What is the "update" of which you speak?
Shocking, eh? I'm actually posting a real review for the first time in ages - you can thank the fine people who set my graduate school class schedule, as they've seen fit to give me a three-week hiatus from academic life. I love my program, but after writing 40+ pages of library science babble over a 2 week span, I'm ready for a holiday.
Last night I finished up Robert Wilson's The Blind Man of Seville. I wanted to like this book, I really did, but somehow it just left me cold. It's got all the elements that normally grab my attention: foreign setting (the titular city), complex mystery, past events coming to bear on the present, the struggle for creative genius, and a tortured hero. For the all the flash and bang of the opening, the book never seems to reach the promise set by those early pages.
We open with the murder victim's view of his final moments - bound to a dining room chair in his home, he is forced to watch unspeakable horrors unfold on his TV screen by an unknown assailant. His eyelids have been removed, and he has no escape from the images that flash before him. Finally, he escapes this nightmare by bashing his own head in against the back of the chair.
Javier Falcon, a detective in the Sevillian police force, is called to investigate the brutal killing. However, this is no garden-variety murder and the clues left behind indicate that the story may strike uncomfortably close to home and force Falcon to delve into his life's biggest mystery - the shadowy past of his own father.
Sounds good, right? While the premise certainly captured my attention initially, the book drags heavily until the final 100 pages or so. Considering that this book is 400+ pages, it makes for a substantial amount of slugging. Maybe I simply wasn't in the right frame of mind for this - Wilson's writing style tends towards a slow burn rather than fireworks, which made it tough to stay connected to it. Unfortunately, this slower pace defuses the dramatic tension of the revelations throughout the story, to the point where even the most shocking moments have all the power of my old beater Mitsubishi. By the time the story comes to a close, so much of what has gone before is tossed away as irrelevant and nearly every B-plot is abandonned like an old shoe on the side of the road.
One aspect of Wilson's book that does work is the historical thread, based on the journals of Javier's father Francisco. This well-researched look into the Spanish Civil War and the post-war life of the legionnaires who fought is the only truly compelling part of the book, and I can't help but wish that Wilson had dropped his modern A-plot altogether and written the much better historical novel lurking in the journal excerpts.
I'll give this one 3/5 - it doesn't suck, but it didn't send me either. With so much else out there to read, I doubt I'll return to Wilson anytime soon. At least I only spent $3 on this.
Last night I finished up Robert Wilson's The Blind Man of Seville. I wanted to like this book, I really did, but somehow it just left me cold. It's got all the elements that normally grab my attention: foreign setting (the titular city), complex mystery, past events coming to bear on the present, the struggle for creative genius, and a tortured hero. For the all the flash and bang of the opening, the book never seems to reach the promise set by those early pages.
We open with the murder victim's view of his final moments - bound to a dining room chair in his home, he is forced to watch unspeakable horrors unfold on his TV screen by an unknown assailant. His eyelids have been removed, and he has no escape from the images that flash before him. Finally, he escapes this nightmare by bashing his own head in against the back of the chair.
Javier Falcon, a detective in the Sevillian police force, is called to investigate the brutal killing. However, this is no garden-variety murder and the clues left behind indicate that the story may strike uncomfortably close to home and force Falcon to delve into his life's biggest mystery - the shadowy past of his own father.
Sounds good, right? While the premise certainly captured my attention initially, the book drags heavily until the final 100 pages or so. Considering that this book is 400+ pages, it makes for a substantial amount of slugging. Maybe I simply wasn't in the right frame of mind for this - Wilson's writing style tends towards a slow burn rather than fireworks, which made it tough to stay connected to it. Unfortunately, this slower pace defuses the dramatic tension of the revelations throughout the story, to the point where even the most shocking moments have all the power of my old beater Mitsubishi. By the time the story comes to a close, so much of what has gone before is tossed away as irrelevant and nearly every B-plot is abandonned like an old shoe on the side of the road.
One aspect of Wilson's book that does work is the historical thread, based on the journals of Javier's father Francisco. This well-researched look into the Spanish Civil War and the post-war life of the legionnaires who fought is the only truly compelling part of the book, and I can't help but wish that Wilson had dropped his modern A-plot altogether and written the much better historical novel lurking in the journal excerpts.
I'll give this one 3/5 - it doesn't suck, but it didn't send me either. With so much else out there to read, I doubt I'll return to Wilson anytime soon. At least I only spent $3 on this.
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