The magical and the mystifying

Having regressed to the end of month catch up post schedule, I've been missing out on writing about some of the little things that have been happening in life. Books for instance. I can't remember writing about a book since Shantaram, and that one got a mention mainly because of the pain it caused me to drag myself to the end :). 

(OK, so I checked, and books seem to be something I have been writing about regularly enough :) oh well.)

Last month however, I read a very different sort of a book. The Watchmaker of Filigree Street. It was one of those, hey, this is a new book none of us have read sort of a pick at the book club :). So I dutifully got a copy and found the green pages and the hole in the front cover of the paper back version a touch odd, but the blurb in the back seemed harmless enough.

I think it was at the clockwork octopus that I really got into it :).

It was an odd sort of a book in the end. Varying pace throwing me off sometimes while reeling me in at others. A story that was very happy treading the line between just your usual fiction and wild fantasy. Characters that seemed to form slowly out of shadows and smoke.

But then the ending happened. To say it was a bit of a let down would be to miss the point. Which was that I felt this story had so much potential :). It's like watching someone play an amazing knock against a proper bowling attack and then throw it all away five away from a century. It doesn't qualify as a bad inning, of course, but you are left wanting.

And then there was the book we read this month. So we rotate the person proposing the books every month at our book club. (Which, seeing as it has dwindled from a pretty solid 10 down to 3 members since I joined three and a bit years ago, is more of a - let's hang out once a month and if we've managed to read the book we were supposed to in the mean time, all the better - sort of a thing. So the rules are pretty relaxed :). ) I only mention this to deflect any judgement about the choice of book, i.e. left to my own devices I wouldn't get anywhere close to The Woman and The Ape. 

I suppose every now and then it's good to explore a bit outside one's comfort zone. Otherwise I'd never end up reading anything other than sci-fi or Gaiman :). But this was one of those times where I somewhat acutely felt that life is probably too short to be reading books that baffle you. And yet. 

I managed to finish reading it in record time. (Being cooped up at home with a cold might have helped with that, but still.) There's a weird sense of morbid curiosity that kept me turning the pages. Until at the very end even that gave way to leave me wanting to forget the pomposity of it all.

So why am I writing about this at length? I suppose as a warning :). And also felt like posting something that didn't sound like a recap for a change :D.