Bruce Beckham's Blog - Posts Tagged "john-lecarre"

Gabriel's Moon by William Boyd

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I devoured the first five William Boyd novels and somehow lost touch; yet I found them variously remarkably authentic and laugh-out-loud funny, and always compelling. As our street book group’s latest choice, therefore, I was pleased to reconnect … until I began reading.

It’s hard to believe this 1960s spy story was written by the same author as A Good Man in Africa or An Ice Cream War. The narrative is riddled with non-sequiturs, major and minor, characters waver in their consistency, and there are plot holes that Agatha Christie would be proud of, as implausible means of sneaking past awkward explanations.

The words on each page read pretty well, so as a group we tried to analyse what was missing from the big picture. The consensus was that, while as a reader you accept you are rooting for the protagonist, this story lacks a clear reason as to WHY you should do so. To what end are you hanging onto Gabriel’s coattails?

Is it the resolution of his childhood trauma, of the book’s title? Or that he will become a competent secret agent? Or that he will pull the beguiling older woman who gives him orders?

We didn’t know.

One member found Gabriel’s continual anticipation of sex with successive females a little disconcerting, and there were one or two toe-curling descriptions.

Another remarked, did we really need to know each time he urinated?

Perhaps enough said.




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