This time a book that my dad tried to get me to read for years (and I’ve
only done it now because, rather surprisingly, its author is coming to speak at
the LSE – not a school known for its love for literature! – next week).
The novel is beautifully written, and the starting idea (the unexpected
death of an almost stranger in the arms of the narrator) is a majestic literary
device. The constant references and quotes are intriguing if a tad bit too
high-brow (I didn’t get any of them, except perhaps the tailing of Luisa – the
sister of his dead lover – through the streets of Madrid as maybe a reference
to Hitchcock’s Vertigo).
But (there is always a but) after a while the book gets slightly too repetitive. Yes, life is weird and goes in circles, but there is no need to repeat the same sentences a number of times (the first time you do that it’s interesting, after a while it just grows old). Most of all, because of these constant circular references, I just didn’t find the surprising finale that surprising, which was a bit of a shame and left me rather unmoved (speaking of cultural references, The Big Bang Theory’s treatment of Schrödinger's cat is definitely more interesting, and also undoubtedly funnier!).
