My sister-in-law gave me this book. It looks like an old library book complete with damaged spine and dewey decimal sticker. The book is filled with margin notes and inserts like maps and newspaper cuttings. I love this kind of book. I told my sister about it and she ran out and bought a copy, too.
Sadly, it did not work for me.
Problem #1 is that I do 90% of my reading on the bus or right before bed. Didn't seem like a good choice for the bus with the inserts.
Problem #2 is how to read it. There is the book itself. Then there are the margin notes which are between a grad student and an undergrad and there are several timelines. There is story about a mystery concerning the book and its author that they are investigating and also a story about the two of them getting to know each other. So it's like if you set several books side by side and read one page of each and then repeat. This reader found it a challenge, after a long day and a couple of glasses of wine, to keep up with what was going on.
I started this in January and I've been trying to carve out chunks of time where I could get into it.
Which brings us to Problem #3. I didn't find any of the stories particularly compelling. The book itself was like a boring book you had to read for school. The academic mystery wasn't interesting and didn't feel genuinely urgent. And the exchange between the students, while feeling very authentic, made me want to poke my eyes out. Their communication style was, "Um, some people are kinda sensitive aren't they?" "You're one to talk." I did not care how they ended up.
I thought I was reading toward some sort of interesting revelation so I stuck with it and I was disappointed. I looked online for some sort of summary to help me figure out what I read and holymoly. There are huge sites that dissect this thing to pieces. Check out this page that helps figure out the puzzle part (unlikely that looking at this will spoil anything) and tell me if you can understand it. I can't imagine being that interested.
I wish I was more excited about it because the presentation is amazing.
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