I’ve seen this book around a few times, it crops up on suggested book lists as a *good thing to read* but I’d never been tempted. So I was actually quite pleased to receive it as a Christmas present and have it to stretch my boundaries a bit.
Without blowing the plot too far (given there’s a picture of a boat on the front!) odd coincidence to find myself reading two very different books both featuring ppl spending time at sea. However there’s lots of book to get through before you get to that part, and lots about religion too. Oddly I didn’t find that grated, I found it really interesting and thought provoking. And the use of language throughout is really quite glorious – I could almost feel it stretching my mind and shaking my vocabulary up, as both ideas and imagery flooded through me.
I did feel oddly let down by the ending. Which was strange. Being told that a story might have been about a story, as it were, ie that the narrator could have been not narrating his life after all, was a peculiar let down.Why would I feel like that – upset that a work of fiction was about a work of fiction? I don’t know. I guess it’s because for a while we submerge ourselves in the book, and the least that we want is for the characters to be telling a kind of truth to us. Does that make any sense? If not, I suggest you go read it for yourself, and then come back and tell me what you think 🙂
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