East-Daikon’s Reviews > The Sea, the Sea > Status Update

well! i'm at the postscript. the book was good overall but the ending was not particularly satisfying?

they're relocating to Australia! ooh! that was a master move with the husband being like "cheerio!" (WHAT A BURN!) they're all so polite given their history where the narrator basically abducted hartley. maybe it's because they're English? idk. meanwhile you'd think this would devastate him but he's still clinging to hope "i still have five weeks" oh god what will happen when he accepts the truth? it'll destroy him

titus has drowned. now the narrator wants to kill the husband. what is wrong with this guy? none of this is normal! (although having said that, it is in keeping with his character. his love/obsession with hartley has driven him quite mad...)

oh now he's written another letter to hartley and this one sounds EXACTLY like him. he is really a hopeless case! how is he going to get straightened out in the end? if this was a hollywood movie he'd go to prison but i can't imagine that as an ending for literary fiction, it's too crude and obvious and unsophisticated.

this schmuck is back to his old tricks and planning to blackmail the husband to "letting hartley go" (!!!) despite her asking charles every day to let her go home. he needs cousin james around 24/7 to stop him doing daft things for love, he's really too far gone at this stage. if he didn't act on his thoughts it'd be manageable but he can't seem to help himself

well this is a surprise. for once in his life he's written a decent letter. it's to the husband, explaining the situation before he releases hartley. it doesn't sound like him at all, it's too rational. maybe cousin james did a heavy edit.

and now he's latching onto titus! i cannot stop reading this

he made her take her coat off even though she said she didn't want to because it was cold PLUS he's selfishly lied about the time to keep her there to satisfy his own desire. he says he loves her but then acts this way, i can't with this guy

and now he's dumped lizzie a second time "go home, it was a mistake" this is not good, she seems like the sensitive type 💔

okay now he's bona fide delusional "harley loves me and regrets losing me" um no she's happily married and you're pestering her. I'm swinging between "does he not read back over his own diaries" and "well he does think he's god's gift".

this is is the first booker prize book that i've really liked