The Syllabus

Gavin Pearson is a Toronto-based freelance writer.

In this autobiographical story, the narrator, M, receives a
questionnaire from an old friend who is now a West Coast psychologist.
M’s responses to the questionnaire prompt him to reflect on his life,
taking the reader on a kaleidoscopic journey through M’s childhood and
adolescence.

During his early childhood M strived to be average among his peers both
physically and intellectually, but his intellect proved harder to
suppress as he matured into adulthood. Having been a teen in the 1970s,
he was exposed to an array of hallucinatory drugs. He also suffered
physical pain caused by severe dislocation of his joints. As M reflects
on his first friend, describes his various sexual encounters with his
first love, digresses, fantasizes, and looks at the dynamic
relationships he had with various educators who had an impact on his
life, readers are given in intriguing look at a young man coming of age.

Barnes’s unconventional writing style perfectly suits his
protagonist’s offbeat lifestyle. Also, the author does a superb job of
inflicting his pain (especially his physical pain) on our consciousness,
describing numerous incidents in excruciating detail. M’s adolescent
disorder comes to a boiling point in a melodramatic eruption that takes
place in Desina’s uncle’s pharmacy in the middle of the night.

An interesting story that leaves me anticipating Barnes’s next novel.