The Prestige by Christopher Priest

[louiselux]

I'm going to see the film on Thursday, which from what I can tell seems to have made quite a few changes to the novel. Anyway, various people have been telling me for years that I would like the The Prestige if I read it, so I finally took it down off the shelf. Here's some notes, before it all drains from my memory in time honoured fashion:

The first few section was so slow I began to wonder why I was still reading, but I didn't want to put it down partly because I'd finally gone to the trouble of picking it up, and then things got weird. For Alfred Borden's double sets of notes I was thinking of shcizophrenia, not twins. I used to go out with a magician and one of the things he always used to say about working out how tricks were done was that you had to think of the logical way. Woman sawn in half and separated: those aren't her legs. They are currently bent backwards underneath her in a very uncomfortable fashion... a bit like the plot.

In that sense the whole story was a trick and I felt a bit like a lurking member of the audience, trying to spot the misdirection (and not suceeding very well, I have to admit). The effect of the book went: this is slow... this is slow... this is weird... this is really weird... this is aaaaaaagh!

The prestiges. I knew something very bad and wrong was up when Rupert Angier first mentioned the 'prestige materials'.

There had to be something like that, but I was genuinely taken aback by the idea that they had all remained perfectly perserved and even now I'm not sure why that had happened, as it's never explained.

Also, I have no idea what Andrew could do with Nicholas, maybe have him sitting around the place like some appalling ventriloquist's dummy. So, to sum up, I'm assuming that Rupert Angier transported himself back into his own dead body, came back to some kind of life and took up residence back at the Hall, and was still living there all those decades later when Andrew arrives. I did wonder for a while if Katherine's father was Rupert. There is a horrible sort of misery to the ending and the mirroring of Andrew and Rupert's fates, both stuck with versions of themselves that are alive yet not at the same time.

But yes, I do wonder how they've made it into a film.

Comments

[grendelity.livejournal.com]

...That sounds very confusing. I saw The Prestige last week, and I really liked it. Kind of a mind trip, but the book looks more confusing. Hugh Jackman was surprisingly good; I almost didn't recognize him without his Wolverine sideburns. XD




_{Though the overwhelming message to it all seemed to be, "Never piss off a magician." Fuckers're mean.}

[louiselux.livejournal.com]

I have a feeling that the film is quite a lot different to the book, but I won't ask as I've yet to see it.

[coffeeandink.livejournal.com]

I did wonder for a while if Katherine's father was Rupert.

You too?

[louiselux.livejournal.com]

I even went back and reread a couple of times, but I was not quite convinced as the way her father acts doesn't sound particularly like Rupert. But it would make sense in terms of the feud being kept alive and of him throwing Nicholas into the machine.

[coffeeandink.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's what I thought, and I decided the same; that Angier was projected back into his own half-prestige, and unable to die, and the father was someone different.

[louiselux.livejournal.com]

Yes... although that leaves me with the question of why the father would so want to carry on the feud-- unless he knew that his grandfather was alive and well and camping out in the mausoleum, I suppose.

[daegaer.livejournal.com]

Add me as another wonderer of this! I'm not sure I ever decided, either way.

[louiselux.livejournal.com]

And we do get some clues pointing that way, with Katherine's father disappearing off like that. It feels a bit like a red herring though - also like something that forgot to be cleared up.

[franzeska]

I see that I'm rather late here, but at least I'm not alone. The father's weird personality made me wonder this as much as his disappearance did. Sure, it's nothing like his original personality, but I assumed he'd gone a bit batty.

[elfiepike.livejournal.com]

i--had no idea it was a book! also, i missed the first ten minutes of the movie, so i do, even now, feel like i missed some important bit or other. no, i couldn't figure out why he kept the bodies either, that's just--unnecessarily creepy. XD

[louiselux.livejournal.com]

It is quite creepifying, I have to say.