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3.14 AVERAGE
3.14 AVERAGE
This book was kind of a disappointment. William was insufferable, boring, and annoying to read about (businessman (derogatory)), and most of the other characters got so little development that I could not have given less of a shit about them. (The one exception to this was Charles, my beloved little art enjoyer,, the one relatable character,, started giving off fruity vibes and everything about him was absolutely delightful and then. and then he DIED!! and I lost interest in the entire rest of the book)
The writing wasn't horrible but the level of extreme, gratuitous detail got excruciating after a while. Overall, it felt like I was promised intrigue, mystery, and drama, and instead I got an enormous bundle of unnecessary words.
The writing wasn't horrible but the level of extreme, gratuitous detail got excruciating after a while. Overall, it felt like I was promised intrigue, mystery, and drama, and instead I got an enormous bundle of unnecessary words.
Diane Setterfield's writing was, as to be expected, absolutely exquisite. However, I found the story itself to be a bit thin, with more time spent on telling the details of Bellman's businesses than on the actual development of Bellman.
A tale that held so much promise, and yet in the end, nothing.
Ugh, this was hard to finish. I really enjoyed the author’s style of writing in the first few chapters…then it felt like a book about nothing. It just kept dragging on and on with the specific details of his business, his finances, his lack of connection. Over half of the book seemed to drag like this. Then he died. The most interesting part of this book was the random bird facts in between book sections.
Strange. Mr. Bellman was a super workaholic! It was a great way to ignore life and all the living. Sad that even after the death of his family members, he abandoned his only living child. He became a man possessed by the shadow of a man that was never there, only to learn, if he even learned, that he was that shadow of a man, living his life in 'thoughts and memories'.
Absolutely terrific, especially the surprising and delightful ending.
Book club chose this book as a "ghost" story for October. It was perfect for this time of year and I enjoyed it. It was dark with a little bit of mystique. Recommend if you're in the mood for a ghost story.
2.5. This is not a book about a man entering a "collaboration with death" in the way it is suggested on the back cover.
This is a story of a man obsessed with work, with a few vaguely supernatural suggestions thrown in here and there.
If you want a book about a man who runs a cloth mill, then opens a shop selling funeral goods, this is definitely for you...
This is a story of a man obsessed with work, with a few vaguely supernatural suggestions thrown in here and there.
If you want a book about a man who runs a cloth mill, then opens a shop selling funeral goods, this is definitely for you...
That isn't a *bad* two stars, it's just a "meh" two stars. This book was so, so dark. Every part of it was about death, from prologue to epilogue. I need more fingers and toes than I have to add up the number of characters who died, and there was something strange and unsettling about the lightness with which all that death was handled. Ultimately, my "meh" comes not from that, but from the fact that I never really understood what message this story was trying to convey. What was the relationship between Bellman and Black? Did Black have an active role in any of it, or was he somehow a manifestation of Bellman's subconscious? Eh...