Zadie Smith's books already read fast--like, day and a half, tops--and the ride is always entertaining. But every ride ends too quickly. Like White Teeth, On Beauty comes to a wonderful peak, one you don't see coming in the 425 pages before...and then ends, ambiguously and abruptly, 10 pages later.
And not the good ambiguous, where you don't know if they live 'happily ever after.' The clear implication is that they're on their way. The lazy-feeling ambiguous, like working out the details of it is just too much trouble, as if all the wit and cleverness that animates the plot and dialogue has already been spent, and who cares how it ends, anyway?
But I'd still tell you to read it. ]]>
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Sure, everyone has to agree that Greg Mortenson, the main character (and listed co-author), is a real-life hero for building schools in remotest Pakistan essentially all by himself. A feat, one with kidnappings and that sort of thing, as you might expect.
But the book's pacing is all wrong. Its prose glides, and yet the plot moves very slowly. And after awhile, I found myself thinking, "Okay, so we're going to build another school, in another village. We did that 85 pages ago. What's different?" And when I didn't get a satisfactory answer, I put the book down. The writer didn't figure out what Tracey Kidder did in "Mountains Beyond Mountains": how to make really good people interesting for many, many pages.
I know people who loved this book, but I couldn't finish it. ]]>
Jina
took the never-ending book quiz.
| questions answered: | 85 |
| correct: | 74 (87.1%) |
| skipped: | 67 |
| best streak: | 6 |
| questions added: | 0 |
bookshelves: to-read
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by Graham Greene
I totally agree, that was my problem---he bored me by the end. Also, I though the religion stuff becoming so major a theme came out of left field, and it wasn't really my bag...I think by the last third, I was a bit bored. Definitely by the time the affair started. But still, I'm glad I finished it. ]]>
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