One of the best novels in a structural sense that I’ve read. Yet we, as readers, are also being deceived until it all finally unravels. The illusionists’ duel and their quest to be true masters provides for a couple of intriguing Faustian bargains in this truly marvelous novel. The Prestige explores issues relating to social class and gender, artistry vs science, one’s perspective shaping the truth, and the dangers of limitless ambition. The reader is set up, mirroring the art of the illusionist. This is a masterpiece of epistolary style writing. ‘ Duelling illusionists’ ongoing battle in the late Victorian era has consequences for future generations. It was great seeing two professionals unwilling to harm their craft still work around all the little niceties to get at one another.’ Goodreads reviewer, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ I can’t believe how far the two of them went to prolong their feud of pranks. I love the epistolary nature of the novel and how the story stretches through time, but my favourite bits were all between the two warring illusionists. Both have something more to hide than the mere workings of a trick.
The secret of the magic is simple, and the reader is in on it almost from the start, but to the antagonists the real mystery lies deeper. Working in the gaslight-and-velvet world of Victorian music halls, they prowl edgily in the background of each other’s shadowy life, driven to the extremes by a deadly combination of obsessive secrecy and insatiable curiosity.Īt the heart of the row is an amazing illusion they both perform during their stage acts. Readers who have seen the 2006 film adaptation directed by Christopher Nolan will find that though the book shares many similarities with the movie, it also contains many surprises as well as a chilling ending that the reader will never see coming.Two 19th century stage illusionists, the aristocratic Rupert Angier and the working-class Alfred Borden, engage in a bitter and deadly feud the effects are still being felt by their respective families a hundred years later. One of Christopher Priest’s most acclaimed works and winner of both the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the World Fantasy Award, The Prestige is an ingeniously constructed entertainment, a masterpiece of misdirection where nothing is what it seems. But what starts out as professional jealousy soon escalates into a bitter and deadly obsession whose terrible consequences will still be felt a century later by their descendants, who have their own surprising reasons for wanting to discover the truth. Each of them performs a masterful and seemingly impossible illusion, and each is determined to unravel the secret of his rival’s trick at any cost.
In the smoke-and-mirrors world of Victorian music halls, two talented young stage magicians vie to be known as the best illusionist in London.
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