Under the Skin is the second book I read by Michel Faber after The Courage Consort, and it will not be the last. I can say that I have seen the exciting world of the author much better with Under The Skin. Michel Faber, one of the authors who forces people to get lost in his world as they read. Even if you hesitate, you cannot stay away.
Under the Skin is a book full of surprises. You feel that things are getting bigger and bigger, getting ready to explode, but you are not sure exactly. Then little clues appear, and you can finally make a definitive judgment. But let me point out, Michel Faber is not an author who is concerned about the reader.
The book also takes all its beauty from the mystery that it revolves around. Although this mystery does not appear immediately, it makes us feel that it is a beautiful thing to wait. Isserley is one of the most compelling characters I’ve read recently. Since it is a bit difficult to talk about the book without giving spoilers, I will say this: read this book. If you haven’t seen the movie, please don’t watch it and read the book first. Afterwards, it will be an enjoyable and “interesting” experience to see how the characters you portrayed in your mind end up. Enjoy!
Under The Skin
Isserley picks up hitchhikers with big muscles. She, herself, is tiny-like a kid peering up over the steering wheel. She has a remarkable face and wears the thickest corrective lenses anyone has ever seen. Her posture is suggestive of some spinal problem. Her breasts are perfect; perhaps implants. She is strangely erotic yet somehow grotesque, vulnerable yet threatening. Her hitchhikers are a mixed bunch of men-trailer trash and travelling postgrads, thugs and philosophers.
But Isserley is only interested in whether they have families and whether they have muscles. Then, it’s only a question of how long she can endure her pain–physical and spiritual–and their conversation. Michel Faber’s work has been described as a combination of Roald Dahl and Franz Kafka, as Somerset Maugham shacking up with Ian McEwan. At once humane and horrifying, Under the Skin takes us on a heart-thumping ride through dangerous territory – our own moral instincts and the boundaries of compassion.
Michel Faber
Michel Faber is a Dutch-born writer of English-language fiction, including his 2002 novel The Crimson Petal and the White. His latest book is a novel for young adults, D: A Tale of Two Worlds, coming out in late 2020
Reading this book contributed to these challenges:
