But What Of The Sea Monster?

I should be reading but I feel an obligation to 'blog', especially since I ought to have finished reading "The Sea, The Sea" last night, by the terms of my schedule, and I haven't. According to my KOBO I'm only 32% complete. I don't feel bad - it's a large book, and I've been busy. So there.

I've never read any thing by Iris Murdoch before, so I'm not sure whether this particular book is any indication of her natural writing style, but I kind of hope it isn't. It's divided into three sections (Prehistory, History & Postscript) with the Prehistory styled as a day-by-day memoir, and the History as recent events being recalled in a slightly more formal way. I, of course, have no idea what the third section is like and will not hazard a guess. So far the novel is entirely the first-person narration of Charles Arrowby, a recently retired director who has moved from London to a strange, isolated house on a rocky shore by "the sea" to repent of what he calls his 'egoism'. His peace there is disrupted by women (and some men) from his past, the gentle mockery of the locals, and an assortment of seemingly paranormal events.

The Prehistory has passages describing the sea which are deeply lyrical, with a beautiful rhythm that echoes the waves against the rocks. There are also many humorous segments relating meals, and there is mention of Charles having considered writing a four-minute cookbook. It was also exciting, with a sea monster and a 'haunting' - it really got my heart rate going at one point! Maybe I just scare easily, but it was good! I was really enjoying the Prehistory section, even though I kept thinking that it could probably have benefitted from a more thorough editing. I realize that the train of thought/meandering style was fully intentional, but I still found it slightly irritating.

Now that I'm into the History section, however, the tone seems to have changed completely - and not just because it is now being written by Charles in a reflective state. That is actually an improvement, because the story has a more directional flow to it (yay plot!). On the downside, the paranormal element seems to have been dropped (temporarily, I hope!) in favour of more of a Hallmark movie theme of angst ridden longing. The Charles of this middle section sounds to me like a fourteen year old girl, humming and hawing over what he should do and what did she actually mean. I really hope it's just a phase.

Completely random, non-content related thoughts - I'm annoyed with myself that I wasn't able to finish reading the library copy of this novel before it was due back. It's resulted in my having to purchase a copy on my aforementioned KOBO. I love my e-reader, but I feel like it's mocking me with it's "percentage read" indicator. I wish it would give me actual novel pages read and remaining. It's just a personal preference, and something I'm sure I'll get over. Although it does frustrate me when, for instance, 'Charles Arrowby' refers to "100 pages" ago and I can't just flip back. Oh well.

As it turned out the KOBO site also had copies of Stanley Middleton's "Holiday" and David Storey's "Saville" so I bought them, too. Whenever I read those two will now be out of chronological order, so I'm thinking of them as 'treat' books for myself. Writing that down I realize it sounds a bit (!) crazy, but I'm ok with that.

I set up a display of all the Man Booker Prize winning books we have in stock at work, thought you all might enjoy a look at it. (Pictures of books on KOBO are a bit dull.) There are 28 titles represented here, of the 46 current winners. Yikes! What was I thinking!

Happy reading!