GRACE BOOK CLUB
Every Monday, Grace reviews a book by a woman writing literary prose.
The End of Mr. Y by Scarlett Thomas
An atmospheric concoction of mystery and science, as well as a ranging philosophical mind-walk, Great Britain’s Scarlett Thomas has written a compulsively readable second novel. The End of Mr. Y is a book that explores big ideas at a life-or-death clip. Ariel Manto, working on a PhD in English on nineteenth-century thought experiments, reads a cursed book, swallows a homeopathic tincture, and is transported to the Troposphere. Ariel is an intriguingly flawed narrator with her share of emotional and sexual hang-ups, but she’s a completely liberated force intellectually. The premise of the book is fantastical: the Trophosphere is a Wonderland, a veritable trip down the rabbit hole, where Ariel encounters the trippy fabrications of her own psyche as well as the ability to travel through space and time via other people’s minds. Thomas keeps her eye on the flow of the narrative and plays with the twists and turns of the adventure-mystery while managing to fit in a satisfying love story, a primer on the history of thought, and a comment on the dance into the obscure that is graduate school. An obsessive, playful, and suspenseful read bolstered with expressive and imaginative language, The End of Mr. Y is a wonderful escape from the ordinary.