Christos Tsiolkas's The Slap has been popular for a while, has already won a Commonwealth award, has garnered plenty of reviews. It did not make it to the Man Booker 2010 shortlist. But, here are a couple of interesting reviews of the book:
One, from the Guardian, is neutral, throwing in guarded praise, yet sharing enough of the story and its premise to let the reader decide if The Slap might be worth her time
The premise is this: an obnoxious child does something faintly threatening at a family barbecue, and the father of the threatened child smacks him. Everyone is so upset by this that the barbecue breaks up in a hurry, and within a day, the parents of the slapped child have the slapper arrested.
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...all the characters in The Slap are touchy, and that seems to be part of Tsiolkas's point – in the Australia of the 21st century, multiculturalism has won. People of all ages, all ethnic groups and all political persuasions are interconnected and intermarried, and, at least some of the time, they just can't handle it. The Slap, which was first published in Australia in 2008 and has since won the Commonwealth prize, is a "way we live now" novel, and it is riveting from beginning to end.
...
the great thing about The Slap is that it cannot be neatly summarised. Tsiolkas uses his premise as a guy-line to stabilise his larger structure, but his real talent is for exploring the inner lives of his eight primary characters, four women and four men, ranging in age from 18 to 70. And each of these characters is a sharp observer of those around him or her, so many more lives are illuminated as well.
The other, from someone who calls himself the Common Reader, is categorical in its dislike of the book
The story is very simple. A barbecue is being held, and when two children are fighting, the father of one of them slaps the other child. The parents of the slapped child are outraged and report the matter to the police.
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What does The Slap say about the human condition? That humans have no capability for self-awareness, that we act entirely to suit ourselves with no thought for others, that we are bound by our upbringing and our native culture and cannot conceive of ways of thinking other than our own, that we are dominated by our physicality, defined by our need for gratification whether through sex or drugs.
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The author seems to hate his characters and has created a set of stereotypes on whom he can vent his spleen – the self-made businessman who goes home and beats up his wife, the drug-taking teenagers, the earth-mother aging hippy who breast-feeds her three-year old, the conference attenders who screw around while high on speed, the drunk neer-do-well with pretensions to be an artist. Its a world populated by cardboard characters who all act so totally predictably.
...
A boy is slapped by another kid's father. The act has repercussions. What happens around this incident in the lives of all the people involved appears to be what the novel is trying to portray. And from the Guardian review, the author uses this premise to explore the way people live if not in the world, atleast in a multicultural melting pot that could be today's Australia or somewhere similar.
Interesting? I think so. Particularly since one reading of the book is literal and another reflective. I did not read any of the other reviews and will give this book a shot.
