When you think of previous books by Mark Haddon, ancient Greece doesn't instantly spring to mind.

So you start this book and it jumps along quite normally, then wham, it is the story of Pericles! Very, very odd but actually quite clever.

Yes, there are a few oddities thrown in along the way but it is worth a read. A brave release, which won't be to everybody's taste but I would say you won't know if you don't try!

I did not really enjoy this as for me there was no real core plot.
The storyline jumps around with a variety of stems of plots.
For me it just did not flow.
Thank you to both NetGalley and Random House uk for my eARC in exchange for my honest unbiased review

I enjoyed this book as much for the research it prompted me to do into the story of Pericles of Tyre in its various permutations as for reading the different strands Mark Haddon weaves together here. The opening chapters about Angelica, her father and her would-be suitor Darius catch the attention straightaway but this strand is overwhelmed by the larger story, leaving me with the feeling (as I think the author intended) that the bulk of the book is a figment of one of the characters’ imagination. Cleverly done and wholly engrossing - I was wondering throughout when and how the stories would converge again.

A bit of a romp, fast paced and entertaining, despite some gory moments, I’d have no hesitation recommending to fans of mythology retold in more than one setting and time frame. There is plenty of this kind of fiction around these days and this book stands up well with others I have read of this type.

This is a retelling of Pericles, Prince of Tyre, the play which Shakespeare collaborated with George Wilkins. It opens with a young glamorous and very pregnant film star dying in an air crash but being delivered of a daughter before she dies. The bereaved husband and father looks after the girl but starts to sexually abuse her. As she gets older a suitor guesses at the abuse and the father sends an assassin to silence him. He escapes and sails away on the Porpoise and as they cross the Bay of Biscay they morph into the Greek legend. Will and George make cameo appearances. The Greek legend follows the story of Pericles fairly closely, the modern story comes to a darker conclusion. Whatever you were expecting after The Curious Incident, it probably wasn't this, but its a terrific read..

This is a terrific book; one minute you think you are reading a gripping drama of sexual exploitation and the very rich and, wham! the next minute you are living out the story in a parallel world in ancient Greece. Both intertwining stories are rich and compelling and leave you with a considerable appetite for more from this original author.

My only experience of Mark Haddon’s work had previously been The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time, and on that basis this was not at all what I was expecting. This is primarily a retelling of the Pericles story through various strands spanning from the contemporary age to Ancient Greece via Elizabethan England.

The novel is prefaced by quotes implying an incestuous father-daughter relationship, and this is what drives the various narrative strands. In the Pericles story, his ability to guess at an incestuous relationship between Apollonius and his daughter is the start of a lifetime of wandering to escape the assassins sent by Apollonius to silence him.

The opening pages of The Porpoise are as immediately gripping as the start of Ian McEwan’s Enduring Love, with the same relentless drive of fate and the same sense of horror at the inevitability of a catastrophic event. This event results in a traumatic birth and a little girl left motherless, to be brought up by her millionaire father Philippe in isolation. As Angelica fills her mother’s place in his mind, he also begins to abuse her sexually, securely hidden away from the world in his fortified mansion with his bodyguard to keep the world at bay. This bubble is penetrated by his art dealer Darius, and his daughter takes her one chance to tell someone what’s going on. Darius leaves with a promise to return, but with the sinister bodyguard on his tail he is prevented from coming back to rescue Angelica. He makes his escape on a sailing boat called the Porpoise, and somewhere on the journey he morphs into Pericles, going back in time, but this is not enough to help him escape his fate.

Much of the rest of the story focuses on Pericles. He has various close encounters with the killers Apollonius has following him, meets the beautiful Chloe whom he marries and loses in childbirth, abandons his infant daughter to be brought up by his brother and jealous sister-in-law, and goes through his life journeying anonymously, to perhaps end with a new beginning. This strand is interspersed with returns to the sad decline of Angelica as she awaits a rescue that never materialises. And, very oddly indeed, there are a couple of scenes featuring George Wilkins, William Shakespeare’s suspected co-author on the play Pericles, Prince of Tyre, dying and being guided on the first part of his journey to the next life by the ghost of Shakespeare himself.

So it’s safe to say that this novel is an odd mix, and it provoked mixed reactions in me. I was gripped by the opening, soon uncomfortable with the incest/sexual abuse storyline, then completely absorbed by the Ancient Greek storyline. The interjections with Shakespeare and the contemporary Anjelica storyline became unwelcome distractions, because they came to feel increasingly less related to the plot and more like artificial alienating devices. In both the Pericles and Philippe strands, the incest is purely a plot device to drive Darius’/Pericles’ wandering, and this felt reductive and unjust to Angelica’s character. The end for Philippe and Angelica feels clumsy, Shakespearean in its tragedy but also in its sense of ‘let’s bring this to a close now’.

I think this would have worked better as a straight reworking of the Pericles story, in the vein of Pat Barker’s Silence of the Girls, or Madeline Miller’s Song of Achilles and Circe. But that’s not to say it isn’t enjoyable - it is, very much so, and I read it quite compulsively. There simply seems to be little point to the contemporary and Elizabethan interjections, which felt increasingly like annoying postmodern distractions which added little or no depth to the Ancient Greek story of Pericles. Ignore them though, and you are left with another in the current series of gripping retellings of Ancient Greek tales by fine authors. As far as I’m concerned there can never be too many of those.

I usually really enjoy Mark Haddon books but ‘The Porpoise’ was a real struggle.
I found it really hard to get into but I was determined to get through it and I did eventually finish reading. However, it wasn’t an enjoyable experience. The topics of incest and child abuse made this a disturbing read too.
I really wanted to like this book but sadly I didn’t.
A generous 3 stars from me.

A difficult read! Having enjoyed all of Mark Haddon's books I was looking forward to reading this one. Unfortunately it was not what I expected. The story is told in tandem with a Greek myth. I found that I skim read this part to get to the main story. The main story was an uncomfortable read of incest and child abuse. Not easy to digest!

I have enjoyed other books by Mark Haddon, but couldn't quite get into this one so didn't finish it...sorry.

This story jumps from a family tragedy when a plane crashes to child abuse by the father of a baby born as the crash occurs. Then we are treated to a throw back to classical mythology. It us well written but hard to understand the point of it.

Modern day – a man loses his wife in a plane crash, but his unborn daughter survives. He becomes obsessed with Angelica, his obsession surpassing society’s acceptable boundaries, leading to incest. Trapped by her father’s wealth and isolated from society due to his refusal for her to engage with the outside world, Angelica is desperate for rescue.

Enter Darius, son of a business colleague of her father. A chance meeting leaves him with a compelling need to see Angelica again – however, an attempted rescue leads to a murder attempt on his life.

Escaping on a boat, Darius’s life is transformed into that of Pericles, Prince of Tyre (worth a quick look at the story on Wikipedia if you’re not familiar!)… and so the reader is transported to ancient times, more stories of grief, betrayal, loves lost and new lives found.

A remarkable and enthralling story, which had me enchanted. Very highly recommended.

Very unusual, but interesting and well written. A new take on the story of Pericles, I enjoyed this a lot, it was quite a bit different to the other novels I have read of Mark Haddon, but still gripping from the start.

I can't say that I enjoyed this book. It's a dark tale and initially I was very engaged with the story-telling of the shocking birth of Angelica, and her father dealing with the aftermath of the loss of his wife and son. The father's increasing obsession with his daughter into abuse provides disturbing reading. The reader is then thrown into another narrative at the turn of a page; this is the story of Pericles and we are suddenly in ancient Greece and another story takes over. I must admit I was really confused there for a while! The confusion also deepens when we enter a new addition of Shakespeare and his collaborator of his Pericles story - this third addition didn't really work for me. Each tale links but you do have to work hard as a reader!

It's certainly an unusual narrative, and a puzzle to read; it'd be an interesting piece to study with students, particular the parallels Haddon is creating through the multiple narratives.
For an enjoyable, escape from reality read - nope, not at all. If you are interested in mythology and after a complex, not pleasant tale weaving narrative threads that connect into one story, whilst giving the brain a thorough workout - then yes, go for it!
A difficult one to rate stars for... so I'll rate it on my overall enjoyment.

This novel starts contemporary, with a plane crash, from which a baby is delivered whilst her Mother dies. Her Father, determined to protect his daughter, can provide everything in the world she could wish for, except freedom. This much loved daughter grows up over protected, locked away from society until a visitor awakens in her curiosity, resentment and a stirring of awareness she is missing out on life. This visitor Darius is also privileged, but is piqued by the beauty he meets on his visit to the house. This is the beginning of an adventure - which if you are not paying attention, you've completely lost the plot. Even if you are closely following events, these events play out a dream sensation as they follow the most bizarre turns and twists and somehow, via pirates we are in a parallel Greek adventure of the Odyssey.
This is no Death in the Night time and a novel for adults rather than teens. It would also help to know your Greek myths to appreciate the references. Clever, but totally confusing for mere mortals!

I found this book a challenging read. I do think that this is not necessarily a bad thing but I wasn't expecting the remix of Shakespeare and Greek mythology. The book starts with the death of a young woman and the birth of her daughter. I did feel I had to concentrate and remember the characters as they were likely to reappear again in a different form. I am not sure how I felt about it though, as there were difficult issues raised and somehow never confronted, so it rested uncomfortably. A precious child sexually abused by her adoring father is also going to be something difficult to get your head around.
This book is different, not what you expect and that makes it worth the read and I suspect that the pleasure will be gained by different people at different levels and also the sort of book that could be reread with a different view. each time. Well done Mark Haddon

Mark Haddon has written widely differing kinds of novels and here we find the sort of experimental treatment displayed his short story collection ‘The Pier Falls and other Stories', which marked such a departure from his previous best-selling work.
Tragedy, revenge and retribution are given a spell-binding modern day twist in this fantastical re-working of an ancient Greek myth.
Haddon is a master storyteller and his use of imagery is sublime (e.g. 'time has turned to toffee'). However, be warned that with its disturbing sub-plot of paedophilia and incest, this is a challenging double narrative which could leave you well out of your comfort zone.

Well that was not what I was expecting! I got into the first part of the book - intrigued by what was going to happen to Angelica - when suddenly I was taken to Ancient Greece. I went along with it - Pericles can be interesting - and then we were whisked somewhere else. I am afraid that there was too much to-ing and fro-ing, and perhaps too much description with not enough action, and my mind wandered. I then started skim reading and we all know where that ends, yes, giving up.

This started off as a seemingly normal novel ... It then took an unexpected turn that caught me by surprise but held my attention. The writing style was quite aggressive,but this leant itself to the overall feel of the book.

Strong themes of revenge and retribution, although these are not the defining factors of the plot. The book mainly focuses on human stories and relationships, some more destructive than others.

This all sounds rather ambiguous I know, but I suppose the book itself is ambiguous and hard to pin down! All I will say is that a little research into Shakespeare's Pericles the Prince of Tyre was very helpful!

I tried very hard to like this book more than I did but I just couldn’t come to terms with it at all. I love The author so I did persevere till the end but I am afraid that it just wasn’t for me, I can’t fault the writing at all I just found my attention wandering with the storyline and some of the subject matter was uncomfortable for me. All in all this just was a book that others may like a lot more than I did but still deserving of 3 stars from me .
My thanks to NetGalley, Mark Haddon and Random House Uk for giving me the chance to read the ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

I started this book yesterday morning and finished it at 2.00 this morning. Haddon is an incredible writer. His book of short stories, The Pier Falls is one of the most powerful and amazing things I have ever read, and this deeply unsettling novel seems to take over where the collection left off. It is like a maze of stories that interweave, both with characters and time lines and narrative arcs. The book starts one way and you are sure that you know where it's going and then it takes you on a mad, roller coaster ride that flings you as the reader all over, but never lets go of you for an instant. It's difficult in terms of subject matter, brutal and dark and fierce, but brilliant and utterly absorbing. It's a book that will stay with me for a very long time. I wish I could read it all over again for the first time.