And then there are books so good that they humble me. Before their brilliant prose I feel mind-numbingly average. I cannot imagine having such imagination; and can only dream of taking readers on an endless, don't-put-me-down journey page after page after page.
This week's read, Canada, by Richard Ford, is one of those rare books of brilliance. From the opening sentence - "First, I'll tell you about the robbery our parents committed" - you are lured, like a fish on a hook, as Ford describes (in 600 pages, mind you) the milieu, the motivations, the conversations, rhythms and cadences of a tight, strange cast of characters.
You may not know people like this, nor have lived in such places, but nevertheless there you lurk, inside the minds and hearts of 15-year-old Dell Parsons and his crazy, luckless family.
What a pity then that the second half of the book isn't half as interesting as the first half. Unexpectedly, all the minutaie that Ford embroiders into the telling of the book's front half is relentlessly bleak to the point of unbearable in the back end.
Frank McCourt managed to make a life of misery palatable for the entire duration of his autobiography, Angela's Ashes, but I reckon his literary coup is a rarity. As is the case with films, readers turns to books to escape into another world and ideally, this place of fiction offers rays of hope, light, humour and redemption.
I haven't finished Canada yet, but after a luminous opening and a glorious couple of hundred pages, I am now flicking through the second half impatiently, waiting for something uplifting to cut through the depressing bleakness. There's no doubt that Ford's a masterful writer, but he's got to give me more happy than sad if he wants to keep me enthralled. >>>
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