Saturday’s Book: “Past Perfect” by Jacob Shabtai

Spooky... (Naomi's Photos)
Spooky…
(Naomi’s Photos)

This is a strange book.

What’s even stranger is that I can’t put my finger on what stopped me from “abandoning the book”.

It’s not easy to read it. It’s written in the “stream of conciousness” style, with paragraphs being a very rare thing, a period spotted once or twice a page, while commas get special treatment. Everything is very associative and slow. Not a lot of action, either.

But…

It really did seem as if I, the reader, was inside the hero’s head. That IS the way we think, in an associative manner. Imagine walking on the pavement and thinking about the things you have to do next, and in between you get fleeting, momentary thoughts such as :”Who let that dog run out without a leash?” or ” What a terrible color for a car!”

It just seemed that I couldn’t stop until I was officially “released”. So despite having a crisis at some point, I completed the book with a sense of closure. Not sorry I read it.

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