Michael
The Son of Man is a novel with three main characters known only as the father, the mother, and the son (or sometimes the child). The mother became pregnant with the child at 17. A few years after that, the father disappears, presumably, but not certainly to prison. Six years later he returns. He insists that the mother and the child accompany him to a derelict cabin in the woods for a new beginning. It does not go well.
The novel has shifts in time and POV, which I thought were handled well. It was very detailed, and the details were also handled well. The details of nature, the cabin, etc., were an interesting stylistic contrast to the fact that the main characters remained nameless throughout the novel. One of the most important details about a person was missing from this novel full of detail.
In addition, the writing gave me a real sense of foreboding.
However, I really didn’t like the style of the writing or at least the vocabulary used, especially in the prologue. I will occasionally need to consult a dictionary to look up a word, but I was constantly having to do this for this novel. When I did look these words up, I found that many of them had a perfectly good synonym that would have been much more comprehensible to the general reader. I wonder if this was a choice made by the author or the translator. Anyway, I don’t know if I reacted so strongly to this aspect of the book because it just took me out of the flow of the narrative, or simply because it made me feel stupid.
I almost DNFed this. I’m glad I didn’t because it is a good novel. The atmosphere that del Amo creates is really something, the sense of foreboding is unrelenting.
And the ending is something that will hang over me for a long time.
For everything other than language/style-4 or 4.5. For language and style-3. So 3.5
The Son of Man is a novel with three main characters known only as the father, the mother, and the son (or sometimes the child). The mother became pregnant with the child at 17. A few years after that, the father disappears, presumably, but not certainly to prison. Six years later he returns. He insists that the mother and the child accompany him to a derelict cabin in the woods for a new beginning. It does not go well.
The novel has shifts in time and POV, which I thought were handled well. It was very detailed, and the details were also handled well. The details of nature, the cabin, etc., were an interesting stylistic contrast to the fact that the main characters remained nameless throughout the novel. One of the most important details about a person was missing from this novel full of detail.
In addition, the writing gave me a real sense of foreboding.
However, I really didn’t like the style of the writing or at least the vocabulary used, especially in the prologue. I will occasionally need to consult a dictionary to look up a word, but I was constantly having to do this for this novel. When I did look these words up, I found that many of them had a perfectly good synonym that would have been much more comprehensible to the general reader. I wonder if this was a choice made by the author or the translator. Anyway, I don’t know if I reacted so strongly to this aspect of the book because it just took me out of the flow of the narrative, or simply because it made me feel stupid.
I almost DNFed this. I’m glad I didn’t because it is a good novel. The atmosphere that del Amo creates is really something, the sense of foreboding is unrelenting.
And the ending is something that will hang over me for a long time.
For everything other than language/style-4 or 4.5. For language and style-3. So 3.5