2022 #23: The Prestige (Priest)

 

The Prestige by Christopher Priest
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

It has been awhile since I've read/listened to a literary work that I would describe as "unique", but this warrants it. I'll put out there that I have not seen the film (nor did I know it existed until much later in my listening), and I don't really care to because the audiobook experience was so vivid and complete.

Both the narrative structure and the content are compelling. We first meet a character who at least initially, seems sort of incidental -- Andrew Westley. We know little about him except that he's adopted, a disgruntled journalist, and a recipient of a book written by one of his biological ancestors. Refreshingly, Christopher Priest does not fall on "adoptee" clichés (either positive or negative), and Westley feels he must have a twin brother out there and he wants very much to meet him. This would be a good foundation for a story, but soon we forget that it is even there...for awhile at least.

What follows is a chronicle, in epistolary style, of a feud between two magicians, and one that gives new meaning to the "sins of the fathers..." Each magician gets substantial air time to be centered as the ...protagonist? Tough call. Alfred Borden and Rupert Angier each share details of their childhoods and development of their careers as magicians, as well as their complex perspectives that inform their actions and reactions in their feud with each other. Admittedly, some of the descriptions of certain illusions contained so much detail that my attention started to drift, but the detail, particularly in the case of Angier's narrative is actually where the devil is. We shall leave it at that.

This truly was an experience--I got lost in the story and forgot why it started. Of course the book returns to where it began, with Andrew (and the Lady Katherine...Angier). Just when I felt like it was enough to bear witness to the lives of Alfred Borden and Rupert Angier, Priest throws in...not a twist per se, but takes us where we might not wanted to have gone. Simon Vance's narration is excellent-- expressing nuances of jealousy, concern, regret, and fear, spread over several characters. Ultimately it is a story about hubris and ambition, but also about love and vulnerability. And on top of all that, a good-old-fashioned mystery--not so much a "whodunnit" but more of a "whodunwhat".

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