OK I have finished it.
I thought it was good, I enjoyed it, although I did feel that the last part of the book wasn't quite as convincing as the first three-quarters of it. Some scenes I did not find entirely convincing; it wasn't really clear why he ran from the road demo, for example.
I felt that there was a clash between the first-person voice of the narrator and the fact that he was having a breakdown of some sort - it is a tricky balance of course because if you are barking then you are unlikely to be able to string together a coherent narrative. But when the narration is compared with, say, his diary entries, it didn't feel very authentic.
I really did NOT like the line, "Mothers gathered in a knot where the road dead-ended alongside the school gates, while besuited fathers came and went purposefully." That's really inexcusable and I can't believe your wife didn't slap you when she read that.
I felt that the theme of Gile's father came into the book as a bit of an after-thought. Likewise, their marital chaos was not really addressed by either of them until the last few pages. That didn't seem very convincing to me, particularly as Giles was spending half of his life having blackouts and becoming entrenched in alcoholism and drug addiction and having a nervous breakdown. I think really his missus might have demanded a few answers beforehand.
I REALLY liked some of the early descriptive language, particularly when Caroline was hungover and compared to an animal left in a cardboard box overnight after being roughed-up by the dog.
I really liked the descriptions of working at home and how challenging it can be.
So I've got some more questions although of course now I am going to splurge all my good questions and there will be nothing left for tomorrow, but I'll put them here anyway.
- Do you think that actively seeking out criticism by bloggers on the internet is healthy, or do you think it is "a peculiar form of self-harm"?
- Do you think looking up criticism on the internet is avoidable?!
- Do you think that the forum of the internet and the nature of the criticism it liberally dishes out is putting potential writers off column-type journalism?
- Have you experienced cyber-bullying, and in what context?
- Do you ever unplug your router in desperation to get work done at home?
- Can you tell me a bit about your own history with the internet? When did you first come to chat-rooms or talkboards, and do you still frequent them? Have you ever been to a talkboard meetup?
- Do you have a dog, as well as children? Isn't that just doubling your workload for no real return?
Right I'm going to do some work now I've finished the book (I work from home, obviously).