Slade House

Loved the book! 💖

Slade House spans about five decades and is about... well, Slade House. There have several unsolved and quite spooky disappearances in and around Slade House. Each little novella is narrated by the person who disappears and is immensely effective, because each character is so vastly different - a boy with autism, a sexist police officer, a girl with body image issues, and their subjective realities and narration are highly ambiguous. As a result, initially, as a reader, you tend to question whether what the narrator is saying is true or not.I really quite liked this one. Although one of Mitchell's smaller novels, it was quite creepy and intriguing. There was a lot of interconnection between the characters in this one and the characters in The Bone Clocks which I quite liked. And while I liked The Bone Clocks, it had quite a lot world building and terms that weren't fully explained to the point where I honestly couldn't take the book seriously. That's not the case with Slade House. Well-worth the read, especially considering the price I paid, and for a hardcover no less.

This book had a lot of interesting ideas, but I had no clue it was a companion novel to Bone Clocks. which explains a lot of gaps in my understanding of it. I would have given if 4 stars if the ending hadn't annoyed the hell out of me.

Beautiful hardcopy. Worth the monwy

Finished the book just a breath ago. Although David Mitchell is widely regarded for 'Cloud Atlas', this book plays the charm all the same. It is born out of a small twitter story and turned into 240 pages of gore and horror. 5 points of view amalgamate the narration of this text and although it will leave you craving for more, I felt the ending is too dragged and quite unappealing. Disappointed with the last bit.

After a lengthy tome with The Bone Clocks, author David Mitchell comes up with a story that is two-third shorter than last year’s release. When I opened the book, I was not sure what to expect. The premise of the story is quite chilling - immortals preying on mortals. Told in five chapters skillfully crafted as only the author can, Slade House by David Mitchell follows the mysteries surrounding a haunted house, how people found their way into the house, and what happens to them, and why it's only every nine years.What makes the story really works for me is the setting – the war raging between the Shaded Way and the Horologists, and how the latter try to protect human beings from the onslaught of those trying to destroy them. While some may be tempted to describe the book as a haunted house story, it is much more than that. It is a mishmash of paranormal, time travel and fantasy, redrawing our idea of good versus evil with the story unfolding in unexpected ways, leaving the reader with a wild guess with its cliffhanger ending.

i hero push myself to finish this one. I had a hard time connecting with this book.Things I liked about this book, it is divided into five individual short stories, each from a different first person narrator. However, David Mitchell managed to get all the characters and their stories together as the novel moved along.Things that did not work for me - On a lot of occasions I felt lost and it felt as if the author was desperately trying to fill pages by being overly descriptive. I couldn't figure out what was real and what wasn't at a lot of points. I was disappointed that it wasn't all that creepy or suspenseful, something I was really craving for.

It just wasn't scary. At all.

Je viens de découvrir David Mitchell avec "Cloud Atlas" et "The Bone Clocks", cet auteur est magique donc je compte bien découvrir tous ses autres romans.

Here’s a funny thing, I would never have considered reading any David Mitchell if it were not for the movie Cloud Atlas, this I watched and enjoyed, so as is often the case I bought the book and read it. Again, this was something I really enjoyed.Somewhat inevitably I was tempted to read some more, and finally got around to it, randomly choosing Slade House. I’m not sure what I was going to think, but for some reason part of me assumed that Mitchell’s work was non-genre, but in fact with the example of this and the aforementioned ‘Cloud Atlas’ nothing could be further from the truth. Slade House is genre, in fact it is so genre that it should be sticking out like a sore thumb. Only it doesn’t.The book is quite short, but the chapters are long, each chapter is set nine years after the last starting in 1979. To begin with it would be easy to believe that the story is well written tale of the modern world, without any fantastical attributes. A young boy is dragged along by his mother to the strangely positioned, but intriguing ‘Slade House.’ She is going there to give a musical recital for its residents and guests, including virtuoso violinist Yehudi Menuhin. Of course, this might be something that appeals to an adult, but to a young lad, especially an odd young lad.Once at the house he is left in the garden with the son of the owner and starts to form a bond, the glimmerings of a friendship, something he has never really known before… and then things go crazy.The ideas on offer are fantastical, brilliant and different. It lends something different to a story that allows it to stand out. There is an element of fantasy involved, but there is more than a feel of horror as well, but due to the very nature of the story it is near impossible to go into detail without delivering a wealth of spoilers.It might be that part of the appeal to me are the years in which the story is set, Mitchell and myself are of an age, so the times he chooses are ones that he is familiar with, so accordingly I am familiar with. This might give the story a cosiness to me that others, their ages ten years apart from my own might not connect with in the same way. (It’s odd to think that someone only ten years younger than me might find 1979 ‘long ago’). There is something about the writing that reminds me Iain Banks, particularly things like Crow Road and the Wasp Factory.I’d also read recently that Mitchell has stated that most of his writing takes place in the same ‘universe’ and with that in mind I realised there were things that could conceivably tie this in with Cloud Atlas. Of course, whether I would have seen the same things had I not read the above snippet is open to debate.In all, an engaging and enthralling read that I enjoyed immensely.(Also, I have to admit it’s always a thrill when someone uses a real person like Yehudi Menuhin, a logical choice for the story, but on a personal level even better because I am/was related to him)

Anything David Mitchell is amazing, at least so far in my opinion. However, this is slightly different as it is his first foray into the "literary, scary fairytale" genre. Because this genre is prone to spoilers, I won't say much. I recommend it if you are into an interesting story, a little spooky, with a number of interesting characters. Mitchell is a master of the language, so it will be better written than most things like it. Also, this story ranges over several decades and about a dozen characters, but because Mitchell's work can span centuries and contain 100s of characters (seriously), everything is easy to understand, and comes together nicely at the end.If you are a Mitchell fan, this is an interesting, relatively easy entry into a new genre. If you like spooky tales, this is a good one, that unfolds slowly, so it'll keep you interested. If you just like good books, it's worth it. Highly recommended.

David Mitchell lançou SLADE HOUSE cerca de um ano depois de seu gigantesco The Bone Clocks. Logo ele, que leva anos para escrever um livro – em outras palavras, ele deve ter se divertido muito escrevendo, e a diversão está toda lá impressa no romance (aliás, fino, para os padrões dele). Há um quê de Neil Gaiman-ish aqui, também Stephen King, Shirley Jackson, e qualquer outra casa assombrada que conhecemos, mas há também as ansiedades que se concretizam na obra de Mitchell.A maior delas é a percepção do tempo, ou de como ações do presentes nasceram no passado, e podem atravessar séculos, continentes até se materializar numa outra forma (Cf. The Cloud Atlas, que acaba de ser lançado aqui, como Atlas de Nuvens). Slade House se passa em 5 momentos entre 1979 e 2015, com intervalos de 9 anos – tudo se explica e faz sentido até o final – numa estranha casa nos subúrbio de Londres, cenário de estranhos fenômenos sobrenaturais.Mitchell constrói a narrativa com sua calma comum, lançando pistas (reais e falsas), e se aprofundando em seus personagens. O resultado é um passeio de montanha russa que passa pelo Overlook Hotel, pela Hill House e a Belasco House (do romance Hell House, de Richard Matheson), ou qualquer outro lugar onde esses fenômenos aconteçam. Já o humor, também típico do autor, é uma bem-vinda adição ao gênero.Outra constante nos livros do autor é a intertextualidade e suas referências pop, passando aqui não apenas pelos clássicos do terror – que inclui além dos já citados, The turn of the screw, The fall of the house of Usher – até obras mais modernas, como Matrix, O Show de Truman e Harry Potter, e a própria bibliografia do autor.

An enjoyable read from one of the best writers around. He channels Steven King here a bit which is not a bad thing.