Read in 2011 The sense of disappointment was acute after reading this book. I thought A Dangerous Fortune by Ken Follett did the "haunting boyhood trauma" schtick much better. I guess my expectations were unrealistic for an award-winner such as this.
This book was weird in every sense! The characters were shallow including Tony himself, who was the narrator and the story was strange or may be tricky? While author here tells us the story from Tony’s POV the actual main character turns out be someone else although the readers will be still thinkin...
This is an excellently written book, but one that eventually made me angry because, first, it is more or less a direct rip off of MacEwan's Atonement in what it is trying to say and, second, that it goes into a death spiral in the last half of the book before imploding in an ending that was truly st...
"History is that certainty produced at the point where the imperfections of memory meet the inadequacies of documentation." (p. 17)"If I can't be sure of the actual events any more, I can at least be true to the impressions those facts left. That's the best I can manage." (p. 4)"It strikes me that t...
"History is that certainty produced at the point where the imperfections of memory meet the inadequacies of documentation." (p. 17)"If I can't be sure of the actual events any more, I can at least be true to the impressions those facts left. That's the best I can manage." (p. 4)"It strikes me that t...
apparently a self-perpetuating meme, in that the only way you can talk about the book is in reverent tones, thus accounting for the book's reputation. all the reader can say, without spoiling the plot, is "this is about memory and loss and suppressing memory and has one horrifying twist." doesn't th...
Still working out whether my feelings of ambivalence over this one are for the novel itself, or for the well-developed but insufferable Tony. He and his friends are a familiar posse of pretentious British schoolboys, and he ages into a familiarly pretentious older man. Characters from his past surf...
A thoughtful, intriguing and absorbing novel that was heading for a 5 star review until the last few pages. I felt the ending added a twist that was at odds with the rest of the book. I was hooked on the idea of Tony, as an unreliable narrator, trying to make sense of the past. It's a bit like th...
Books that I like fall into two categories: either they are well written and have characters or a story I strongly identify with, or they are so exquisitely written that I can't help but admire the artistry that went into crafting such a work. Books that fall into the first category are the types ...
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