Hangman

By page 30 I was strongly motivated to DNF; kept going because of the reviews. I regret continuing.

Narrated first-person by an affectless middle-aged man, completely dissociated from the events he relates, passively moving from one situation to the next but with no agency or engagement. You know those people who love to tell you their dreams? “And then this happened and then this and then I got in a car except it became a plane and then ...”? Like that, for two hundred pages. I’m not the kind of person who loves listening to dreams, so I found it increasingly tedious and even more so once I figured out what was going on. (The “twist” at the end is no such thing, it was telegraphed early and became increasingly obvious.)

Binyam is fiercely smart: there are snippets of insight, cultural criticism, awareness of self-awareness that delighted me ... but briefly, and too rarely. This was too long, drawn out and rambling. I will optimistically seek out her shorter publications.