Trying to like reading fiction once again, find a way to enjoy a simple story simply told. Started with Pigs In Heaven by Barbara Kingsolver and even got off to a bracing start. By chapter three I experienced the familiar feeling of restlessness that has been the bane of my fiction reading experience for over a decade now. I am not sure if I should stay or leave.
The feeling is akin to that of being stuck at a dinner party where it would be easy enough to slip away without calling too much attention. On the other hand, if you decided to stay you may meet some interesting people, have a few decent conversations. It's not a given that you would be rewarded for time spent but there is a distinct possibility. Some of us may choose to linger while others may skip out. I was at that point at the beginning of chapter three and decided to stay a while. Page sixty-nine, chapter eight and I had not yet been made whole for the investment of my time. The characters remained two-dimensional cut-outs all imbued with the uniform voice of the writer and not their own.
It was time to move on to the next book on my list - Remainder by Tom McCarthy. By Page sixty-nine here I had learned that the protagonist had earned an 8.5 million pound settlement for an injury that had left him in a coma and hospitalized for months. Upon recovery and in receipt of these monies, he wanted to reproduce a crack in the bathroom of his friend's house complete with the hallway, apartment block, neighbors and all with this money having found no other cause in his life.
"I’d be able to recreate the crack back in my own flat—smear on the plaster and then add the colours; but my bathroom wasn’t the right shape. It had to be the same shape and same size as the one David’s had made me remember, with the same bathtub with its older, different taps, the same slightly bigger window. And it had to be on the fifth, sixth or seventh floor. I’d need to buy a new flat, one high up. And then the neighbours. They’d been all packed in around me—below, beside and above. That was a vital part of it. The old woman who cooked liver on the floor below, the pianist two floors below her, running through his fugues and his sonatas, practising—I’d have to make sure they were there too."
I suppose that is a fine premise to write a story about. There are many among us without any real cause or purpose in life. Most of our experiences lack the heft we crave and there may be only a handful of moments when we felt truly alive. All those facts are relatable. When you bring a large sum of free money to bear on such a situation, then knowing what to do next can be very daunting. But a crack in the bathroom as the center of the universe was a bit out there for me. In the subsequent pages, the protagonist launches his plan to create the universe surrounding and emanating from that crack - the only deja vu inducing trigger in his life. This whole business sounded like Murakami might if he was fighting writer's block.
I have several more books to go through and hope one of them will deliver the joys fiction once used to.
The feeling is akin to that of being stuck at a dinner party where it would be easy enough to slip away without calling too much attention. On the other hand, if you decided to stay you may meet some interesting people, have a few decent conversations. It's not a given that you would be rewarded for time spent but there is a distinct possibility. Some of us may choose to linger while others may skip out. I was at that point at the beginning of chapter three and decided to stay a while. Page sixty-nine, chapter eight and I had not yet been made whole for the investment of my time. The characters remained two-dimensional cut-outs all imbued with the uniform voice of the writer and not their own.
It was time to move on to the next book on my list - Remainder by Tom McCarthy. By Page sixty-nine here I had learned that the protagonist had earned an 8.5 million pound settlement for an injury that had left him in a coma and hospitalized for months. Upon recovery and in receipt of these monies, he wanted to reproduce a crack in the bathroom of his friend's house complete with the hallway, apartment block, neighbors and all with this money having found no other cause in his life.
"I’d be able to recreate the crack back in my own flat—smear on the plaster and then add the colours; but my bathroom wasn’t the right shape. It had to be the same shape and same size as the one David’s had made me remember, with the same bathtub with its older, different taps, the same slightly bigger window. And it had to be on the fifth, sixth or seventh floor. I’d need to buy a new flat, one high up. And then the neighbours. They’d been all packed in around me—below, beside and above. That was a vital part of it. The old woman who cooked liver on the floor below, the pianist two floors below her, running through his fugues and his sonatas, practising—I’d have to make sure they were there too."
I suppose that is a fine premise to write a story about. There are many among us without any real cause or purpose in life. Most of our experiences lack the heft we crave and there may be only a handful of moments when we felt truly alive. All those facts are relatable. When you bring a large sum of free money to bear on such a situation, then knowing what to do next can be very daunting. But a crack in the bathroom as the center of the universe was a bit out there for me. In the subsequent pages, the protagonist launches his plan to create the universe surrounding and emanating from that crack - the only deja vu inducing trigger in his life. This whole business sounded like Murakami might if he was fighting writer's block.
I have several more books to go through and hope one of them will deliver the joys fiction once used to.
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