I finally finished this book! You might not believe me, but this has been a long battle and the fact that I managed to finish it should earn me a pat on the back. My book club choose this book for our monthly read almost a year ago and right from the first page I knew that this is not going to be a pleasant read. Don’t get me wrong, I am not prude and I don’t mind a bit of bad language if it serves a good purpose in the story, but this book went completely off rails. Right from first paragraph you are bombarded with swearwords left, right and centre, no matter whether it is male or female character, old or young. It is almost as if no one can express themselves unless they swear. I am not sure to which extend is this a portrait of current australian society (I really hope it isn’t) and to which extend it is the author’s poor observational skills or/and influence of the people surrounding him. Or maybe the author is just trying too hard and the result is just appalling.
Apart the foul language, the book is filled with constant sex, abrupt bursts of unbelievable violence (nope, not talking about the slap itself) and a bit of a story line. Before I started to read this book I was hoping that it would offer a moral discussion about the slap itself, how different generations see it, how different cultures see it etc. but I couldn’t be more wrong! The book offers a precious little on this and the slap itself is just a minor event in the whole book. I really wonder why the author choose it as a title! Maybe it would be harder to market and sell so many copies if he had chosen a random swear word for the title – which would be much more appropriate if you ask me, because at least you would know that you are willingly buying a garbage.
In regards to the characters, well, neither of them is pleasant enough for the reader to care for them. They are a random bunch of greedy, angry, drunken, lecherous, lying, self-obsessed, woman-hating, homophobic and unbelievably racist people. I don’t think there is anything more to add to this.
As I said before, I started this book almost a year ago and managed to read seven out of the eight chapters and had to give up. I couldn’t take the abuse from the book anymore and it is not like me not to finish a book. But this one was particularly bad. Well, the book was looking at me from my bedside table for so long, that it was about a time to bite the bullet and finish it. And actually the last chapter wasn’t half as bad, definitely the best out of the book.
By the way, this book was a winner of the Commonwealth Writers Prize 2009!!! Honestly, how was that possible is beyond me! Did any of the judges read the book?! I purely refuse to believe that the other books (runner ups) were worse than this one, because that would have been a disastrous year for the commonwealth books! I don’t approve any mishandling of books or damaging them on purpose but this one would be my first choice to throw in bonfire. I truly believe that future generations wouldn’t miss much if this book was never written…
You can only imagine my shock when I read in one magazine that the ABC is making a drama series out of this book! First I dismissed it completely, but then I got curious to see how is the ABC going to tackle this material. And to be honest I quite liked the series! I was pleased to see that ABC more or less stayed true to the original material, they just really mellowed the language (you wouldn’t be able to broadcast the original no matter what time of the night), mellowed the excessive violence and the ever-present sex and made it an interesting series. All the actors played their part very well and I could see that they fit the descriptions from the book to a T.
So if you are still curious about The Slap and want to know the full story, then I would recommend to avoid the book like a plague and rent out the ABC series on a DVD.
Thanks for the review — I am intrigued!
I live in Brooklyn, and just walking down the street, you get bombarded with people yelling obscenities all over the place. I guess we just get de-sensitized…
Glad you liked it, it would be nice to hear what you think about the book as apart from the language, the dynamic among the main characters is interesting.
[...] The Slap: A Novel by Christos Tsiolkas [...]
Hi Renny, I am with Miller. I really liked the book too and read it last year some time. I do not remember a lot of sex or a ridiculous amount of swear words. I liked reading it up until the last chapter or so. In my opinion that was just one chapter too many and for me didnt add anything anymore. (Or I just completely missed the point haha).
Hi Pleun, I am glad you liked the book as nothing is worse than to get a book and be disappointed by it. I just gave my honest opinion and even if I was the only one with this opinion I couldn’t do much about it. Me and The Slap just didn’t gel. No flourishing love, no happy ever after, it was more a push and shove on the playground just before the fight starts
But thank you for sharing that you found in the book what you were looking for 
Renny
I picked this book up in a bookshop earlier this year. I put it down again after reading the first page. To be confronted with the expression ‘sweet young c**t’ in the first paragraph was just too much.
Just those three words were enough to put me off completely, so I can’t comment on the rest of the book.
And as you know, my book is littered with swearing.
Hi Ian, and the book continues in the same way throughout! I just find the swearing in this book little bit offensive and over the top. The swearing in your book helps shaping the character, in The Slap it doesn’t shape anything, as everyone is swearing in the same excessive way!
Def” a tough read for me but, as you know I enjoyed it’s sincerity, it’s connections the real world and the vast collection of humanit that we rub along side on a daily basis. Sometimes fantasy novels read a little too ‘hollywood’ to me. This book kinda does slam your face against the grubby window pane of some pretty dysfunctional families (but actually not as uncommon as you would think)…. I like the idea of looking behind the veil to see a shitty landscape. That’s very real to me and stranglyholds the seeds of hope!!
Hi Zoe
welcome to my blog!!! Yeah, I couldn’t get past the language… I might be just a big wimp 
I salute you for finishing the book…I am reading one right now that I have to reread almost every page…..I just can’t feel what the book is getting at. I wonder if I will ever finish it…;I’ll let you know when and if….
Beth
Hi Beth, thanks! I am not sure whether I should try to encourage you to keep working through the book or whether to tell you that sometimes enough is enough and to put it to the side. For me personally, it helped that I stopped and finished it at a later date, but in the same time I knew what the story was about so I didn’t lose the momentum (there wasn’t much of a momentum to start with).
So keep going and play it by ear and if you need a gentle encouragement then give me a shout 
Renny
The TV series was produced by an Australian team for the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Commission).
Other than that I couldn’t disagree more with your assessment of this book. I enjoyed it thoroughly – and as soon as you mentioned that you weren’t a prude,you proved otherwise. Just like the racist bore at a party who announces, “I’m not a racist, but…”
Thanks for your opinion, I am glad that someone liked the book and thanks for the correction, I will amend my post