Paula Monks

If you muscle through, this book gets better. The character of Mathilde is the most interesting. She is fiercely loyal and passionately in love with her husband. In a way she is a saint- in the way she protects and supports Lotto without needing recognition. And then the other half of her is almost psychopathic. “Murder is too easy” she says, about destroying one of the characters in the story. The prose is extraordinarily original- her descriptions. The story does seem a bit pointless but after a while I got hooked. Poor Lotto was suffering from a big mental illness- major depressive episodes. In fact psychological problems were a major theme of the book. Also the exploration of the human need to be “great” and famous and not just ordinary. As an older person, and someone who has felt bad in the past for not doing something “great” in my life, for not being “famous” for anything, because that was what everyone expected of me when I was young, because I was so “talented”- as an older person I see what hogwash it all is. The narcissism of the pursuit of “greatness”. Can tell the book was written by a young person who is still believing in the importance of “greatness.” It is clear that the author celebrates edgy strong smart women and has contempt and no understanding of kind unambitious women. But I love the character of Mathilda- evil and saintly all in one.