I'd heard about this one from some English bookish people I follow in the media much earlier this year and the premise intrigued me so that I was exciI'd heard about this one from some English bookish people I follow in the media much earlier this year and the premise intrigued me so that I was excited to request an ARC from the publisher, Europa. They granted this request and I jumped in...and then floundered.
Thinking back on it, I don't think that I recall any of those bookish people in England reporting back having actually read this one, and I suspect it's because they didn't want to provide a negative review or were just left unmotivated, which was my ultimate reason for failing to finish this one.
The good, here, is that I appreciated the actual writing (as in the words, the sentences, the language), and that's the primary reason I stuck with it for as long as I did. I unfortunately found the rest of the elements - the structure, the characterizations, the movement of the plot - all frustrating or simply not working for me.
In a year when I am very intentionally DNFing even books I've bought if they fail to snare me (or even just retain my bare curiosity), unfortunately the confusing timelines and the wholly unsympathetic characters just couldn't win. ...more
What everyone else says is true (I'm just adding my voice to the chorus): comparisons to The Secret History are apt and deserved. We've the philosophiWhat everyone else says is true (I'm just adding my voice to the chorus): comparisons to The Secret History are apt and deserved. We've the philosophical wanderings, the intentional cruelties - large and small, literary references, and morbid teenagers feeding off of one another's trauma.
I read The Secret History literally decades after publication and so perhaps time and its popularity built against any success of it being a favourite for me. Don't get me wrong - I liked it very much but, having read The Goldfinch first, I couldn't tear my heart away from the first love. So while I liked TSH and acknowledge The Orchard's comparisons to be worthy, it should be clear that it stands on its own merits.
I loved the Jewish setting. I loved the uncommon nod to teenagers/young adults having the depth and cleverness that sometimes makes them fascinating and lovely creatures and sometimes makes them self destructive monsters.
Be prepared for languishness, questions, frustrations, great writing. I unfortunately found one of the twists at the end something I saw, to the final detail, early on. This didn't detract, and I have to wonder if I was just lucky, or if others might suspect its arrival.
In a flush of election-influenced stress and weakness, I requested a flurry of ARCs from publishers, which is when HarperCollins allowed me this one, and is why I'm reviewing a couple weeks after publication. I'm happy to have received it because, while a number of book people I trust have recommended it, it's unlikely I would've otherwise gotten to it as quickly as I did, and I'm happy to have experienced such a fantastic reading experience to close out the year.
While a number of the base elements are superficially like TSH, the same solid piers also shore up this debut: lush, beautiful writing and strong storytelling....more
More than any other repeat author that I read, for McCall Smith, I must be in the right mood to enjoy and keep reading his latest offering. While readMore than any other repeat author that I read, for McCall Smith, I must be in the right mood to enjoy and keep reading his latest offering. While reading this one, I thought of the 44 Scotland Street series, which I also enjoy, and went to see when the next one comes out. I was surprised to see that the latest has not only been released in the States (I often pre-order these from the UK), but has been out for some time. It's very unlikely that I would have not noticed this back then, and my suspicion is that I just wasn't in the right headspace when that one was released.
This is, perhaps, because the majority of my chosen reads tends toward darker themes, characters, actions. McCall Smith's books aren't lacking in some level of drama, tension, arcs, devious characters, but they are never that heavy, and they tend to be introspective and philosophical (especially, obviously, this one, about the life of a philosopher.. which is why I'm a bit perturbed by readers who complain about the slower pace - did you think Isabel might head out to join Indiana Jones? Especially by the 13th read of the series?).
This time around, I was in the right frame of mind, and even more so once I dug in. Six months into a global pandemic, I was happy to step away at least for a bit from emotionally heavier stuff. I feel that McCall Smith can encourage lighter hope, laughs over social gaffes, tension about what-is-Cat's-new-asshole-boyfriend-doing-now-but-we're-reasonably-certain-he-hasn't-killed-anyone, in ways that aren't Pollyanna-ish.
Isabel's primary moral and philosophical conundrum this time around felt slightly more contrived and waaay too easily resolved for her (nor do I agree with the resolution), but that's okay. The situation that was intended to be personal-life background noise was more interesting to me, and I read compulsively for the last few chapters more than I remember doing with any recent entries into this series. No spoilers, but there are developments with Cat, and I really wanted to see what happened with that; gratifyingly, Isabel's wily intervention at least affected the outcome. I'll be intrigued to see how that storyline continues to play out.
I'd say that the only primary disappointment about this one is the lack of Charley and Magnus. Isabel's children have never been a significant focal point, but they were barely, barely present in this one. In the past, I've laughed out loud at some of Charley's sentences/antics, and when, at one point, Isabel said she felt guilty about not spending enough time with her children, I thought, "Uh, yeah... you should; do you even remember their names?"
The publisher, Knopf Doubleday/Pantheon, provided an ARC via Netgalley....more
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