Too many plots

After all the hype (created solely by me and my expectations) I finished Embassytown. While it was a good book, it was different from what I predicted. It was also quite difficult to understand; everything was so alien that I had to read it really slowly to try and comprehend what the author was trying to portray. Taking the strange to a whole new level.

Also, while the original reason I wanted to read this book was a central theme, there was so much else going on, it reduced the amazing and unique impact that idea could have had. It was as if, on top of this great storyline, Mieville decided to add more and more layers and plots (not even sub-plots), with so much else going on. I found it a case of overkill which worked to the detriment of what was such a good starting point. If you have that many ideas, write more books! Don't try and stuff it all into one novel, as the book will only become complicated, diluted and just damn strange.

On diminishing books

Just a note to acknowledge my dwindling list of books read this year; it hasn't escaped my attention, but I have been mainly doing other things. Okay just thing really, I've been knitting and that takes up my hands. But I've got as many train journeys as ever, so I'm heading to the library on Monday to sort it out. I think I might finally finally get back on Wheel of Time, because even though I must have been saying this for ages, it really can't be that long before the final one comes out. Oh I'm also stealing borrowing the first book of Game of Thrones, so that should be good.

Perfect timing

So I didn't manage to re-read Before I Go To Sleep at a reasonable pace. It is an unreasonably good book. Even when I knew what happened, I still had to read it as quickly as possible. In fact, I finished it with perfect timing, just as my train pulled into Piccadilly. Unfortunately, reading those kind of scenes under that kind of time pressure (I couldn't stop reading to get off the train and on with my life before finishing it! Unthinkable) meant I felt incredibly stressed when I was finished. The action is so real and the character's anxiety and confusion so relateable that I felt as if I had literally gone through the conclusion.

Losing memory is a pretty terrifying thing, because it would leave you so vulnerable. For most of the things in our lives we hold to be real, this can only be verified due to past experiences that we remember and check for truth. If that was gone, you couldn't trust yourself, let alone anyone else.

Having said that, even when our memories work they are nowhere near as accurate as we believe them to be. The brain can and does make many things up. Things we could swear had happened, or happened in a certain way. Our perceptions of our own perceptions are set in quicksand, not stone.


On a completely unrelated side note, I finally bought Embassytown! And its good, but its really confusing/difficult to understand. I realise the central premise is, that's what drew me to it, but the whole setting, so many little details which are almost incomrehensible. Very alien.