In many ways, I wished I hadn’t already seen the movie-I wish, for example, that I could regain the initial effect of reading Borden’s contradictory prose without knowing the reason behind it. Having seen the movie, I already knew some of the secrets and illusions Borden and Angier would put out there (though Angier’s secret is notably different from what it was in the movie). A puzzle is implicitly involved.” Because Borden so obviously hangs a lantern on the fact that he can’t be trusted, it becomes apparent that trusting Angier is risky business as well.
In Borden’s journal he confesses this up front: “The very act of describing my secrets might indeed be construed as a betrayal of myself, except of course that as I am an illusionist I can make sure you only see what I wish you to see. The accounts are mostly written in personal journals, most notably from Alfred Borden (the first past-based viewpoint character) and Rupert Angier (the last past-based viewpoint character). The book is told through a series of first-person accounts that are scattered throughout time: some are in the present (from the descendants whose sanity is at stake) and some are from the past (the dueling stage magicians, i.e. In the end, their legacy will pass on for generations … to descendants who must, for their sanity’s sake, untangle the puzzle left to them. In the course of pursuing each other’s ruin, they will deploy all the deception their magician’s craft can command-the highest misdirection and the darkest science.īlood will be spilled, but it will not be enough. Their rivalry will take them to the peaks of their careers, but with terrible consequences. From this moment on, their lives become webs of deceit and revelation as they vie to outwit and expose each other. In 1878, two young stage magicians clash in the dark during the course of a fraudulent séance. (I have, of course, seen the movie, but that’s kind of irrelevant.) For those of you who haven’t seen the movie (and thus can’t puzzle out what The Prestige is about), I provide the back-cover copy from my paperback edition: Over the past few weeks I finally read The Prestige by Christopher Priest. This is a lamentably crappy scan of the paperback cover.
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