Recently released, this book hasn't hit the big time yet but it probably will. It has garnered good reviews, it's an intriguing tale and it's not a long, tedious slog. All merit points.
It was on my library list early (there are now more than 90 holds on it) and since I had Friday off (yesterday) I started it with my morning coffee. I finished it before lunch. About 200 pages, it's a quick read. The book is written in the second person, something I normally avoid like talk of the Rapture, but for some reason it moves the story along really well. Second person prose usually seems too gimmicky for me: "you exit the dressing room and wait for the elevator. When it arrives you step inside and press ten." But since this book is all about one woman's strange journey and her lost identity, it works. You, the reader, sort of feel like you are that woman, that they are talking about you.
The book is preposterous in a way, the circumstantial mishaps the protagonist experiences would never really happen, but reading is about suspending disbelief at times, so you go with it. You want to see how she will get out of this mess, if she will be safe or land in some dangerous situation, if anyone will come to her rescue or recognize her screen of lies. From the beginning there is a hint of a major betrayal that happened in the past but the reader doesn't find out about it until near the end of the book and then it explains a great deal about why the main character is so out of touch with reality.
It's a good read. The concepts of what constitute identity, who we are without our traditional trappings and what do we really need in order to feel ourselves are well woven into the story. It is set in North Africa and like the markets in that country (which I have visited), the narrative leads you down one winding path after another until you are lost in the maze and have no choice but to keep reading in order to figure out how it all ends.
THE DIVER'S CLOTHES LIE EMPTY by Vendela Vida.
No comments:
Post a Comment