I decided to pick up this book because the cover is astounding and, in combination with the title, it really drew me in. Unfortunately, at about 26% of the book I decided to DNF it. It just isn't for me, or at least not in this very moment. I found the plot quite interesting, and I do like the idea of a grown man who decides to pick up and go on a 'self discovery journey' to understand who he is and what is happening to him. And I am still curious to see what will happen. But the writing style made every page seem like we were on the verge of something, and then nothing actually happened. This made the book a too slow for me. I am giving it three stars anyways, because I think the idea of the plot, for what I have read, is extremely interesting.

How to Make a Bomb was initially published last year in the US under the somewhat less provocative title Dartmouth Park. It’s a short novel, written in a sparse poetic style, eschewing paragraphs in favour of short sentences with line breaks and limited punctuation. Its focus is the fifty-year-old London-based historian Philip Notman, who is thrown into a deep personal crisis following a trip to a conference in Bergen. On his return he begins to struggle to pick up with his everyday life, and abandons his wife and (adult) son to head off in search of… something. Initially it seems that that something may be an affair, with the captivating Ines, who he met at the Bergen conference and initially seeks out in Cadiz. Yet relatively soon he is on the move again, this time to Crete to spend time in the dilapidated house of an older couple he helped out in Spain. He arrives seeking fulfillment of a different kind, away from the noise of modern life, and is further tempted by the allure of religion on a visit to a monastery. When all of this ultimately fails to resolve his issues, he heads back to London with a new sense of purpose, and a rather disturbing mission.

This is a typically beautifully written and intriguing novel from Thomson. In its early phases it seems (formal presentation aside) like a relatively conventional, if beguiling, account of a man’s midlife crisis, with the expectation that Philip will find (or at least seek to find) some form of fulfillment in the arms of an alluring ‘other woman’. Its title hangs over this reading though, offering a sense that there’s more to this than meets the eye (something that I think significantly increases the tension and stakes of these early pages, and would have been missed if the UK publishers had gone with the US titling). Regardless, I enjoyed these pages a lot, in spite of their seemingly conventional themes. Ines is so magnetically rendered (in relatively few words) that it comes as a shock to us (much as it does to her) when Philip blurts out that he ‘doesn’t want anything from her’. We also learn about Philip’s initial ‘courting’ of his now-abandoned wife Anya, a hard-fought chase he won (against a soldier, no less, a fact which still seems to make him rather smug!) and a further source of intrigue for the reader, who is left to wonder what exactly it is that draws these captivating female characters to the perpetually unsatisfied (and rather drab seeming) Mr Notman, and what exactly is the source of his despair at his apparently charmed life.

Like the last advance novel I covered, Caledonian Road, this book features a middle-aged member of London’s academic class having some sort of existential crisis. While far less ‘on the nose’ (at least for the most part) than O’Hagan’s book, How to Make a Bomb is again obviously focused on the role of the modern man in a changing world. In this case, Notman (a deliberately apposite name, and not just for the punning fun it offers late in the novel) develops a sense of alienation, which he ultimately pins down as (a fairly nebulously defined) rejection of the capitalist system but seems also to lie in a form of emasculation. His travels in the book amount to a kind of quest to find a new sense of purpose (as a man?), though none of his actions give him the redemption he seems to be seeking. Through the novel he demonstrates random acts of kindness (helping an elderly man after a fall, contributing to putting out a wildfire in Crete, and supporting a homeless girl in London) yet despite some positive impact, he remains unfulfilled and seems determined to find ever-wilder (yet still somehow highly cliched) solutions to his problems, culminating in the book’s ambiguous and somewhat silly conclusion, which does (or perhaps does not) deliver on the book’s new title. At a couple of points in the book, Don Quixote is evoked, and Notman certainly does at points seem like a man tilting at windmills.

It’s a book that asks many more questions than it answers, mostly pivoting around our interpretation of its central character. He’s not entirely unsympathetic, and his eventual stated belief system, while entirely unoriginal, does have merit in its questioning of the evident ills of late capitalism. Yet at the same time, he’s obviously a version of the very archetypal mid-life-crisis-man, who has abandoned both his cushy life and his attendant responsibilities to go off in search of some sort of ‘meaning’. At many points he demonstrates good intentions but he’s almost entirely blind to the impact of his actions on other people. He lives more in his imagination than reality, with increasingly long sections devoted to his projections of what he thinks likely to happen as a result of his decisions - almost all focused on the impact on him rather than on others. These challenges of interpretation are briefly touched on in the novel’s final pages, which while more dramatic and action-packed than the rest of the novel, are ultimately a little bit of a disappointment. We’re left pondering not only what to make of the strange ‘civilisation sick’ Notman, but also questioning the reality of some of the events he has previously presented to us as fact.
Overall, it’s a small book which asks some very big questions. It’s for the most part masterfully written and is a compelling read throughout. Its ending takes things in surprising and in some senses unsatisfactory directions, but it’s still a worthy addition to a great (and still underrated) writer’s extensive and varied catalogue.
(8/10)

I enjoyed the first three quarters of this a lot but the ending part less. The best parts were about the protagonist's relationships with his son, his wife and with the Spanish woman he makes a connection with.

It's become a cliché among many of the kinds of people who comment on these kinds of things that Rupert Thomson's novels are all wildly different, underrated and/or unjustly ignored. Perhaps the attention-grabbing title of How to Make a Bomb is an attempt to counter this. Although better than the unhelpful US title (Dartmouth Park), it's also rather misleading, as this is a characteristically subtle, thoughtful book, which brings together something resembling a mid-life crisis with the wider crises we face as a species and a planet. Like many of Thomson's novels it travels well, from Norway to London via Cádiz and Crete, as the central figure, Philip Notman (the name is significant) attempts to make sense of the sudden, and literal, nausea ("civilisation sickness" as it is known in Japan) which he feels at the world. As ever with Thomson, there is wisdom, humour and insight here and the form of the novel - made up of fairly short sentences separated into paragraphs without full stops - reflects and powerfully conveys Philip's disorientation and hesitations. Another very good novel from Thomson, which ought to receive the attention and praise all his work deserves.

First published in the US under the title Dartmouth Park, it has been given a much more provocative title here in the UK. Rupert Thomson has been working for a long time now - this is his 14th novel - and though he has been on my radar for some time, this is my first taste of his work.

Written in the style of an epic poem - with shades of Nobel Laureate of 2023 Jon Fosse's style in his Septology (I read that work a month before this so the echoes may be more pronounced in my mind). It is a distinct style that you have to accept and settle in with if you're to get along with this book. This is not a criticism, and shouldn't be taken as off-putting, because it isn't, it's just a little more unique.

I read the novel over two sittings, and found it very immersive, fascinating and brilliant at times. It is the story of a mid-life crisis of an academic - Philip Notman - and the things that happen to him, distract him and send him off into the world. The story then isn't unique, we've read this a dozen or more times before - but it is in the presentation, and Thomson's style here is what makes the novel bring dividends.

It is also a novel which has made me keen to try more of his back catalogue, so I would call this a success.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for the ARC.