Book Review: "Shy" by Max Porter

“He smells of pond. Everything smells of pond. He feels like he could sniff his way into individual microbes, earthy worming growgreen liquid stink, newts and shoots, silty, fruity, and as he walks he gathers in the smell of dry leaves, crinkly things, brown oily smells, good rot, herby hydro deep woodlousey sticky mushroom smells, things turning, things that go on smelling this way whether or not a wet teenager is here to smell them. He is all sense. He isn't having any thoughts, he's all smell and shadows and ruined trainers, a frighteningly awake sleep creature sloshing along.”

- Shy by Max Porter

I have to admit that when it comes to Max Porter, I am more familiar with the magnum opus Grief is the Thing with Feathers than I am with any of his other works. Online I have seen that there are many people who cannot stand the way he writes because of his post-modern structures, his interwoven narratives and high-intensity emotive passages. But honestly, I think this is what makes reading Max Porter different, highly unusual but in the end, terrific. There is something about his books that when you read them, you can almost feel the characters through the page and, as with Grief is the Thing with Feathers, we can definitely find out whether the character feels anger or happiness, joy or depression just by the tone used on the page - we don't even need a named emotion. I would call that an achievement.

Shy is about a boy who goes to a school called the Last Chance School and it is filled with delinquents and screw-ups just like himself. Many of the teachers there are just trying to do the best they can with what they have. Though the characters are interesting, none are more interesting than Shy himself. There is a story beneath and the way it weaves between the mental nightmares and escapades of the main character and then back again is somewhat disjointed and highly accurate of the experience of being a teenager. Nothing is clear, everything is wrong and more importantly, nothing is actually real but feels like it is.

My favourite part of this whole narrative is where we see Shy getting those weird nightmares, or rather, night terrors. He sees things that aren't there, he is between wakefulness and sleep (for those of us who suffer with sleep paralysis, this is a highly terrifying affair) and he cannot scream though he feels like he should be. He tries to let it out until it starts resounding all over the house. A scream so loud his mother comes to his aid to give him a hug and throughout the entire ordeal, this is one of the only times we see true affection in the book. But it tells us a lot about what it means to be a lonely teenaged boy in the times that Shy is living in.

Another part I enjoyed is when we have those 'shouting parts'. I don't want to say too much out of fear of giving away the entire thing but they are written in an odd way which definitely makes you feel like someone is shouting. We get a break from the usual prose/poetry of Max Porter and an entrance into a more play-like script which runs off the tongue like a dialogue that is supposed to be thought rather than spoken. But I bet that you cannot think of those lines quietly. No matter how you read them they will ring in your skull like shouts. You will know the exact lines I am talking about when you come to them.

All in all though the book was short, I am glad I read it. There are tons of experiences to learn about, though there is an abnormal amount of references to drugs which is not as universal as the author might thing - it is still a compelling read. I found it to be one of those post-modern books that doesn't take itself too seriously, it is highly readable and massively entertaining. Max Porter is really coming into his own and trying to beat the success of Grief is the Thing with Feathers. It might be possible with this new book.