Synopsis (credit: back cover)

Eight film-makers arrive at a small Swiss hotel on the shores of a luminous lake. Above them, strewn with lights that twinkle in the darkness, looms the towering Rigi mountain.

Over the course of three days and two nights, the travellers will find themselves drawn in to the mystery of the mountain reflected in the lake. One by one, they will be disturbed, enlightened, and transformed, each in a different way.

(Received from someone for BookCrossing purposes.)

The book forms part of my permanent collection.

Exactly the right book to read out the old year and read in the new. Short, interesting chapters uniquely set out, beautiful prose, lots to reflect on.

Okri describes this style of writing as fictive philosophy. Structured like no ordinary novel, it's very much about the journey rather than the destination. Or the plot, in this case. I'm fine with that. I loved most of the book but was somewhat disappointed with the last fifth of the book. It's not because I was looking for all to be resolved or a neat ending. It's just as if the standard of the first chunk of the book could not be sustained.

A somewhat skinny 8, thus. In the end the lyrical beauty of the prose and the value of some of the sharp observations clinched it for me.

"The silence of the mountains makes inward troubles apparent. Many prefer motion to stillness."

I think the book will spend some time on my bookshelf before being released. I can think of a few acquaintances who would want to read it.

Donated to Help the Rural Child, a charity second-hand bookshop.

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