Book not finished: The Book of Secrets
23/11/2014
So soon since claiming I hardly ever not finish a book, yet once again I have not. I have decided this is most likely the result of not spending as much time on my choice of books in the first place.
When I used to go to the library, I would usually take an hour or so to select two or three books and some magazines. The process would involve being attracted to a title and/or cover, reading the flyleaf blurb, and I might look at a few pages to examine the style. Lately I have made some hurried choices on-line just before bedtime to ensure something for the train the next morning. I had trouble once again with the mood or tone of the book, which is not the fault of the writer. It is just that I do not want to dwell on such negative emotions. Her well-written expression of an underlying tragic doom, and of horror hiding behind a facade of normality was just too depressing for me. I just kept thinking "I don't need this", and "why should I suffer through x more pages of this quasi- (or crazy) religious angst?". I wondered if I could be bothered riding it out to the end, and checked the page count on the e-reader. At first I was thoroughly daunted at the prospect of another 700! pages.Then I realised I had forgotten this digital edition comes bundled with the full text of Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet", with commentaries etc, and the full text of Defoe's "Robinson Crusoe". Both are alluded to and quoted in the novel. Nevertheless, I still decided not to finish the book. |
I am a bit regretful at not finding out the secrets at the heart of the book, but I suspect I would only remain depressed. There is enough misery in the news every day, without wallowing in more fictional gloom. I note I have never gone in for the "Horror" genre either.
There is also the irritation of finding once again a story dealing with the sufferings of privileged and well-off people whose lives are so far removed from the rest of us. A bit like "Brideshead Revisited", which I enjoyed at first encounter, as a TV adaptation, but which I now remember as a tiresome dwelling on the sufferings of a class of people I can't find sympathy for. I just get irritated at the level of attention given to the mental problems caused by the christian church, which have riddled society for millennia now.
All I can say is "Thank God I'm not religious!" :-)
There is also the irritation of finding once again a story dealing with the sufferings of privileged and well-off people whose lives are so far removed from the rest of us. A bit like "Brideshead Revisited", which I enjoyed at first encounter, as a TV adaptation, but which I now remember as a tiresome dwelling on the sufferings of a class of people I can't find sympathy for. I just get irritated at the level of attention given to the mental problems caused by the christian church, which have riddled society for millennia now.
All I can say is "Thank God I'm not religious!" :-)
Read as an e-book borrowed from Auckland Libraries via Overdrive, on my Kobo Touch e-reader.