What a memorable, frustrating book. I love the idea of a mind-destroying experience spread through words. I love the prose. The sense of place is vivid and not overdone. The characters, though we barely get to know most of them, are a good assortment. And Burgess's voice in describing atrocity and despair (which there's a lot of— seriously, this is not for the faint of heart) is unlike any horror writer I've read: there's a calm, detached quality that would seem totally nihilistic if it weren't also somehow compassionate and wistfully funny, going out of its way to grant moments of peace and beauty to the doomed characters even if that means digressing from reality; the effect is sort of as if a William Burroughs nightmare were rewritten by Kurt Vonnegut.

But it's incoherent in so many ways— not a consistent or developing incoherence that would fit with the theme, but just a general pattern of not following through on anything— that I felt like the author was mostly playing with ideas and style, without much notion of what he wanted to do with them. In his afterword to the current edition, written after the making of the considerably different Pontypool movie (which I love), Burgess basically says that's what happened; he literally apologizes for the book. I don't need an apology, I'm still glad I read it, even if I could only really enjoy it by looking at it as a series of tiny sketches. ( )

Dear Mrs. Burgess,

As much as it pains me to write this letter, I feel I must. My son, Tobin, has now tried to play with Tony in Pontypool on two occasions, and each time, he came home much earlier than expected because...and these are his words, he "just couldn't stand to be subjected to that stuff anymore."

Now, I'm sure your Tony is a wonderful person, and seems to do very well with other kids, so I'm sure it's more something to do with my son than it is Tony. I have, in fact, had to write similar missives to the mothers of [author:Tom Clancy|3892], [author:Chuck Palahniuk|2546], and most recently, [author:Nick Cutter|6984661] (who is, by the way, the nicest person, but my son simply cannot bear to have a play date with him anymore).

You may be wondering why my son is acting like this. He said he spent about 15 pages with Tony this morning, and in that time, he said, while some interesting stuff happened, for the most part, he claimed that Tony just seemed to go on and on with a lot of "flowery, overblown description" and seemed to refuse to get to the point of anything. I believe his specific term was, "Mom, there was a whole lotta feathers, and not much chicken."

My son always did like Kim Mitchell, though, he hasn't seem much of him lately. Still quotes him occasionally, though.

Anyway, my impression--reading between the lines, you might say--of my son's issue is that he believes Tony is highly intelligent, and quite good at what he does, but what he does is simply not for my son. I know Tobin was supposed to give Tony somewhere between one and five stars after the play date, but because it was aborted, he's decided to not give Tony any stars at all. I hope you understand.

As I said, we'd scheduled a several hours long play date for Tobin and Tony, and, both times, Tobin left within minutes. No hard feelings, but Tobin will not be having any more play dates with Tony.

Signed,

Tobin's mother.

I did not understand this book. Seriously, it made me feel like an idiot. I got around 3/4 of the way through before I finally admitted to myself that this just wasn't working for me and I noped out. ( )

In an afterword to the reissued edition of Pontypool Changes Everything, Burgess says that his novel was a private sketchbook never intended for an audience and it shows. The book begins in something like conventional horror story manner–a contagion is spreading through a small town in rural Ontario, turning ordinary people into carnivorous zombies. This contagion somehow transmits through language itself, so first manifests as aphasia and babbling before the more familiar face-chomping ensues. Though you get the impression it may just be an extended riff on the phrase "language is a virus", the hook is compelling, and there are some effective early scenes told from the point of view of the newly infected as they struggle to find the right word. The central character of this part is a drama teacher who has suffered from paranoid schizophrenia in the past. Pontypool Changes Everything isn't so lame as to suggest the catastrophe all in his head, but does hint intriguingly at what it would be like to see your schizophrenic delusions come true.

Unfortunately, hint intriguingly is about all Pontypool Changes Everything does. The vague semblance of a plot in the first half becomes completely disjointed and surreal in the second. There are periodic splashes of zombie gore and mayhem to keep your attention, but it's all so abstract that the genre's other elements–the desperate survivalism and social decay–never get a chance to land. By the time you get to the incestuous brother and sister feral children who themselves subsist on the flesh of cannibal zombies, and the sister has a baby that gnaws through its own umbilical cord and then tears off screaming into the night, it's all become a bit of a slog. At the end the compelling ideas about language are abandoned and the only narrative motion "Pontypool Changes Everything" has is the decay of its own coherence. Charitably, you might say that the book itself has become infected with a language virus, but I don't think this was on purpose. I think it's just a mess.

Despite it all, I'd like to read something else by Tony Burgess. Pontypool Changes Everything left me with the impression that he is a good writer. There are compelling images sprinkled amid the general haze. About midway through the book is a segment told in the second person about a homeless drug addict drifting through a hospital in Vancouver that has no apparent connection to the zombies in Ontario, but makes for a good short story on its own. I'm sure most writers have desk drawers full of stuff worse than this. Burgess's only mistake was to let somebody else see it.

Fortunately, they made a movie out of this book. 2009's Pontypool is a taut, claustrophobic thriller that–aside from the zombie premise and a couple characters' names–bears absolutely no resemblance to the novel on which it is nominally based. The movie is swift and effective, and keeps the interesting ideas about language front and center. The novel was a rough draft. The film is the finished product. ( )

Superbly bonkers zombie horror

"It gestates in the deep structures prior to language. Or, at least, simultaneous with language. In the very primal structure that organizes us as differentiated, discontinuous copies of each other. The virus probably enters, in fact, among paradigmatic arrangements. And then, almost instantly, the virus appears in a concept of itself. This causes all sorts of havoc."

It a delicious premise: a language virus that its 1st symptoms are manic déjà vu and aphasia followed by the revenge of cannibalism. This book is in some respects jaw droppingly brilliant, gob smackingly horrific (yes my mouth was open) and book throwingly frustrating (yes that IS a verb). Burgess doesn't want to concentrate on one story, oh no, and he will dash off into future musings, surrealist asides and whip up the odd chapter of meta fiction in and then kill everyone off (err.. probably) and start again. A bit like this review which I have only started to write 10 times..

But look don't be put off because it’s not too insane, or disjointed it does manage to depict an overarching story of the slowly unfolding apocalypse.

Split into two halves, the 1st is more focused, taking its time and setting the scene. Fewer characters, a tighter plot and hair pricking horror moments make this my favourite part of the book though it soon touches on some wacky (and fun) literary experiments. It also contains my favourite character a barely sane anyway, a recovering schizophrenic who has seen all this before and just goes to find his son. Madness Vs Zombies.. Brilliant. The second part zooms out not only with people but also in tone. So shift from sleazy TV host Grant Mazzy, the soon to be zombie teenager (and his guardian angel) and then to red neck survival horror (truly ugh!).

This chaos is just part of the fun, frustrating but it allows many ideas and arresting vignettes. Every time I look for a quote I keep rereading the damn thing. From the dying view of a zombie to horrifying last moments of an old couple hiding under the bed this an unforgettable book.

"And so, now that I have been asked to write this afterword, I realize it has to be an apology, not for the book, which can't be helped, but for the fact that I was unfaithful to its first virtue: I have asked you to read it, and now, sitting here at the end, I am telling you that it might be a mistake that you did"

Ignore the author, what does he know? A must for horror fans and lovers of the strange and experimental. Those who are squeamish or require an a straight plot should steer clear, everyone else it’s going to be a 50/50 chance of love/hate. ( )