well written but uninteresting
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Al the things the previous reviewer said are true, but unfortunately this book, for all that it's very well written, doesn't half take some getting through. There is very little to make you keep turning the pages - little happens and its hard to care about the characters.
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Principled, but uncertain
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Not a book for a quickie review, this work requires and rewards a bit of effort.
The premise I already find tricky; an entirely fictional tale about people that really existed. Thus we follow the world-renowned physicist E Schrodinger - he of the Cat fame (you know the one. It's in a box and you do something that has a 50% chance of killing it and until you open the box is the cat dead? Or alive? Or both?) - as he flees pre-war Europe, disgusted by Fascism and his own attempts at appeasement.
"Neutral" Dublin is his destination, a city of political ambiguities as the infant state picks a precarious path between its long-term "associates" the UK, and a feared suitor that dare-not-speak-its-name, but which might answer some problems. These uncertainties reflect not only the electron of Schrodinger's work-obsession, but also his bizarre domestic arrangements. He further complicates the latter, embarking on an affair with a younger woman, doomed to end-in-tears - the only question is whose? (Should Ireland also seek a third suitor? The USA? Or would it also realise it had mistaken depth of feeling for depth of thought?)
The writing is subtle, poetic. Analogies and reflections abound. Those between Schrodinger's life and the "uncertain electron" are elegantly observed, prompting favourable comparison with McEwan's "Saturday" where irrelevant medical facts are thrust upon us. An atmosphere of edginess and unease is well maintained. The cold dreariness of civilian life in war-time, the problems of "fitting-in", and the subtle oppression of a judical Catholicism hanging over the city like one of its morning mists. But there is menace as well. Minor events and utterances carry veiled threats. The reader is never at ease. These resolve, to my mind, in a slightly disappointing fashion, completing satisfactory circles of irony, but lacking punch. But then, that's real life.
So what is it actually about? Well, the author may not agree, but I think it's ultimately...no, not a love story. It's about getting old. Not the falling apart/legs don't work/girls won't fancy me (though there is a bit of that) getting old, but the worries of an ageing intellectual. Signs of physical decay are portents that one day your brain will be dead. And what have you left behind?
One more analogy. My problem with a fictional story with real people. I could convince myself yes, this is Schrodinger, he's talking to De Valera; yes, they might talk like that - but I didn't care. Or I could get into the story, as if this was all really happening to the hero, feel it, worry about him...but it was no longer Schrodinger. I couldn't do both at once.
Bit like an electron...
Banjanx
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THE GUARDIAN
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'Historical novel, tragic romance, war fiction, epic of ideas, [it] is full of such menace... worth reading and re-reading.'
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THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH, Patrick Skene Catling
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He writes of dreariness with a beautiful clarity that makes it as exhilirating as a mid-winter swim in Dublin Bay.
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