Disturbing, dark and poignant. This book follows a man who has just lost his best friend at war. His grief and remorse is written well and details his descent into a vengeful mania. The writer wins by portraying him in both his blaming rage and guilty penance. There are strong pictures of racism, colonialism and the effects of war sprinkled in.
But other than that, the book was not impressive in any major way. Nothing in it will make you admire the author. The protagonist keeps sexualising and objectifying random stuff. Do readers still consider that sort of thing good metaphor even today? There’s also supposed to be a limit to how many times a person can call themselves beautiful. The saving grace is it’s page count.
If anything this book has made me curious about how it managed to bag the Booker prize! Was there nothing better written in 2021? I assumed the pandemic forced people to write more.
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