2nd Chaper, part 2..... Flame's book

[Jas]

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Ooh yay!

My book hasn't even arrived at my house yet, let alone been posted out

One of my fave books. I love the way it is written, I love the way you see both sides and end up sympathetic where you wouldn't expect!!

Interesting read. I won't say I enjoyed it because it was a bit claustrophobic but I'm glad I've read it. I thought it was well-written but I would have found it easier if both accounts had run concurrently to save me having to flick back to try and find the corresponding part in the first account!

Thought the ending was good.

Thanks Flame - good choice!

If they had run concurrently though I think it would have lost that connection with both of them - you feel his deep "love" etc reading all his feelings in one go.

Hmmm.
Not sure about this one at all. It took me almost the whole month to read, which is not generally a good sign.

I found the first part much easier, and was sympathetic to him, but in the second part really came to dislike her by the end

The ending was not a surprise, but possibly spoiled for me by the fact that I didn't really care about her.

I coped with the two separate versions, but spent alot of time flicking back trying to work out who GP was, which was a complete waste of time and in the end not really relevant.

I found the set-up very familiar when I started this-- the whole girl-in-a-cellar thing reminded me of Silence of the Lambs and countless others. But I suppose it was a fresher idea when this was written in the 60s.

Also, once I got onto Miranda's part of the book, I realised that apart from being a psycho thriller, this book is really about the struggle between the aesthetic and the anti-aesthetic. I am totally married to a 'Fred', who just doesn't get how I find ugliness dispiriting and I can totally identify with Miranda's feelings of not wanting to seem snobbish about Frederick's lack of taste but being unable to suppress her own yearning for beauty. At the end, what I found even more tragic than her death was that he read her whole diary and still didn't 'get' what she had been trying to show him about beauty.

I liked that the two povs weren't interwoven; it allowed you to become totally immersed in each of their stories without distraction. The end is chilling, again, I think Fowles is trying to say something greater about his time when Frederick's outlooks 'wins'.

Interesting to read the other comments! I just couldn't dislike Miranda due to her predicament and ultimately horrible fate.

However if I find myself thinking of "Fred" as less than human (as per Miranda's way of thinking) that to me becomes problematic as it is so tied in with class divides, the haves and the have nots, those with and without education and a means of expressing themselves fully.

Loved the way the book was written and the perfect, spare use of language. And the ending was neat if chilling.

Thanks for choosing this one Flame!

I really enjoyed this book - just goes to show you cant judge a book by its cover. I too thought that the two points of view in two separate sections was good as you got the whole story twice - an intersting tale given it was from the 60's. I did think the end was poor though.