🦋 Starting out slow
As I've been (very slowly) reading La sombra del viento, I've been trying to figure out what is bothering me about the story. Something a little off, like the plot depends too heavily on coincidences, and too many things seem to happen all at once (in a story that takes place over a span of several years, all the narrative time is spent on key points where the plot advances -- it feels kind of heavy-handed)... Yesterday I put this into words for the first time at Oswaldo's place, and I realized what is really going on with the plotting, and why it is turning me off -- the obvious, slightly clumsy presence of the author is making it difficult to feel paranoid about the events in the novel, which seems like a key element of enjoying a detective story. Well, so the strangest thing happened: after I verbalized that complaint I went back to the book; and it suddenly seemed like a much better book -- I'm at a loss for why* but last night and this morning I am really enjoying the story for the first time since the first couple of chapters.
 * It seems to me like there are two possible explanations: (a) the book starts out slow and gets better, and I'm at the point right now where it gets better. Because I am reading it so slowly, the draggy parts are magnified for me. Or (b) my figuring out what my complaint was let me drop it and move on. (b) seems more plausible except I'm not sure quite how it would work; and also the portion of the book that I'm reading today just seems better than what I've been reading for the last couple of weeks. But I'm suspicious about the coincidence...
posted afternoon of Monday, January 18th, 2010
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