Book

Author:	Christopher Priest
Title:	The Prestige
Publisher:	Touchstone
Country:	UK
Date:	Sep 1995
Format:	Hardcover
Genre:	Fiction, Fantasy, History
ISBN-10:	0671719246
Total Editions:	3
Rating:	8.0 Rate
Collection:	I Own It I Want It
Community:	1 Owns
Price Guide:	Valuation Page
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Comments and Reviews


Magic Marmalade 25th Oct 2023		Rated 8/10 Literature as Magic! Hey... It's also a book! ...Did you know it was a book? .....I didn't, until I saw the SF Masterworks edition on the shelf at a charity shop, and naturally, bought it. Pleased to report it's a very evocative, engrossing read, conjuring (snigger) all the mystery and and intrigue that Christopher Nolan captures in his brilliant movie version... and then some! For although that movie is filmed adaptation of this material - the characters, times, places, themes, and events described here, it is pleasing to me to find that Nolan has done with this what Ridley Scott did with translating Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep into Blade Runner: He's not been too slavish to the source material, and understood that there are aspects of the story's presentation in literature that won't or don't need to go over in movie form. ...No, instead, what he has done (Like Ridley), is take the essentials - such as characters, time and place, ad mood, as well as basic storyline, but jettisoned others, such as the "framing device" narrative in this book, which is a modern setting with modern descendants of the two warring magicians - sorry... Prestigitators - falling into the intrigue and mystery surrounding their century old battles, and then unfolding, by means of their opposing accounts in their respective diaries, of the events that occurred, and then amplifying and teasing out some aspects of this story, and diminishing others to emphasise and de-emphasise according to medium. Beginning with that of Alfred Borden's who presents his narrative as a form of magic trick, openly telling us from the outset, that he is doing so - Are you reading carefully? - So you are on guard as a reader from the off, before finally, and for the bulk of the book, giving us Rupert Angier's testimony, by way of juxtaposition with modern interspersals. Indeed, the whole book is - for want of a better word - designed - to be a form of magic trick in word and book form. ...And by Joseph's knobbly knees and elbows! - It works!!! It does a couple of other things too: Firstly, as a mystery book, it keeps you leaning in to discover the next pieces of the puzzle, and then as a story that draws so distinctly the difference between science and magic, it does more than any other work I can think of to actually do the opposite, and blur the boundaries, until they are one and the same thing. ...But also, it serves as a very effective ghost story in atmosphere and narrative, as well, as eventually becoming positively vampiric. Powerfully evoking the eerie, supernatural qualities that any standard ghost story does. What gives this story a real beating heart, though, is that, being told the story across two diaries, both giving "versions" of the same tale of obsession and feud you see that each is told as a point of view, not being able to access the inner thoughts or intentions of the other, that is expressed in each their own diaries, which would, had either known, that the other never really intended malice to the other, and frequently expresses regret over the incidents that occurred, and yet perceiving the malice in the other because of this absence of information, lends it a kind of tragic quality: If only these two knucke-heads had sat down and talked, they would have realized the truth of each other, and all this nonsense could have been avoided. Thank God we live in more enlightened times! (Hmmm.....) As such, it is, like Electric Sheep and Blade Runner, this is not necessarily "bettered" by the other medium, but is a perfect compliment to it, and so Nolans movie and this, should be thought of a perfect companion pieces. But a truly inspired work, presenting literature as a means of performing a magic trick. Very Prestigious. ✔︎ Helpful Review?



ppint. 25th Oct 2022		simon & schuster touchstone h/cvr first printing, first edition cover (d-j) art (shared with touchstone first p/b edition cover) cover (d-j) price £16.99 404pp. (check this evening) including titles, indicia etc, end pp. bound with endpapers between covered boards



ppint. 25th Oct 2022		orion publishing group, hachette uk gollancz imprint p/b first printing, not first uk p/b edition cover art unsigned, created from/montage of two photographs credited to getty images cover price £7.99 368pp? (check) including titles, indicia etc, end pp. (this comment is from another edition of this book)



ppint. 25th Oct 2022		simon & schuster uk touchstone imprin p/b first printing, first p/b edition cover art by (shared from touchstone h/cvr first edition) cover price £6.99 404pp. (check) including titles, indicia etc, end pp. (this comment is from another edition of this book)

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Other Editions

Book

Christopher Priest - The Prestige - Touchstone - Paperback - UK - 0684817551 (1996)

Book

Christopher Priest - The Prestige - Gollancz - Paperback - UK - 0575075805 (2004)