I spent months waiting for this book. Not an "edge of your seat" sort of wait, just a "I reserved it, but it'll take months before my library actually lends it to me" kind of wait.
And it wasn't worth it. I thought that its predecessor (and in essence, the first instalment of this two-part novel) was arguably the best Pennac book I had ever read: wacky, but in touch with contemporary issues and trends, an interesting portrayal of the criminal underworld and a rather realistic generational conflict.
This book still tries to have all of that, but with much diminished wackiness it just doesn't deliver. And if one removes so many of the comic aspects of Pennac, at that point all is left is a crime novel that really cannot match in any way, shape or form the best in the genre.
Also: can a single contemporary writer close the circle of a multi-book story successfully? Pennac, Veronesi, Ali Smith, Coe (just the first four who come to mind)? Only Margaret Atwood has been able to write a sequel that left me completely satisfied based on recent memory.
No comments:
Post a Comment