Book Report

I've probably run out of new things to say, but then again, that happened awhile ago. In spite of that, I do walk around talking a lot. Sometimes, I even think I'm pretty amusing, "Oh, I love the way you fixed your mailbox. It gives a word lover the chance to remember that it's 'jury-rigged' and 'jerry-built'."

Even though, I've run out of new things to say, "of making many books there is no end," and I've read a few lately. I think I told you about the last two I finished. Well, the last two literary books, I finished; I'm not bragging about the ones by Dean Koontz and Alexander McCall Smith. I started recommending Cloud Atlas seven years ago as, "really great," because I know how to write a concise book review. The author, David Mitchell, has a new book out, The Bone Clocks. It spans the period 1984 to 2043. I preordered it and am up to 2004.  In an interview, he said that all of his books will eventually be revealed to be parts of an uber-novel. 

A lot of the critics have panned the last third of this new book, or uber-chapter, for an incomprehensible  sci-fi plot. I'm sort of looking  forward to that. What I haven't enjoyed so far is a pages long rehash of why invading Iraq was such a bad idea. I mean, it was, but Frontline has already covered that sufficiently. It's true, but it seems unnecessarily topical for a book that aspires to be literature. It's as if in the middle of The Razor's Edge, just before Elliot (spoiler alert) dies, there is an account of the Bretton Woods Conference, and how it will lead to a dollar glut.