Three to See the King - Softcover

Mills, Magnus

3.79

1,294 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0007110472 ISBN 13: 9780007110476

Publisher: Harper Perennial, 2004

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The third book from perhaps the most original comic novelist in England

'I live in a house built entirely from tin. For a long while I was quite content here, and remained convinced I would find no better place to be. Then one day a woman arrived at my door and said, "So this is where you've been hiding."'

Living in a tin shack, on a great plain, with only the wind for company: what could be better? But with Mary Petrie rapidly turning your house into a home, and the charismatic Michael Hawkins enticing your neighbours away, suddenly there are choices to be made. Should you stay? Or join the exodus?

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Review:

Novella-like in form, Magnus Mills' Three to See the King is an uneasy read that transports the reader to a unique fictional setting where the familiar is strangely unfamiliar. Known for his Kafka-esque nightmares, Mills tells the abstract fable of an unnamed man, living in isolation in a tin house, who must choose between a solitary existence and joining the mass exodus of his neighbours. Through simple, deadpan prose, a keen eye for human nature and abrasive wit, Mills not only captures the dull emptiness of the unimagined life but comments allegorically on solitude and society, religion and civilisation, labour and capital. Mills, whose other books include Booker-shortlisted The Restraint of Beasts and All Quiet on the Orient Express, is an absorbing, disturbing writer who is refining his observations with each new book. --Nicola Perry

Review:

'Mills's particularly rural comedy – in which only locals are allowed to order the interesting biscuits in the village shop – shares its anthropological glee with The League of Gentlemen.... Three To See The King is even stranger, sparser and more daring; as Mills steps back from fables of alienated labour to Beckettian first principles, his closed system closes in... It shouldn't be a speedy page-turner, but it is; light reading with real depth, this is philosophy for fiction-lovers.' Justine Jordan, Guardian

'Magnus Mills is a genius... an extraordinary individual with a completely unique view of the world, who makes sense of it in totally unexpected and inexplicable ways. It's rare that you finish a book feeling so richly satisfied.' Big Issue

'A spare but absorbing tale in which Mills handles weighty issues of charismatic leadership, blind faith, and the interdependence of human beings, with a light, dextrous touch.' Charlotte Mosley, Daily Mail

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