Be warned - this book is over 600 pages long and every character is a talking cadaver. Yes, there are seven narrators, but, as many critics have noted, their voices meld into one - this lack of differentiation undermines the basic intent of the novel. Instead of being in the company of seven different characters, I felt I was in the company of a single person, the author - and he wasn't feeling that great. The book reads as a dreary confession, one that would have any self-respecting psychiatrist reaching for his prescription pad.
*
There is far less ambiguity here than you might imagine, and in more ways than one. A change in perspective never overturns any basic fact about the plot or, more surprisingly, regarding a character's motivations - rather than being akin to Rashomon, where each view radically conflicts with its neighbour, here the narrators simply take turns telling the same undisputed story. This lack of conflict between their vantages leads to a lack of tension; and in itself deprives the voices of individuality. Yes, one character can see things which another can't, but it's more a case of adding to the overall picture, instead of actually angrily erasing and painting over the space.
*
The rhythm of the sentences varies little from chapter to chapter. This is not Faulkner. The vocabulary is similarly uniform (as an example, "perfunctory" and "insensate" are used by Angela, while for Joe it's "obfuscate" - these being the two allegedly less educated characters). The characters all achieve a similar level of insight into, and reflection upon, themselves. Perhaps most disappointing is the chapter voiced by Simon, the literary minded precipitant of events. For all his alleged passion for poetry, his writing is bland and his references to literature rather limited - his voice does not breathe life into the bones of his character. The dialogue is poorly written - in most chapters it would be difficult to tell who is speaking without prompts, and the overall tone is awkward and dead; perhaps the Dennis Mitchell chapter escapes this criticism.
*
The two prime female characters are drawn as stereotypically beautiful. We are carefully informed about the size of their breasts, and the allure of their eyes. In intellectual matters, they respectfully defer to their male superiors, be this the soulful stuff of art, or the technicalities of card-counting in blackjack. Yawn. There's not much evident irony in Perlman's choice of such representations. When Anna reveals that: "He played me like a musical instrument", I had to check the cover to make I sure I wasn't reading Judith Krantz. If parts of the book read with the flattened affect of an airport novel it could be because his characters, and his handling of them, share many qualities. Then there's is the central issue of Simon's obsession with Anna - the narcissism inherent in this is impressive, but its exploration is limited - it might be raising the standard too high, but Tolstoy's 'Anna Karenina' shows how multi-faceted such an exploration can be.
*
Perhaps, more than reading the book itself, it's interesting to ask why so many people found it so stimulating. The very flatness of the style does make it easy to read. The attempt to begin a meditation on character by invoking childhood influences, adult relationships, and unpredictable events, is, as everyone says, ambitious. It could be that the analysis proceeds at a depth which is comfortable for most readers - it allows fractions of honesty to become visible, while a veil remains over much. Of course, fractions can add up to a sizeable sum. My overall reaction to the book was negative, and reminded me of the mood created by reading books by Richard Powers - both authors construct plots which shape a superficial interest, and pen characters with surface complexities, but the crucial insight required for true empathy to be established is missing, as is a winning sense of humour. At best this is a novel I might admire, but not one that I could love.

Lord knows I love to read, but finding the time to do so can be harder than it should. I purchased `Seven Types of Ambiguity' having no idea what it was about but I had read a short review praising its style and prose and so I decided to give it a try. I have owed it for almost a year and up until this month I had yet to open it to the first page. Looking at its 600+ pages I have to admit I was quite a bit intimidated.

When it comes to reading you can find one of two books, the one that is so engrossing you finish it in days (Little Children) or the one that is so daunting and time consuming you spend months (House of Sand and Fog, which I swear I will finish one day, but after struggling for a year I don't know when). I can honestly say that `Seven Types of Ambiguity' is written so well and is so engrossing that I flew through its 600+ pages and was still waiting for more.

I've decided to give you a little rundown of its seven parts so you, the reader, know what you're in for.

Part One:

In the first part of this novel we have a letter written to a woman named Anna by a man named Alex. Alex is a psychiatrist who has been seeing Anna's ex-boyfriend Simon. In this letter Alex is explaining to Anna Simon's current situation, some of which Anna is already is aware of, which include his obsession with her still, nine years after their relationship ended. Simon has since then lost his teaching job due to a scandal involving child abduction and upon slipping into depression he has fallen out of touch with his overbearing and overcritical parents and falling into an unwanted relationship with a prostitute named Angelique who has been servicing Anna's husband Joe for quite a while now. In a bought of desperation, or a serious lapse in sanity, Simon kidnaps Anna's six-year-old son Sam only to be turned in and arrested. At the end of his letter it becomes apparent that Alex seriously wants Anna to consider lying in order to save the man she once loved.

Part Two:

In the second part we get a glimpse into the mind of Joe, Anna's husband. He's racked with this pang of distress wondering if his wife has been having an affair with the man that kidnapped his son and this weighs heavy on the way he treats and reacts to her in general. He justifies throughout this section his relationship with Angelique, claiming that it's his wife's fault for neglecting his needs. We get a glimpse of his life, his job, his intellect and his insecurities before the section closes and part three begins.

Part Three:

Part three is told by Angelique and it picks up right where Joe left off. Throughout this part we get a history of her childhood and her strained relationship with her parents. He hear of the rape that almost pushed her into prostitution and we hear of the illness she battles with that makes it hard for her to truly give into anyone for fear of what they'll think of her. After Simon's arrest Angelique is faced with decisions not only affect her but Simon and Joe as well. Depending on what she admits to in front of the police will determine who gets the blame for this episode. The police officers interrogate and force false testimony on her, and then eventually she gets an offer, one that not disgusts her not only because of its nature but because even she knows it's her only option.

Part Four:

Here we have a conversation between Dennis, Joes partner and supposed friend, and Alex as Dennis confesses all the facets of his life that make him a complete and utter mess. He goes into his doomed business relationship with Joe and everything about Joe that makes him now despise him. He confesses the train-wreck that was his marriage and how it was over almost before it began. He then goes into his relationship with Angelique and how she's the reason he's now seeing Alex, how he needs Alex in order to help Angelique, the only woman who made him feel wanted and needed and worth something.

Part Five:

Now we come to Simon's side of the story, imprisoned and awaiting his fate we get a glimpse of his reasoning behind matters and all that he hopes to gain from his supposed mistakes. His reaction to everyone else's reactions is notably amusing and enlightening, and it's here that we really get to see how Simon almost disregards everyone else's feelings and even their loyalty in an attempt to connect with the one who may not even what him, the one who, in the wise words of Simon's psychiatrist Alex, failed him.

Part Six:

Anna is now our narrator, and by examining her thoughts on the proceeding days that involve the trial and her encounter with Simon, as well as her memories of her time spent with him all those years ago, we can finally understand his love and obsession with her, and we finally come to know whether or not she will in fact return those feelings. We see her feelings on her husband, her child, her life in general and her relationship, past and present, with Simon. It's here where a lot of questions are answered.

The final part, part seven, is one that I will not breakdown for it's here that the bulk of the ambiguity's are answered, and it's an experience that the reader should receive full hand and not be slighted by the reviewer with a big mouth. So sit back, set some time aside and read one of the most engrossing and entertaining and enlightening novels to be written in a very long time.

I can't deny I enjoyed this book. Well, sort of. It is very well written and its author manages to keep up the narrative flow for the best part of its 600+ pages. Having the story unfold through the prism of different characters is not an original find, but a classic narrative device that is very effectively deployed here by Elliot Perlman. Each of the sections really breathes the spirit of the narrator. The spiritual and emotional wasteland of Joe's mind, Mitch's staccato intelligence, the suave, Central-European worldview of Alex, and the immature persona of his daughter are all admirably reflected in the prose.

But something in this book leaves me craving for more. As a reader I am always looking for ideas, for some kind of conceptual backbone, also in a novel. I have been wondering what "Seven Types of Ambiguity", despite its alluring title, has to offer on this account. What is this book really about? At times, I am tempted to think it is not much more than a messy vignette, an almost arbitrary doodle lifted out of a fin-de-siècle notebook, revolving around a quite bland and painful mix of purposelessness and boredom. But then I find myself thinking we should perhaps dig deeper into the book's thin varnish of economic and literary critique. Capitalism and deconstructionism indeed seem to share a mentality of "anything goes", something which the protagonist of this book loathes as poisonous and immoral. Surely this provides us with a clue to unravel this quixotic plot?

However, the final chapter seems to belie this hypothesis. True, there is a victim, but apart from Dr. Klima's improbable demise, this is a truly disappointing happy end. Suddenly, the tensions that have been built up subterraneously over hundreds of pages evaporate. Simon's weltschmerz and rebellious attack on post-industrial civilisation acquiesce in return for the spoils of an academic career. Almost everything falls neatly into place. Even Joe seems happy selling cars. But then again one wonders: is Perlman pulling us by the nose by staging this kind of Hollywoodian apotheosis?

Is this a game of double layers and "fake" endings? That's the trouble with this book: once you try to peer under its surface all perspectives start to shift and there's getting no foot on the ground. That's the deconstructionist strategy par excellence. If Perlman intended it as such, he might well be a genius of ambiguity. But if he really intended to write a serious book about "all the terrible things that have been happening to our society in the last ten or twenty years" (as he seemed to suggest in an interview) I am afraid he has been punching above his weight.