His struggle! How about mine? I
was misled by the great reviews and all the plaudits that this book
(most of them reprinted in the prelims) has garnered into borrowing
it from the library. I've got to say, I just don't get it. The
author/protagonist (as it's a memoir) is solipsist in the extreme. He
has no empathy for nor understanding of others but seems to believe
he has or that he at least recognises when he hasn't. It's hard to
identify with such a misanthropist. The book, reasonably interesting
to begin with, eventually degenerates into a version of `How Clean Is
Your House' and that's not a programme I like: page after page on
which bleach or detergent he's using on which part of the house and
so on. Why would anyone find this interesting?Then, very occasionally,
something is described adequately, ok except that it's usually
completely arbitrary and sometimes rather dull so in a way kind of
pointless. He goes into details about some weird fantasy he had as a
child without ever really explaining what's behind it. It's like if
two people came into your house and you spent three pages describing
one but said nothing about the other.
I think we're supposed
to have sympathy for him because his father drank but if he were my
son, I think I'd drink too and this book could drive anyone to the
bottle.
Not sure how to explain all the praise it's received.
Can only conclude that it's a peculiarly virulent case of the
emperor's new clothes.
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