Its not often that I leave a book unfinished, especially if I've previously enjoyed the author's work and its my choice after reading reviews. But (you probably guessed that would be the next word) Peter Carey's the chemistry of tears -yes, the title is in lower case, and please would somone explain why - is back, unfinished, on the shelf and thus becomes a very rare book indeed.
I read about 2/3rds, really tried to engage with the modern day chararters, some success there but completely failed to understand the historic story that is the background to the unrealistic grief of those whose work is conservation of objects rare and strange. In this case the object is either a duck or maybe a swan built to act like the real thing ...at least that's what I gathered!!! The interweaving of the two stories was well done, they were just not well written stories!
So I have moved on, life is far too short to spend precious hours in the company of uninteresting and at times, very muddled writing. Now reading a Deborah Moggach from the charity shop, so far so good, and also 1-2 chapters of Nicholas Nickleby each day, my comments on this may be some time in the future.
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