Reserved for the 2013 Man Booker Prize roundabout.
Order:
Sternschnuppe28
Lamilla
lameleon
(not leamhliom as she read it for her Book Club)
and back to me, please.

This is a weighty book in all senses of the word. Did I like it? Yes, I think so. I certainly admired it. And at least Catton kept me reading right to the end. It’s a convoluted, confusing, constructed yet consuming book. The whole story is a little weak for 832 pages – and hard to summarize. It’s all about gold and greed and love and loss. A man’s gone missing and a woman has become delirious. Over 832 pages, the Author explains their connection to each other by weaving a story around the 12 main characters (Catton calls them “stellar”). At least she sort of explains, the outcome is not a complete denouement. Does it end well? More or less. People are not black and white in this book, nobody it very good, only one person is really pretty bad, and he’s killed off at the end. The problem I had with that is that I found no truly likeable character in the book. Who, then, should I identify with as a reader?
This is a highly structured novel, with a cosmic built: divided into 12 parts, the first one being 360 pages long, the next half that, about 180, and so on. The last part barely fills two pages: the chapters diminish like the waning moon. Catton breaks some literary rules, such as the ‘show-not tell’-rule: she frequently tells us what characters are like (“he was the sort of man who …”), instead of only showing them act or speak the way they are. She also jumps back and forth in time, a feat she masters very well. I’m not sure it adds anything to the book but cleverness, though.
The book is certainly a literary masterpiece, written by a woman in full control of her story – which, considering the length, is an enormous achievement on its own. However, in the end the story failed to touch me at a personal level.

Received today :-) Thanks, Sidney, for the nice card & sweets - that was really kind of you!

I am very sorry - I meant reading and forwarding the book long ago. By now I have not yet read the book - shame on me! So I guess the book had its chance with me and should have more luck with the rest of the reading group. Enjoy reading! ... on its way to Belarus now.

Received today!
Thank you also for the pretty card

Should be moving soon

Sent today from the local post office as unregistered email. Sorry it took me so long!

Now safe with me after what must have been a very eventful trip. The parcel had a very weird sticker of "unclaimed" and the postal marks are from March 22nd - maybe it jumped from one post office to another, sorry about the inconvenience.