C

** spoiler alert ** Readers' responses seem to hinge on whether they find it possible to like the main character, or for that matter even to believe in him. I don't think you are expected to like or be particularly engaged by Serge Carrefax, but merely to find him interesting. Readers should approach him the way he approaches his life from which he is detached but curious, obsessed by the codes and transmissions he senses connecting the world. He could be either a parody or the paradigm of the well-funded English eccentric and possible genius. He sees the world as an immense pattern and is intrigued by each new technology or system that can add to his knowledge, but he will ultimately die because he doesn't have the commonsense to have a doctor look at a bug bite he's received in a freshly excavated Egyptian tomb. He has a fascinating childhood on a dreamlike estate in England. He not only survives but enjoys WWI, lives as a drug-addicted bohemian among showgirls and criminals in London in the 20's, cleans himself up and gets posted to Egypt, where his vaguely defined job involves setting up transmission towers for the British government. But of course nothing shows any signs of ever getting done in this world of disinterested and incompetent bureaucrats.

C is great fun to read but there is often the nagging sense that it is not really going anywhere. But that seems to be McCarthy's technique. He builds an elaborate structure of connections that at any one time is about to give his protagonist the all-encompassing vision he appears to be searching for. But it will never come together, perhaps it never can come together, and perhaps Serge is simply confused and looking for the wrong thing the entire time. McCarthy's previous novel, Remainder ended with the protagonist circling London in a small aircraft that will soon run out of gas..Serge's final fever dreams reveal nothing but tremendous complexities into which he will disappear.