Wednesday, May 18, 2005

Reading

Finished the Pears (last week actually!). Not much of an ending really. As I wrote earlier, this novel is a long monologue and there got to be a point perhaps 20 pages from the end where the novel stops elaborating a point of view and begins to provide a motive for murder . . . and here is where it begins to break down a bit. The very human motive is believable, but it just seems to be beside the point.

As we read, the monologue is spoken to a portrait sitter who is also an art critic. And much of the monologue is about the critic. The novelist (and the reader) want the critic to die for our own reasons. I think the book would have been much truer to itself if it would have dispatched him for his crimes as critic, rather than throwing a few graver sins in just to make sure no one felt guilty.

Anyhow, still a fine book. Well worth the short time spent reading.

OPK

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