The Notable Brain of Maximilian Ponder is the first book of the British author John Ironmonger. Reading it was an enjoyable journey because it is highly interesting and excellent. I can even say that it was perfect, especially it is his first novel.
It attracts enough attention because of its subject, and a great book has emerged with the author’s immersive narration and amazing characters. While reading the book, I kept thinking about how much unnecessary things I knew and when I could use this garbage information. How many years would it take if I tried to catalogue my brain? Did you ever think about it? This book will make you think about it and many other exciting subjects. Enjoy.
The Notable Brain of Maximilian Ponder
‘Maximilian Ponder is lying face up, dead, on the dining table in his own front room. This is something you really should know, right from the start.
‘Max would also have wanted you to know that this is a Henri II style, French, walnut extending dining table, standing on solid turned legs with fretwork decor to the middle, also with ebony and sandalwood inlay, designed by the French furniture maker Nicolas Rastin and probably dating from around 1900 …’
Maximilian Ponder shut himself away for thirty years in an attempt to record every memory he ever had. Now he lies dead, surrounded by his magnum opus – The Catalogue – an exhaustive set of notebooks and so journals that he hopes will form the map of one human mind. But before his friend Adam Last can call the police and inform them of Max’s death, one rather gruesome task remains in order for Max’s project to be complete.
Interspersed with sections from The Catalogue, Adam tells the story of the man he knew – a man whose life changed dramatically the day so he buried a dead labrador and fought a duel with his father. What emerges is both the story of a friendship, and also of a lifelong obsession, a quest to understand the human mind, memory and what constitutes a life.
John Ironmonger
John Ironmonger, also published as J. W. Ironmonger, is a British writer and literary novelist whose debut novel was shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award in 2012. His works have been translated into seven languages.
Reading this book contributed to these challenges:
