Click on a thumbnail to go to Google Books.
Loading... Going Wrong (original 1990; edition 2000)by Ruth Rendell
Work InformationGoing Wrong by Ruth Rendell (1990)
Loading...
Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. Surprisingly unsubtle. After the first few chapters of all-out Guy monologues, I started looking for some from another POV. There weren’t any. It’s all obsession, all warped viewpoint, all delusion, all the time. And it is a pretty hard go in spots. How many times can you absorb how Guy thinks a proper woman should dress, behave or have interest in? How many times do we have to see him dismiss Leonora as a person, reducing her to an object that can be manipulated and controlled? How many times do we have to see him pick another person to blame for why Leonora won’t throw herself into his arms for the fade out? It’s really trying and I admit to skimming in the middle of the book – especially when it was all ruminations on clothing and booze in between desperate phone calls trying to find Leonora. If it was dialed down or diluted with other perspectives, I think it might have been more effective, but it was a fire hose effect and way over the top. In the end I had zero sympathy for the endlessly idiotic Leonora and I didn’t buy her sly manipulation that is revealed in the end. There’s absolutely nothing to telegraph that kind of savvy scheming on her part. That she might have been playing a game out of fear is plausible, but it was too oblique. If there had been some chapters from her perspective, there would have been a cat-and-mouse element that would have been fun, but instead she’s a cipher to be pitied although I didn’t; she was too dumb and got what she deserved. Plus there was the sword fight so how the hell can I take the drama seriously with something like that? Oy. Guy Curran has loved Leonora Chisholm for as long as he’s known her. And once she loved him too. But as they’ve gotten older, Leonora becomes increasingly distant and more reluctant to spend any meaningful time with Guy. To Guy, this just proves that her family and friends have far too much influence over her. Guy is now a legitimate (and wealthy) businessman but fears that his past as a successful drug dealer has come back to haunt him; and he wonders which of Leonora’s friends or family members has turned her against him – and therefore which one he should direct the hitman towards. Going Wrong is Guy’s story, in all it’s obsessive, psychotic and delusional detail. I found this book a bit of a slog as we only get Guy’s twisted point of view. We can connect the dots to determine Leonora’s perspective, but I wanted it in more detail. And I wanted something to break up Guy’s self-deceptive, egotistical semi-rant that asserts that everyone is out to get him. This wears thin very quickly, but continues for close to 200 pages. The final 50 pages were what (to some extent) saved Going Wrong for me. Matters finally come to a head, and some welcome depth is added to the characterisations of both Leonora and Guy. There are strong hints that Leonora is not quite the long-suffering darling she is previously portrayed as, and Guy meanwhile, finally has some moments of both sanity and clarity enabling him to reach some conclusions regarding his own life. But will his epiphany come too late? no reviews | add a review
Fiction.
Suspense.
HTML: From a New York Timesâ??bestselling author: A chilling psychological thriller about one man's murderous obsession with his childhood sweetheart. No library descriptions found. |
Current DiscussionsNonePopular covers
Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)823.914Literature English & Old English literatures English fiction Modern Period 1901-1999 1945-1999LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
Is this you?Become a LibraryThing Author. |
It's a master psychological thriller with a wonderful twist at the end. This is Rendell at her finest. ( )