somuchrain

I read Mick Jackson's The Underground Man last week. I can't really recommend it enough and I actually think that the fact that it was both a first novel and was short listed for the Booker makes sense (though, it probably shouldn't have won, which it did not). It's such a brilliant use of character and narrative. It's utterly hilarious at times (the most elaborate fart joke I've ever read) and incredibly sad. I found myself actually missing the protagonist when I was at work, not the book, nor reading, but the character himself. Odd, that. Maybe that is the reason for any critique I have of the book. When the 'plot' itself became evident (when it ceased to be the daily wanderings of a doddering, adorable, somewhat worrying old aristocrat in Northern England) I, in turn, became less interested in reading. I would have rather the story just ended and left me with a brilliant and lovely character study. I've been noticing this in a lot of books lately: once there is a very strong narrative tug towards conclusion, or at least significant events I loose interest or begin to find the book tedious.