The Raw Shark Texts is one of those books that I would like to unpick and dissect, and probably the next time I read it, I will (it's already largely laid out in my mind, but I'm honest enough to admit that if I can't easily transfer it from that inchoate state onto the page, then I probably don't have as complete a grasp of it as I might intuitively think). Suffice to say that it's dead clever - pacy and erudite and tricky and emotionally rich (at its heart, a love story)...it comes as no surprise that Hall thanks, amongst others, Ali Smith, Scarlett Thomas and David Mitchell, all youngish and hip, sharp-enough-to-cut-you ideas-weavers cum story-tellers with a fondness for intellectual digressions and action set pieces (all Brits too, with the possible exception of Mitchell, who may be Canadian?); also, all (including Hall) frequently give me the sense that they've stolen my moves when I read them (Hall's debt to Murakami is also quite explicit)...if this is some kind of new literary sub-movement, I'm all for it.
In lieu of actual exegesis, this is what the text(s) is about:
The animal hunting you is a Ludovician. It is an example of one of the many species of purely conceptual fish which swim in the flows of human interaction and the tides of cause and effect. This may sound like madness, but it isn't. The streams, currents and rivers of human knowledge, experience and communication which have grown throughout our short history are now a vast, rich and bountiful environment. Why should we expect these flows to be sterile?
...
The Ludovician is a predator, a shark. It feeds on human memories and the intrinsic sense of self. Ludovicians are solitary, fiercely territorial and methodical hunters. A Ludovician might select an individual human being as its prey animal and pursue and feed on that individual over the course of years, until that victim's memory and identiy have been completely consumed.
(and much more)
Did I mention that it's really damn good? Like really, really good.
