A lovely story with believable characters who I cared about. And some great, life-affirming inspiration about the nature of love and how to live a life, but in no way sickly or sentimental.
(I'm not outlining the plot here, but I speculate about the who-dunnit element, so don't read this if you haven't read the book yet.)
Just finished: I'm full of ambivalent feelings. Most of the time i was complaining that the pace and tone are stiff and plodding, that the characterisation two dimensional and that the descriptive, poetic bits, although lovely, are self conscious and don't fit the character who's supposedly making the observation.
Also the scenes supposedly described to the narrator are not likely to have been described in as much descriptive detail as he re-tells. But I couldn't stop reading, and suspect that Sarah is working better magic than I'm conscious of.
The solution to the mystery is more subtle than I first thought. I like that I had to think about it and that there are a number of other possible answers: I think, though, that the poltergeist is a manifestation of the doctor's own subconscious obsession with the house and the upper class life. The story ends with him haunting the ruins of the house in an obsessive way; all others who stood in the way of the house becoming " his" have perished, and no-one had any haunting troubles until he was on the scene. This is a really good portrait of an unreliable narrator who doesn't even know the power or effects of his own subconscious.
Now, as I look back on my concentrated read (started it yesterday morning) I feel that the pace and tone were just right, and that I can forgive the clunky way of including show more great evocative description , because of how thought provoking and memorable the whole book has been. Having said that, it has seemed that this book has been more enjoyable to look back on and think about than it was to read at the time. Not sure if that is a fault or just extremely clever writing. show less
Just finished: I'm full of ambivalent feelings. Most of the time i was complaining that the pace and tone are stiff and plodding, that the characterisation two dimensional and that the descriptive, poetic bits, although lovely, are self conscious and don't fit the character who's supposedly making the observation.
Also the scenes supposedly described to the narrator are not likely to have been described in as much descriptive detail as he re-tells. But I couldn't stop reading, and suspect that Sarah is working better magic than I'm conscious of.
The solution to the mystery is more subtle than I first thought. I like that I had to think about it and that there are a number of other possible answers: I think, though, that the poltergeist is a manifestation of the doctor's own subconscious obsession with the house and the upper class life. The story ends with him haunting the ruins of the house in an obsessive way; all others who stood in the way of the house becoming " his" have perished, and no-one had any haunting troubles until he was on the scene. This is a really good portrait of an unreliable narrator who doesn't even know the power or effects of his own subconscious.
Now, as I look back on my concentrated read (started it yesterday morning) I feel that the pace and tone were just right, and that I can forgive the clunky way of including show more great evocative description , because of how thought provoking and memorable the whole book has been. Having said that, it has seemed that this book has been more enjoyable to look back on and think about than it was to read at the time. Not sure if that is a fault or just extremely clever writing. show less