101 Books to Read Before You Die discussion

Please post your comments on part I here.

Anyone else reading this novel? I'm really enjoying it so far, but I'm not even 100 pages in yet - I just haven't had a lot of time to read.

Whitney, I have not had a chance to start it. I am still working through One Hundred Years of Solitude as I did not read it last May when others in the group did. And oddly I cannot seem to find our discussion thread on that book. It may have been the book to have paved the way for Marquez to win the Nobel Prize, but I can't get past merely appreciating it.

Finally started this one. I have finished part one. I have mixe feelings. Who is our guide? It is not some street walker. The voice does not sound 19th century or personally connected to the reader on this guided tour of the back streets of London. The way we are told to look here or there, various behaviors narrated, I feel as if this is the literary equivalent of watching a nature documentary on a tropical bird. Also, the pass off from character to character does not allow me to get connected to any particular story line. However, the writing is quite good.

Irene wrote: "Finally started this one. I have finished part one. I have mixe feelings. Who is our guide? It is not some street walker. The voice does not sound 19th century or personally connected to the r..."

I am inclined to agree Irene. I am not necessarily a fan of the omniscient narrator... I would rather the plot develop than to view a series of situations which eventually are tied together. Some cohesion is lost.