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shirley_grant's review
2.0
Disappointing given the reviews I had read. Found it too disjointed, a bit confusing.
roba's review
3.0
This book really wrong-footed me. I thought it was going to be a bunch of only tenuously connected stories, like David Mitchell's Ghostwritten, so I didn't pay enough attention to what eventually coalesces into an intricate, brutal, century- and world-spanning thriller. I'd have appreciated it more if I'd made some notes.
There's a lot of good research gone into this - on weather, how shipping cargo works, Arctic exploration, nowadays pirates etc. That was slightly spoiled for me by the magical realist framing device. I have zero tolerance for magical realism, and the causes of magical realism. But it's a small element of the book which you can pretty much ignore. (Although I've a sneaking suspicion it's actually a really important part of the book. I am quite stupid about these things.)
There's a lot of good research gone into this - on weather, how shipping cargo works, Arctic exploration, nowadays pirates etc. That was slightly spoiled for me by the magical realist framing device. I have zero tolerance for magical realism, and the causes of magical realism. But it's a small element of the book which you can pretty much ignore. (Although I've a sneaking suspicion it's actually a really important part of the book. I am quite stupid about these things.)
tomlloyd's review
2.0
Didn't finish, couldn't care enough to put the effort in.
I got about two hundred pages in and couldn't see any clear thread between the arctic story and the Indian one bar a few implausible planted hints. It probably all came together towards the end in some intricate and clever fashion, but I'd found myself not caring about either stories or characters, seeing very little of the plot promised by the cover copy and profoundly irritated by the tiny font use in the book - which is the publishers' fault not the author's, but diminished the experience.
I got about two hundred pages in and couldn't see any clear thread between the arctic story and the Indian one bar a few implausible planted hints. It probably all came together towards the end in some intricate and clever fashion, but I'd found myself not caring about either stories or characters, seeing very little of the plot promised by the cover copy and profoundly irritated by the tiny font use in the book - which is the publishers' fault not the author's, but diminished the experience.
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