The Pesthouse by Jim Crace (2 stars)

The obvious comparison is with McCarthy's The Road, and it isn't a favourable one. Crace writes beautiful prose, but he knows it, and he doesn't feel like he needs a plot. While McCarthy writes emotionally charged, powerful dialogue where sentences speak volumes, Crace writes volumes of internal monologue that speak sentences.

In fact, we're 30% of the way through the novel before Franklin and Margaret find out about the landslide and gas poisoning that will start their journey from the Pesthouse. Yes, character development is important, but Crace goes about it with heavy internal monologue and personal reflection rather than actual interaction between characters.

There are some vaguely realised bad-guys that introduce some conflict, but here's the huge spoiler: nothing happens. Franklin and Margaret go to the coast and then go back again. Sure, you can say it's a journey of discovery, but I felt like my discovery was that I was more interested in everyone else's (the thieves, the priests with the withered arms, the abandoned wives turned to prostitution) story, than Franklin and Margaret's.

I think Crace was attempting some sort of fancy symbology with his pot of mint, but it was just ridiculous in the context of the survival fight-for-your-life story. Perhaps it was supposed to be a symbol of the hope Margaret and Franklin had for their love, but it was very clumsy.

I kept waiting for some grand twist, like the Baptist ark was a spaceship, and the alien Helpless Gentlemen had been responsible for the apocalypse and now needed human labour to construct a means to return to their homeworld. No such luck.

2 stars.