Hesperides Tree (British Literature) by Nicholas Mosley

Hesperides Tree (British Literature) Reviews

• 
  Adam

  Mosley lived almost forever and published twenty novels; it happens that this one, written as he pushed toward 80 years old, will be the first I’ve read. I intend to read others despite the underwhelming experience with this one, primarily because it did not begin underwhelmingly: a cursory glance suffices to demonstrate Mosley’s perspicacity and a bittersweet jadedness and detachment I find sympathetic. Although our narrator is a twenty-something in search of a soul, the aging Mosley abstains from any lachrymose nostalgia, instead allowing the kid to be too clever by half, whether due to his precociousness or Mosley’s ventriloquism matters little. He is not too improbable a pretext upon whom to build a Bildungsroman, especially one less dedicated to the protagonist’s fledgling efforts to “find himself” (ugh) than to the ideas/concepts/tropes we use to create meaningful parameters/periods/moments in our lives. The novel’s humdrum plot—upon which too much print is wasted—is a sort of necessary disguise for an aphoristic ensemble of genuinely intriguing thoughts on chance, fate, myth, and ultimately subjective agency. Thankfully, Mosley does not elide the complexity involved in situating ourselves somewhere within the whirling before and after of what happens and what we think. He settles for neither the delusional omnipotence of the classical hero who makes his way and discovers who he IS , nor for the specious, fatalistic quiescence of pawn-of-chance bullshit. I look forward to finding out what of this is peculiar to this novel and what else is within Mosley’s métier.
• 
  Lauren Albert

  I love philosophical fiction. I'm not as fond of fictional philosophy. What I mean is that the philosophy should support the story; the story shouldn't just support the philosophy. I gave this three stars instead of two in case I was missing something--like if I was too slow to "get it." But I spent a lot of my time while reading this feeling lost.
• 
  Rob Walter

  Brilliant! There are so few innovative stylists with something interesting to say. Mosley's message might be "I don't know," but he says it like no-one else has.
• 
  Rick Seery

  2.5.
• 
  Henry

  Somehow the mix of metaphysics and a sort of bildungsroman doesn't work here.
  The story takes us on a voyage from England to Ireland, where the
  protagonist finds an island that is supposedly magical. Before that, he has dropped out of uni because science deals with reality and literature also deals with things-as-they-are, instead of being
  a form of idealism. He has had an affair with a lesbian and gotten
  her pregnant but he promises her to look after the child if she will not abort it, in his mother's ramshackle cottage on the coast of Ireland. He falls in love with a beautiful blonde colleen and they
  go to the island where monks had divorced themselves from the real world.
  
• 
  Melissa Schorn

  "And what was time except that which prevents everything happening all at once?"
• 
  Rosa

  I like Mosley's writing style, but was not convinced by his attempt to write from the point of view of a modern-day 18-year-old
• 
  Brett

  Possibly the worst book I've ever finished reading.