3.5 stars This is a book I think I ought to have enjoyed more than I did. Indeed, there was a witty irreverence to it that I liked quite a lot, a style of writing that’s equally funny and poignant. It was the style, and the somewhat absurdist musings that were brought to life by the style, that was the most salient part of the book for me. The thing is, there just wasn’t that much of a story. The concept is that a superior […]
Who could ever say you’re not simply wonderful?
So here’s a funny thing. I have a book by Matt Haig on my “to read” shelf over on Goodreads. It’s called The Dead Fathers Club and it’s on there because a) I am always up for reading modernised novels based on Shakespeare plays (I’m already beside myself about the Hogarth Shakespeare project, but that’s another story) and because b) my father died all too recently. That’s not really the funny thing. The funny thing is, since I bang on about books pretty much all the time […]
“…the cliche you have adopted for yourself isn’t working.”
The Radleys is a vampire novel that isn’t a vampire novel. The family are vampires, to be sure, but vampirism here is a metaphor for identity in general. The novel, then, explores the consequences of denying one’s true self; the facade erected by the Radleys alienates the family members from each other, and the family unit from society at large, ironically, as the facade is constructed for the single purpose of fitting in. The Radley parents, Peter and Helen, are abstaining vampires — they don’t […]