Greg’s Comments (group member since Mar 26, 2012)

Greg’s comments from the Idle Book Club group.

If you re-read the first half, you'll notice how (view spoiler)[it parallels the throwaway example of the other kid who committed suicide (hide spoiler)].

Daniel wrote: "Fantastic book! I never would have picked this up without a recommendation so thank you!

It's interesting how this book managed to affect people at a personal level as if Tony was telling them st..."

Loving this whole post so much. The part about how old relationships can resurface as if they had happened only yesterday was so true. Thanks, Daniel!

Throwing in this awesome Vladimir Nabokov quote from The Real Life of Sebastian Knight that seems to apply precisely to this book as well:

"Remember that what you are told is really threefold: shaped by the teller, reshaped by the listener, concealed from both by the dead man of the tale."

While I tackled the book on a single Saturday, I actually read part one, took a few hours off, and then went back and read part two. During the interim—even before he began revisiting what had happened—I still found myself turning over the events in my mind. It's weird, and I need to re-read the opening to put my finger on why it seemed so poignant even on its own. Something peculiar about the way Barnes uses language there, perhaps, but I'm very much in the same boat as Gregory as being mystified how the author took these pretty ordinary events and used them to drive an undercurrent of... dread?

If I hadn't totally bought that first part, though, I can see how the rest of the book would have fallen flat. The book is sort of like a laid-out whip, with the motion magnified through the length until it finally cracks at the tip.