Experiment
Like Lucas' book within the novel, 'The End of Mr. Y' can be seen to be a means of Thomas articulating her theories and philosophy as to the nature of existance, with the characters and story of the book merely devices to demonstrate these ideas - just as Ariel Manto recalls Einstein's trains and Schrödinger's cat, Scarlett Thomas uses Ariel's Troposphere to illustrate what she believes a plane consisting of a collective consciousness.
It is interesting to note that each character in the book sees the Troposphere differently, and it is philosophical puzzles such as the perception of reality and what thought consists of that give Thomas' novel a richness rarely found in modern bestsellers; not only is the reader cast into a thrilling adventure, but at the same time they are plunged into Thomas' ideas in a very real and dynamic fashion.
Ariel's a Winner
The success of the book comes from the sheer likeability of Ariel, the central character; Thomas honestly an almost gritty young woman living by no means a glamorous life, with a colourful past and a candid attitude to sex, who tells the story so honestly and vividly that one cannot help but be taken in by her odd charm.
With such a strange, yet attractive character at the helm of the narrative, the story and the sometimes heavy ideas join to form an extremely engrossing read.
So if you're looking for a book without comparison that will stand out from every other book you have read in the past, then The End of Mr. Y should be your next choice.
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