I might have mentioned in a previous blog that I enjoy a diversity in my reading –well, reading Kureishi’s very short novel (so is it a novella?) was like eating in a new restaurant, in another country, where its best not too think too much about the ingredients of each dish. You can probably tell that I’ve had that ‘gourmet’ experience with food and this book counts as much the same with words.
The unnamed narrator –or perhaps I missed his name? – delivers a monologue that’s set in the present but reaches back and forward in an attempt to reason, possibly justify, why he must leave his partner and two sons. It is at the same time self indulgent, insightful, and challenging, and there is the issue of the reliability of the narrator. I wondered what the bare dissection of his relationship with his family would look like from other perspectives.
In the end I was pleased it was just 150 pages, I did skip at times but overall its a book worth reading to the end. Another fictional account of ‘being’ that raises questions and doesn’t pretend to have the answers –its good to digest something like that every so often. Now I need some plainer fare … perhaps the Graham Swift I found in the charity shop yesterday, or possibly The Kashmir Shawl. Nice to have a choice.
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