Lee Rourke's use of repetition here is truly remarkable and at times poetic: the canal itself; the swans; the helicopters; the teenage gang; the office building—the way that he handles each of these images as they grow gradually more complex and intertwined throughout the novel allow the reader to see a governing structural shift from the narrator's passive relation to the outside world to a much more active one.

The Canal is a novel about boredom, and yet it is far from boring. In many ways, this is a chamber drama, and Rourke handles the claustrophobic narrative skillfully and even cinematically—all the more so as this is his first novel, meaning we have major talent on our hands here. The way that boredom is intertwined with so many things—love, terrorism, confession, violence—and is also the root cause of these things is explored with a deft eye toward social critique as well as an unrelenting view of how these external forces shape our own inner psychological states. The Canal is also very much concerned with how isolated modern life causes us to feel, how fractured and fragmented we all are, how subservient to technology and machines, and how this prevents us from forging deeper emotional bonds with others. ( )

Most reviews look to Ballard for parallels with The Canal. There is certainly an awareness present. Some wonky nag keeps Delillo in the picture for my personal response. It is ineffable and likely off-base, but i can't shake it.

The novel began brilliant but elected to not psurrender to its own devices and flanked blindly into something different. Not worse, exactly, but it did feel like a compromise. There is a whisper of Wasp factory in the first person tone. ( )

The narrator of Lee Rourke’s The Canal is bored. It’s not a problem. He finds boredom endlessly fascinating. So much so that he quits his job and sets out to pursue his boredom full time. And the best place for this research, apparently, is a bench adjoining the towpath along Regent’s Canal in London. This particular bench is located near the soundlessly clashing borders of two London boroughs, Hackney and Islington. It is a locale of derelict factories, council estates, youth gangs, and the encroaching transmogrification of the derelict into the highly productive (in the form of offices full of office workers with “snazzy” flat screen monitors) and the inordinately expensive (in the form of posh condos). Sitting on his bench day after day our narrator has a good view of the office workers and the local fauna – coots, Canada geese, and swans. And eventually someone sits down beside him, someone just as bored with everything as he is. And she’s good looking too. Boredom has its perks.

The writing here is very flat. The characters are two-dimensional. And for vast stretches, not a great deal happens. All of which fits well with the premise the narrator establishes at the outset. But it doesn’t really hold one’s attention. A touch boring. So I guess that counts as success.

About two-thirds of the way through my view of the novel changed significantly. I suddenly started thinking of it as much more like a graphic novel, specifically something by Daniel Clowes. If you are familiar with Clowes’ Wilson or his David Boring, then you will be well placed to catch what I think Lee Rourke is up to here. At least for me, thinking of it that way made the novel work much better.

Of course in such a flat, almost motionless, presentation, when action does suddenly emerge it almost cannot fail to come across as explosive, even melodramatic. Which can be a bit of a shock. But not to worry. Things settle down quickly enough and the boredom that the narrator set out with is firmly with him at the end.

It might not be for everyone, but Lee Rourke is undoubtedly a writer to keep tabs on. ( )

A short yet satisfyingly-disorienting narrative that begins with a man who decides he will embrace -rather than resist- his boredom by walking away from his life to sit by the canal every day. From there a curtain of ill-ease descends as he becomes intrigued by a young woman who seems to be sharing his pastime. Momentum builds as something like a plot comes together. Odd, evovcative, wonderfully written fiction. ( )

One way to look at The Canal is: It's awful. And this might be the right way to look at The Canal, because in some ways it really is awful. It's a book about a dullish jerkhole who quits his job to indulge in juvenile philosophizing and also pursue a woman who repeatedly tells him that she is not interested.

But there are other ways to view this novel that are potentially interesting.

For example: The Canal is a very boring novel about boredom. And that's perfect, isn't it? You are forced, by reading the book, to experience the very sensation the protagonist meditates upon so dully (Here is a typical yawner: "It is obvious to me now that most acts of violence are caused by those who are truly bored. And as our world becomes increasingly boring, as the future progresses into a quagmire of nothingness, our world will become increasingly more violent.").

The Canal might be about boredom as receptiveness, as a passive acceptance of chance and chance events. A few other reviews have commented on the fact that, though the book purports to be about boredom, soon after it starts things start happening.

But these events never hook the characters into an actual story; there is repetition, but no development. Characters remain like icebergs, submerged and isolated. The narrator, in particular, is determined to be bored, which also means unengaged.

Rourke also uses his premise as an excuse. He portrays the narrator as an excruciatingly shallow personality who acts without discernable motivation. Much of the book revolves around his obsession with a woman to whom he's only marginally attracted. His attraction persists despite the fact that he finds her character repulsive, and despite her rebuffs he approaches her in increasingly aggressive, creepy, ultimately frightening ways. Why? Because he's bored and boredom leads to violence? Because she's there?

OK, sure, he's an avatar of boredom - hallucinatory, violent, complacent. But what about the other characters? The woman? The street gang? All of the characters may as well be robots running the same program. None of them are even slightly human.

The only times I felt connected to the book were the few moments when random strangers would pop on stage to shout at the narrator: What are you doing! Go away! And I knew that if I were a character in the novel, I'd be one of those people.

Those momentary intrusions suggest that the author has at least a modicum of self-awareness. But even if The Canal was occasionally interesting, I wouldn't call it good. I mean, really. Can any book be good when it fetishizes a woman who mixes blood into her paintings and then declares unironically: "I paint because I will one day die. Because I want to die. Because I hate myself. Each time I destroy one of my paintings I am destroying a part of myself. I am a cliché and I like it that way."?

I don't think so.

Note: I received a free electronic copy of The Canal from Edelweiss, in exchange for an honest review. ( )