By Richard Adams, the Author of Watership Down

From the cover text:
"Beautiful, haunting erotic love and an absolutely terrifying ghost story. – The New York Times Book Review"

Couldn't resist rescuing this one at the meetup -- we styled it the "bunny erotic scary thriller" novel. :)

While I am still reading, I still figured I might already say a thing or two about this book. First of all, it took me awfully long to get "into", and during the first 100 or so pages (in rather eye-unfriendly, small print) where the narrator tells about his youth it was only the elegant, flowing language that kept me. Now that the action has paced up (2/3 of the book tell the events of only 10 weeks or so), though, I am hooked and can hardly wait to see where Adams leads. Though I have not yet found the book either explicitly erotic (it does mention the hero's love life, and a rather fulfilled one at that, but that is about it for the time being) or absolutely terrifying (there are the first hints, but...), I can only credit Adams' ability to describe things for what they are. Beyond the things the protagonist does, the things he feels and thinks are utterly believable, and his observations clear and sometimes of a rather quotable descriptiveness and lucidity. I do not regret having worked my way past the somewhat off-putting Hamilton airbrush-style cover art and through the tedious beginning; I feel I may yet get to like this book a lot.

I am somewhat disappointed with the end of this book; with its unhappy ending and the supernatural goings-on conveniently explained, all that remains is a fluffy novel written in an unusually good style. I have honestly no clue what the loose end about Mrs. Taswell's going away is supposed to signify, and during the last four chapters or so have lost the sense that the narrator is a natural, believable character. The characters' coping with the haunting (and the haunting itself) was somehow stale and -well, not exactly the best thing to be said against ghosts, but- liveless. I'm not sure at all what to make of this, but right now am would be inclined to say that after the slow start and the excellent built-up of tension during the middle part of the book, the conclusion to me was an utter let-down. Sorry.

However, what *must* be said in favour of this book: there's lots of beauty in there if you just care to look for it. The description of what the protagonist feels when madly in love, for example (I think those hold true for all of us); the (German) poems, wonderfully selected from the dark romanticists which befit the topic of the novel; and the allusions to ancient mythology and the subconscious with a rather Jungian view of femininity. Don't let yourself be put off by my anger about the unhappy last chapters -- this really was a good read.

I'd like to add that this seems to be the first paperback edition (in which, btw, our heroine is still named Käthe, rather than Katrin), in case anybody likes that kind of thing.

Released on Tuesday, August 10, 2004 at Schnabelewopski in der Altstadt in Düsseldorf, Nordrhein-Westfalen Germany.

Heute bem Meet-Up ab 19:30.

beim Meet-up mitgenommen. Danke!

Last night I watched the movie "Don't Look Now" (in German known as "Wenn die Gondeln Trauer tragen") and I just wanted to say that it reminded me a lot of this book. Just in case anybody is interested to know. :)

In der Wahlkabine freigelassen.