The good and the ugly

It's two weeks now since I finished reading The City of Dreaming Books, and I've hardly thought about it once in that time. I enjoyed it hugely while I was reading it and I was sad when it was over, but it hasn't seemed to have left a single mark on my psyche. Trying to figure this out this morning, I realised that nothing was left unresolved, and none of the characters' motives appeared to be in question at any point. There was none of what you might call human complexity anywhere (notwithstanding the multispecies cast of characters). Forgive me for being snobby, but I really do like to be left to figure some things out for myself. Blame it on the maths.

Having said that, it was a good read. I enjoyed that the fantasy setting was told in such detail that the reader could get totally immersed, and there wasn't a false note anywhere. The precise descriptions were a real highlight.

Last week I read a New Zealand novel called Gravity's Chain, by Alan Goodwin. It had a lot more human complexity, in the sense that I couldn't figure out any decent motives for the central character. In the present of the story he is a crazy druggie genius, but in his flashbacks to his teenage years he seems quite normal (albeit still a genius). The core of the novel for me was a search for some explanation for the change, but by the end of the novel I had yet to come up with anything more plausible than blaming his dead wife. For that reason I don't think I enjoyed Gravity's Chain very much, although it was nice that things were left open at the end.