The Physiognomy
By Jeffrey Ford
4/5
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About this ebook
In the Well-Built City, Master Drachton Below’s power is absolute, and he will not hesitate to use it. His primary method of control is through his physiognomists, who are trained to read a person’s face and body, perceiving that person’s past and secrets—and even events yet to come. These seers are the judges and jury. Now Drachton has found something that could extend his reign for eternity: a fruit that bestows immortality. To investigate its whereabouts, Below sends cold, collected physiognomist Cley to the remote mining town of Anamasobia. One at a time Cley interrogates the townspeople, performing his usual fact finding without issue. That is, until he meets the beautiful and bright Arla, who harbors a secret that could potentially turn Cley’s world upside down—and topple the Well-Built City itself.
A Kafkaesque journey into the unknown, The Physiognomy is an award-winning trip through a land where the line between reality and imagination is constantly blurred.
Jeffrey Ford
Jeffrey Ford is the author of the novels The Physiognomy, Memoranda, The Beyond, The Portrait of Mrs. Charbuque, the Edgar Award–winning The Girl in the Glass, The Cosmology of the Wider World, The Shadow Year, and The Twilight Pariah, and his collections include The Fantasy Writer’s Assistant, The Empire of Ice Cream, The Drowned Life, Crackpot Palace, and A Natural History of Hell. He lives near Columbus, Ohio, and teaches writing at Ohio Wesleyan University.
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Reviews for The Physiognomy
9 ratings8 reviews
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Since this book won the World Fantasy Award, I'd wanted to read it for a while. Thanks to NetGalley and Open Road Media for giving me the opportunity.
I see why the book won the award - it gives us a strikingly original and interesting scenario: a fantasy world ruled by an oppressive dictator, who utilizes civil servants to maintain his cruel regime. One of the tools in his arsenal is the faux-'science' of physiognomy, where an 'expert' uses phrenology and other physical measurements to determine if one is (or will be) guilty of a crime.
Physiognomist Cley is one of these experts. He's also a thoroughly unsympathetic person - one of the most repulsive protagonists you're likely to encounter in fiction. He's willing to lie and be used, has no moral or ethical compass at all, and allows his drug addiction to take him to escalating acts of cruelty and depravity.
Some reviewers have described the story as a tale of Cley's redemption - but I don't see it that way at all. Yes, over the course of the story Clay's position changes - but only because his position literally changes in relation of the locus of power. He's motivated by resentment, not ethics.
Overall, I can't say the book was a 'pleasant' experience, although it was 'well-built.' In feel, it reminded me a bit of Mervyn Peake's 'Titus Groan.' It had that same sort of oppressive, hallucinatory atmosphere.
I'm glad I read the book, but can't say I'm eager to go and seek out the sequels. - Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I really wanted to love this book. I stopped reading for a day and then started over in attempts to love it, but sadly, I did not. Now, before I go any further, please know this book is a three star book, for me. It’s very well written, very well thought out and executed, as well as developed. It’s super imaginative and in some areas, will bewitch you. However, it lacked just a small something for me. I don’t even know what it lacks to be honest. For about a day, I paced around my garage trying to think this through because again, I wanted to love it. Then I realized that it just didn’t excite me. Nothing in the book made me feel any one way or another. It evoked much thought, but little feel - from me. So, it was just that one little scintilla of something that differed between a three star and four. Even so, I think readers are denying themselves a good (possibly great to many) read if they don’t give this novel a shot. While I may not have enjoyed this book the way that wanted, I fully intend to read a different story from Jeffrey Ford. He is just too good of an author to ignore.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Sci-fi/fantasy in the mold of The Shadow of the Torturer by Gene Wolfe. This is one of the best books I've read in a while. The voice of the novel is Physiognomist First Class Cley. He works for a Hitler-like master named Drachton Below. Cley's job involves judging the character of others by reading their physiognomy. There are strict mathematical formulas for determining guilt, innocence or even what one may do in the future, but basically it comes down to if one looks like an imbecile they are therefore an imbecile. Master Below is intent on peopling his city with perfect human specimens. Sound familiar? Physiognomist Cley is sort of a Dr. Mengela, but after being convicted himself to serve eternity in the sulfur mines he has a change of heart. There are many repulsive aspects to this tale, but I found that gave it a grounding in reality.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Comparisons to *1984* and Kafka are inevitable for this dystopian novel, and though they are warranted both for style and content there is an underlying hopefulness in *The Physiognomy* that those others lack. Ford's landscape is also less familiar, set somewhere that is neither a projected future nor a distorted past, but simply *other*. Bureaucratic claustrophobia is brilliantly evoked, but rebellion and redemption (both personal and civilization-wide) are seeded within. There is something of the fable in Ford's style, yet there is also a feeling of immediacy and intimacy in his exploration of his character's psyches. Eventually false science and true fable press together too tightly and combust.ETA: On second reading, I enjoyed this book even more.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I'm having a great time discovering all the facets of this loose "New Weird"-movement! Here is something that, again, has a flavour that's distinctly it's own. I really like Ford's way of building a world with quite few penstorkes that still evokes imagination and feels like a solid place. I like his very fast pace of telling the story (there's a LOT going on in just over 200 pages here, a format you're not always spoiled with in fantastic literature) and the way he uses the weird and fantastic as a springboard for discussing moral issues. Not a lot of the simple black/white, good/evil thing going on here. More than anything else, this is a sort of journey of self discovery, that brings books like Voltaire's Candide or Kafka's The Trial to mind, rather than tedious quest books packed with magical swords. And Cley is a quite interesting main character indeed. I'm looking forward to reading the rest of the trilogy.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5For once, a book lives up to its hype. Very well-constructed, fascinating to read. The main character, Cley, evolves and changes. The sequel, Memoranda, fills in a lot of the back story, but wasn't as good as this. Still, both are worth reading.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Can the shape of your head describe your destiny. In the Well Built City it can. A gently horrific novel by a master of the fantasy genre.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/51998 World Fantasy Award. Great cast of weird characters, original and you never knew what was going to happen next. More light hearted fantasy toward end and somethings weren't explained.