Recently completed
Feb. 7th, 2015 06:57 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
monissaw.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
thelittledogThe Chatham School Affair by Thomas Cook
This was a random pick from the pile of books in front of the shelves. I was after something light and easy to read on the bus. This is not that.
I have no idea where it came from. Possibly the library book fair, although it has no price sticker on it. Possibly the year when I went there in the last hour when they were selling books by the bag and I grabbed some things to fill the bag.
However it came, it's been hanging around the house waiting to be read so I read it, and it's very slow. Very slow and looking like it's trying to be literary or lyrical, and falling flat. So I looked on Goodreads and found people either loved it or hated it. GR people don't seem to like non-linear plots. So I kept going.
The narrator, now an old man, is recounting events that happened when he was a teenager but, especially at the beginning, the story is set in his present with flashbacks to the past. By flashbacks I mean just that. Bit and pieces, scenes, a few lines, from the past, until near the need most of it is in the past. So you put these bits and pieces together to try and work out what happened, and eventually the whole story is revealed. Not whodunnit but the actual story. The who isn't really important. It's a suspense novel really.
I am fond of the story, whether book or TV, where you're led think one thing is going on but it's actually another. When it's done well. When it is obvious after the fact that this is what was being shown. (Not so good when it's obvious this is going on or when there's a supposed twist that is predictable or a POV withholding information that they should be thinking about or...) So I liked the way this played out (although a little disappointed that the narrator's role wasn't as I thought) (except oh I was right. Ha!) It is slow, but it has to be, I think, because it's about characters and how they changed, and bits of the story need time to be revealed.
Mostly though, I liked that I didn't have to worry about shutting up the inner editor, because after the first chapters, it was sitting there stunned, trying to work out how to do this :)
This was a random pick from the pile of books in front of the shelves. I was after something light and easy to read on the bus. This is not that.
I have no idea where it came from. Possibly the library book fair, although it has no price sticker on it. Possibly the year when I went there in the last hour when they were selling books by the bag and I grabbed some things to fill the bag.
However it came, it's been hanging around the house waiting to be read so I read it, and it's very slow. Very slow and looking like it's trying to be literary or lyrical, and falling flat. So I looked on Goodreads and found people either loved it or hated it. GR people don't seem to like non-linear plots. So I kept going.
The narrator, now an old man, is recounting events that happened when he was a teenager but, especially at the beginning, the story is set in his present with flashbacks to the past. By flashbacks I mean just that. Bit and pieces, scenes, a few lines, from the past, until near the need most of it is in the past. So you put these bits and pieces together to try and work out what happened, and eventually the whole story is revealed. Not whodunnit but the actual story. The who isn't really important. It's a suspense novel really.
I am fond of the story, whether book or TV, where you're led think one thing is going on but it's actually another. When it's done well. When it is obvious after the fact that this is what was being shown. (Not so good when it's obvious this is going on or when there's a supposed twist that is predictable or a POV withholding information that they should be thinking about or...) So I liked the way this played out (although a little disappointed that the narrator's role wasn't as I thought) (except oh I was right. Ha!) It is slow, but it has to be, I think, because it's about characters and how they changed, and bits of the story need time to be revealed.
Mostly though, I liked that I didn't have to worry about shutting up the inner editor, because after the first chapters, it was sitting there stunned, trying to work out how to do this :)
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2015-02-07 06:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-02-08 12:23 am (UTC)