Yeah, yeah, I know: this BAM challenge review is heinously late. I put off choosing a book, because the “Heart” theme wasn’t doing it for me: I’m not a mush-and-smush reader; in fact, the whole month of February and its attendant holiday themes just make me cranky. (I think good relationships take more communication and self-perception, less ‘expensive gift in exchange for sex’ crap.) As nothing non-fiction related to the heart jumped out at me, I took the route of the Valentine’s Day equivalent of Scrooge - I finally threw “Heart” in title keyword and “horror — fiction” in subject, and went with the one and only result in the library catalog. The Course of the Heart by M. John Harrison.

While I use the title keyword search technique for creating a display pretty often, I’d yet to use it to pick a book to read - and since I got only the one result, I didn’t even get to compare plot synopses to make a decision. Sadly, the results here were not pleasant.

First off, I began the book under false pretenses: there is no real horror to be found in this story. Back in college our main characters took part in an occult ritual none of them can actually remember, and all three have been affected in different ways. While the hallucinations that follow each around (two are visual, one is olfactory) could be vaguely creepy to some, the description of each is brief and dead flat. The narrator relies on the ol’ Lovecraft trick of telling you how indescribably horrible a thing is, without even trying to make you feel the same fear. Nor does he manage to conjure up much sympathy for the characters who experience these delusions - while only one of the three is ever accused by the other characters of being a spoiled child, the only real difference in their petulance, irresponsibility, and sheer stupidity comes in deciding which ones are pots, and which kettles.

Very little of the book even deals with direct results of this mysterious ritual - all three are miserable, flawed, and often petty people who keep the real adult world at bay through the use of elaborate fantasies (not to mention a few apartment-trashing tantrums). Not even death can break through the wall of nonsense each one has erected.

Perhaps reading this same book from a different angle would yield a more enjoyable story. Go into this one expecting wealthy, overgrown brats marching steadily toward self-destruction, and you may be able to look with pity where I only felt disgust. But personally, I can’t sit down at the end of a day full of real, grown-up responsibilities to read about people a decade my senior who can hardly keep themselves upright, much less functional and contributing to society.

I can’t recommend it, but I’d gladly listen to reasoned arguments from anyone who did like it.