Book club discussed Virgil Wander tonight. I found the discussing of it more enjoyable than the reading of it. The plot starts slowly, and I could tell that something was important - such as the recurrence of the uncertain boundaries of land, water, and sky/fog intersecting with questions of people who were almost dead or thought to be dead coming back or recovering their lives - but I could not discern what any of it was about at first. But even I, who hates it when authors toy with me that way with a striptease of a novel, appreciated the layering of it in the end.
If you give it a go, I think I can give you just a few things to think about while you read without giving any spoilers.
I wondered where on the spectrum from mere evocation to allegorical retelling were the names. Was Virgil supposed to represent Wandering Aeneas in the first half of the Aeneid, have elements of him, or merely evoke something about the continual journeying of man? Or was this Virgil the guide of Dante in the Inferno, and how strictly? I came up with an answer I liked by the end, but no one was excited by it. Still, there was general agreement that the names were important, especially of the male characters.
What's with all the fish?
Is Adam Leer an evil character, one who is unlucky and easily blamed, or tragically trapped in having evil occur around him?
One of the discussants thought the book had a lot of understated humor, which I did not pick up but can see now that he mentioned it.
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