Ellen Williams asked:

Is anyone else finding this book a bit confusing? I’m presently half way through and getting a bit worried it will never get unsorted for me.

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10 likes · like
7 years ago
19 answers

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Amy Yes! I want to understand and like it...but I don't.

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Alicia Sargant I've just finished the book and I was no further ahead at the end than I was when I started it. I don't understand how it got so many positive reviews. My head is still spinning from the twists in the plot!

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Elysia Fionn It never will. But read it anyway. I want some of whatever Joyce was smoking.

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Lorelei Baffling. It's almost as if the author never bothered to coherently map out a storyline. And no, it doesn't improve.

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Jwmay

This answer contains spoilers… (view spoiler)[My take (which may be close or may be completely out to lunch):

The book is an experiment in metafaction or postmodernism or whatever you want to call it. It's the story of a writer who, less than committed to her new work, loses control of her lead character and is ultimately destroyed by her.

I'd have to read the whole thing again to look for more evidence (which I'm not going to do) but here's how it might work:

Ingrid, author of 'schlocky' fiction, starts her new book, a fairly conventional thriller about Jean, a bookstore owner implicated in a couple mysterious deaths. The wrinkle, of course, the the doppelganger she discovers. It's all a perfectly good premise for a standard thriller.

But Jean suspects there's more going on. And when she says Ingrid is responsible for Katerina's murder (which of course is technically true, since she's writing the story), everything goes sideways. Jean widens the search for the truth of her existence, and since we're told that all fiction is somewhat autobiographical, the author's reality increasingly shimmers with Jean's until it drives her batty. The rest of the book is Jean's struggle to find her own truth, which ultimately leads her to destroy her creator, finally finding her freedom in the 'rift', a transcendent reality beyond her fictional existence. She's a 'ghost', both real and unreal.

Or something like that.

Again I'd need to reread for support, but all through the book actual reality blends with fiction. While much of the Toronto geography is pretty accurate, there are telling exceptions. Pine street (Ingrid's house) doesn't exist. CAMH isn't on Spadina. And different worlds and cultures collide throughout, too - Kensington Market is a mashup of cultures. The doctor carves a fine line between his practice and his personal life, until Jean shatters it. The mind of a mental patient is a collision of the real and the unreal. Even Inger's book title is a reality fudge.

For the author, supposedly in control of all this, it all falls apart when her (his?) pen name is revealed and Jean figures out who's behind all this. Of course, a character can't destroy an actual author (Redhill himself is probably safe), but she could sure destroy a fictional one.

Basically, maybe it's a all a sophisticated riff on the classic Warner Bros cartoon 'Duck Amuck'. Imagine if Daffy actually got ahold of that bunny... (hide spoiler)]

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Burnsie I loved this book. Currently defending it for 'Grey County Reads.' Check out the link here... https://www.southgreynews.ca/grey-cou....

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Jason Pereira Have you ever watched a David Lynch film?

Welcome to Bellevue Square...

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Joyce Keep reading! All will be revealed!

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L I am sooooo bored. I feel like I should keep going because it might get good. But damn. These characters are leaving the taste of cardboard in my mouth.

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Courtney Lora Honestly, I am only a few pages in and specifically came here to find out if anyone else felt this way... well onward I tread to finish regardless.

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DELIA KENKEL Yes in fact I am at the point that I don't care anymore. Stopped reading it.

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Cate I'm still confused! I did like this book, though.

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Carolyn Devine I know I'm a bit thick, but this book was so convoluted I really didn't know at the end what was supposed to have happened!

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Jenm Yes. I made it halfway through and then I just couldn't keep going. I usually try to finish a book once I have started but not this one.

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Stephanie Binewych clark I add my voice to the legions of confused readers. I so so hoped that the end would "reveal all," but it did not. In fact, the ending only added to my confusion. Some sort of study of mental conditions, it seems? Or study of parallel universes?

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Antonia Yes, it is confusing. It makes a little more sense (not complete sense, mind you) towards the end. I'm finding it less confusing (although still non-nonsensical) during my second reading. I think it's supposed to be open-ended and unresolved.

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Amy Yes. I feel the same way. I don't know any of the characters because they keep changing, and I it feels like too many climaxes which don't advance the story.

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Joan Bennell Yes ... I finished it - the descriptions were excellent - the tale was complicated and unfinished.

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Lily I just found the end to be very vapid. The end was kind of predictable too, but it was a good novel.

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