Ever since first reading Lanny by Max Porter, I have been in awe. That little book had so much power that after these four years, I still think of it as one of the best books I have ever read. I haven't taken my eye off Porter's work since, and I had been looking forward to his latest, Shy, ever since its publication was first announced.
But what can I say that I haven't said before? For the sake of literature, I will write my thoughts again: that Porter is brilliant, outrageously clever, creative and powerful. To me, he is one of the most vital and masterful contemporary writers.
Like his other works, Shy is a short book of 122 pages. It is a snippet of a few hours in the life of a teenage boy: we are dropped into the plot sort of in medias res, but we know where we are from the first few pages. 'The night is huge and it hurts'. There, in summary, is the plot, but in Porter's case I always find it to be just one element on equal standing with so many others.
Reading Shy is like listening to a piece of music. The author has a sense of pace like that of a conductor, and the writing quickens and slows like waves cresting and falling. This is why I believe Shy, and the rest of Porter's oeuvre, is best enjoyed in one sitting – because like his other works, every word, thought and section is carefully placed. Some pages have to be turned fast. Others read and reread. Did I register that sentence or word? And if not for the sake of the plot, did I register just how brilliantly written it is? I know of no other writer who places this much emphasis on making sure nothing is accidental. Nothing, not a single word, is superfluous.
And the language! Please, allow me to quote this paragraph that stopped me in my tracks:
"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 mushroomy 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."
The musicality of the language throughout is amazing, and though the book reads at a pace like a stream of consciousness, when observed closely it feels too beautiful, too carefully placed for that. What's left out speaks as loudly as what's in. Scenes shift like dreams, reality mixes with imagination. Locations ripped from under our feet like a rug, feeling like a lucid dream. This is fiction at its absolute finest.
Less so than in Lanny, but there is some boundary-pushing formatting in this too, and rather than disrupting the flow, it elevates it to a completely different level. It is unexpected, and it is brilliant.
Because I'm already a convert, I find it hard to imagine what it is like, coming to Max Porter's work from the outside. Perhaps, like I was, you're suspicious, or confused, or unsure. I hope I didn't give the impression that his books are high-brow, or difficult to follow: quite the opposite. It is deceptively easy to read Porter's books, which is why I'll often read them more than once. Shy too is short, exciting, sorrowful, very readable; and once you've got that out of the way, it is a piece of art with layer after layer to be peeled back.
If you want my advice, it would be a mistake not to read Max Porter.
