Another birthday book. Added to the TBR pile.

Parts of this were brilliant, but parts of it were vaguely unsatisfying. I'm not sure I can really put my finger on why. The way Maxwell Sim's descent into near madness is charted is certainly well done. The parallels with a seemingly unconnected life lived a long time ago were convincingly drawn and, as always with Coe, the characters were convincing, if a little odd. It was certainly funny in parts, although it's certainly not a funny story. Maybe I'm being too harsh. After 'The Rotters Club' and 'The House of Sleep' Coe has set himself high standards and I'm not sure this quite reached them. Perhaps it was because he was trying something a bit different, and I'm all for that. In short, I'm glad I read it, but I probably wouldn't rush to read it again.