…The problem is the presentation. Each chapter begins with a specific date and a vague time of day, “evening” or “morning.” It takes on the feel of a journal, like the reader gets to peek inside each woman’s story. I say story because each of these women is an unreliable narrator. More than that, even, there is the sense that they have thought out what they are going to say and how they will present it to the reader. When it is assumed these are […]
Chekhov’s Axe
I don’t want to talk in too many specifics about this book. I loved coming into it completely unawares, like stumbling on a deer grazing in a meadow and realizing a wolf is watching it too. This story was evidently inspired by the story of the Forest Boy, who you may remember stumbled out of the woods a few years ago and claimed he had been living in the German woods for five years with his father. That “true” story was utterly fabricated, and this book […]
Casual Misogyny Circus
The book is very lean. Clocking in at 259 pages, Bond doesn’t even meet the “with Love” part of the book until page 177. A female spy has been sent to Istanbul to honey-trap James Bond, essentially. They both know it’s a trap, but for whom the trap will be sprung is an open question. They both genuinely fall for one another, Tatiana because she’s literally trained so long to pretend to be in love with Bond, she sort of loses the plot in terms […]
Ironic Title Alert!
This is the long way around of saying that I was fundamentally unprepared for what happens in The Innocent. The back of the novel makes vague mention of “a terrible evening,” and McEwan doesn’t skimp on the “terrible” part. So if you’re looking for a nice, star-crossed romance with some complications to love and a poignant end, look elsewhere. Find out why I was so surprised at Pop Culture Penalty Box. [no spoilers, I promise.]