Book group is finishing A Time of Gifts and moving on. It is travel writing, and some consider it the peak of the form, of an older man recalling with the aid of his diaries his walk from the Hook of Holland to Constantinople in 1933, when he was but 18. I have found it difficult, and eventually decided this is because it highly descriptive, and I have little gift for visualisation. As I think I have mentioned, I even dream in dark sepia tones. Conversation I can recall. Ideas I can recall. I get outside references, though unevenly. I can be remarkably unaware of the obvious. ("Oh, their names are George and Martha! How did I miss that?") I have read enough in my time that I can recognise something that is supposed to be a telling detail, like a clue going by in a mystery novel, but the detail tells me nothing. I'll bet people point to this section as an example of good writing.
One of the other members had read the book before, liking it the first time but growing irritated this time. He found the author to be unrelenting in showing off his vocabulary and knowledge of the arts. "Okay I get it! You've read a lot." The first time around, the reader might be eager and even grateful to learn new stuff. The second time through one would be more concerned with what deep understandings this had led the author to, and Fermor does not pay much direct attention to this. The reader has to intuit this from subtler cues. I guess. I didn't bother, myself.
So I cannot recommend it myself, but I can say for those who like this sort of thing, they will like this. There are some remarkable incidents with the people he meets.
1 comment:
I lose interest in a novel quickly if the author isn't giving me constant information about how characters think things through and decide what to do next. Pure physical description I can live without, unless there's a point to it other than that I'd have seen it if I'd been standing there.
Post a Comment