Select language, opens an overlay

Comment

Mar 22, 2018PdLorinel rated this title 1.5 out of 5 stars
One and a half stars because this isn't the worst writing I've ever read. My wife and I think that Donna Tartt must have been homeschooled, never made any real friends until late in life, grew up watching old black and white movies with her parents, and reading dime novels and mythology from before 1960. Her History is written as if it takes place sometime before 1963, yet context clues place it much later. Her main character saw the moon landing on TV in 1969, and is only 20 when the story takes place. Since I did watch the moon landing on TV at age 8, I realize that I couldn't have been much younger and remember the event. My brother-in-law, two years younger, barely recalls the landing at all, and he was 6. So, if I give the character the age of 5, to be generous, that would mean they were born in 1964, which - if they're 20 now - puts the story in 1984. Yet, characters in the book speak of 1982 as if it's years ago, long long ago. Bunny as a male name, the old-school style of dressing, the pretentious vocabulary, all leads one to think she really meant it for a much earlier time, but then we have a side character doing Jane Fonda's workout videos (mid to late '80s). I really couldn't tell if the author had actually lived through the time she was writing about, so we looked up her age - she's only two years younger than I am. Supposedly, we lived through many of the same events, but you sure can't tell it from her writing. I'm supposed to be making notes in this book for a special project. So far, most of my notes are, "When was this book set???" Or, in some cases, the meanings of words I had to look up, such as 'carious' used to mean the after-effects of precarious, which isn't really an appropriate use of the word. I think the writer works at being pretentious. I don't know Greek and only a bit of Latin, so I have had to learn to guess well on context whenever they speak "privately." The story is extremely slow-moving but I have to admit that it's dull mainly because nothing really makes any sense. College students don't dress like that, talk like that, behave that way, or do those things, anymore, and haven't for decades. It really is a lot like The Great Gatsby, except Gatsby was blessedly short by comparison. It also somewhat reminds me of The Talented Mr. Ripley. But, if you think about it, those were both pretentious, too - just pretentious within their time frames. If I didn't have to finish the book for my project, I wouldn't. I'm about 7/8 of the way through and just hoping that the ending gives some kind of meaning to the rest. For me, the mystery has not been the main event of the book, but the continual attempt to set a time period.