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I would love to say that I both fully enjoyed and fully understood this, but unfortunately neither of those statements would be true.
I’m trying to pin down my thoughts about it and it’s proving incredibly difficult. Here is what I can say about it:
- The language is gorgeous. It’s beautifully written.
- Nicholas Urfe is the most awful protagonist from anything I’ve ever read. That being said, I did find myself rooting for him.
- The characters are fascinating.
- I was quite enjoying it until after the ‘trial’. I felt like the plot lost any sort of momentum after that, as key characters were swiftly discarded and the island (a huge draw for me) was abandoned. I have a notion that that was intentional (it left the reader feeling the same dissatisfaction as Nicholas I suppose), but to me it felt like a mistake.
- I was left so completely dissatisfied by the plot. I had the feeling that Fowles himself didn’t know where he was going most of the time. Even if that is not true, that’s the impression I got. The story lacked any coherent flow for me.
- It was bloody hilarious at times, but I’m not sure it was intentional? I think that the bits I found funny were meant to be sincere? I couldn’t tell.
Anyway, that’s all I have to say about it. I feel like I could have loved this book, but I just didn’t. Unfortunately it’s not a book that I’ll ever be able to revisit, because I think that rather defeats the point!
I’m trying to pin down my thoughts about it and it’s proving incredibly difficult. Here is what I can say about it:
- The language is gorgeous. It’s beautifully written.
- Nicholas Urfe is the most awful protagonist from anything I’ve ever read. That being said, I did find myself rooting for him.
- The characters are fascinating.
- I was quite enjoying it until after the ‘trial’. I felt like the plot lost any sort of momentum after that, as key characters were swiftly discarded and the island (a huge draw for me) was abandoned. I have a notion that that was intentional (it left the reader feeling the same dissatisfaction as Nicholas I suppose), but to me it felt like a mistake.
- I was left so completely dissatisfied by the plot. I had the feeling that Fowles himself didn’t know where he was going most of the time. Even if that is not true, that’s the impression I got. The story lacked any coherent flow for me.
- It was bloody hilarious at times, but I’m not sure it was intentional? I think that the bits I found funny were meant to be sincere? I couldn’t tell.
Anyway, that’s all I have to say about it. I feel like I could have loved this book, but I just didn’t. Unfortunately it’s not a book that I’ll ever be able to revisit, because I think that rather defeats the point!