I’m only putting this book in the “read” pile because it was the least read of any novel I’ve any attempted. I enjoyed it, but it was overly long – 4 stars. Something more gruelling and sad was Anita Brookner’s A Closed Eye, a book I had almost no recollection of, before remembering chapter after chapter of a desperate mother seeking emotional connection with her oblivious daughter, and her repressed fascination for a friend’s husband, after settling for an older man as a young woman because her family expected it. Far from my favourite work of his – 3 stars. Her brother Anton was better realised, manic and overrun, disappearing into madness. Amor Swart seemed an impossibly distant construct put in place to bridge the decades barely a glimpse of her life on display. The theme didn’t appeal much, and I’d say it took more than half of the book for things to accelerate to the point where I was enjoying where it was going. After the jubilation of his Booker Prize win, it was sobering to find that I struggled to enjoy Damon Galgut’s The Promise.
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