Isabel Tipple

Can’t understand what the rave is about this book. The characters have no depth for me. Perhaps this is purposeful in a time of war with comfortable identities challenged by the fearful and unknowable. Is it credible that a spy would think placing her children in the company of other spies ( who presumably had better things to do) would make them safer? Is this why her daughter Rachel was so angry with her? What is the great mystery of the book? Nothing seems to be revealed at the end for me, just a lot of vague loose ends. Who disclosed the intimacies of Rose and Marsh Felon to Nathaniel? Maybe the pattern and passage of a war is broken and disjointed, so perhaps the book acurately reflects that. The prose was well descriptive in parts but hardly thrilling or poetic. I was desperate for the book to end and would have done so on page 64 if i hadn’t agreed to read it for a bookclub meeting. Felt similarly towards ‘The English Patient’, so obviously Ondaatje is not the author for me. William Boyd would have made a much better job of this subject.