Mostly I finish the books that I start. Sometimes I don't. These are
the ones I didn't finish this year.
The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. LeGuin: impermanently-gendered
people were probably revolutionary in 1969, but they aren't now, and
much of the surprise value of the book is now lost forever. The idea
that not having a gender divide would lead to a less binary,
self/other worldview is interesting but unsupportable. I could have
done with more of the florid description that most people seem to find
makes the book slow; it's better than the clunky Messages.
In the Woods, Tana French (Dublin Murder Squad #1): this is a story
of psychological disintegration dressed up as a detective thriller.
There's a basic criminal case with a fairly obvious solution, but the
first-person narrator (with an excessively literary internal voice)
destroys himself and his relationships in the process of solving it,
mostly because he's too stupid and unobservant to pick up the clues
that are handed to him on a plate. Of the two mysteries presented
here, one isn't solved at all (it just makes for a cool backstory for
the protagonist), and the perpetrator of the other escapes all
punishment. Not an author for me.
The Cold War Swap, Ross Thomas: trying to be spy noir, but drowns in
stereotyped situations and people, especially some of the most
offensively drawn homosexuals I've ever read (and I've read Raymond
Chandler). All the interesting people die. Probably tolerable if you
like the styles of John le Carré, Eric Ambler or Anthony Price. I
don't.
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