Coming Up for Air

Wow. This one has me in a pickle. I sat for a long time wondering how I would rate this and I am still pretty confused.
You see, I was aware that exactly what I disliked about the book were things that were very intentional, which makes me feel I am living in a bookish inception. So it was hard to rate this book from a cerebral point of view vs. an emotional one. I was tittering on the edge of 3.5 stars for a while but that ending (and I mean the last 20% of the book) was so under stimulating, I actually started having a sensory overload from my bedsheets just trying to get through it (the autistic girlies know what I mean by that... also WASSSUPPP)... I struggled to read this (from the language, non smooth writing, it took literally 75% of the book to even get to the main premise of it which is fine but it was dragging on, there is no doubt about that at all) but I especially struggled in the last 20 pages from under stimulation that I banged my head repeatedly against my headboard (also autistic girlies should be familiar with this), but I understand what the author intended even if I struggled myself... which is a weird position to be in. I admit I've never been in a similar situation before.
From a cerebral point of view... this book is very clever. I annotated like crazy. I did not enjoy it. I think that was actually the point (Enjoyment of a piece of media is not an expectation for me. I absolutely prefer feeling uncomfortable. I absolutely admire the boldness that comes with writing something that is not intended to be enjoyed. I actually am satirically and humourously pleased with saying the words “I did not enjoy this work” because as I said, logical vs. emotional, and that is tickling my brain right now). The point was to make you feel uncomfortable, for you to hate the main character who is BTW a piece of sht but to also pity him? he is very pathetic in a lot of different ways. I don't think there was any way that exists under the sun for me to *actually enjoy it. The same way you wouldn't particularly like Albert Camus's The Stranger in that emotional way but can recognize the genius of the novel.
I have never been this conflicted by a book before. I do admire what it is trying to do but I thoroughly struggled to get through it and so I think a 3 stars rating is good enough. It is exactly how I feel : a grandiose meh, with a dash of I am happy this average rating makes me extremely uninvolved, removed, successfully avoiding having to make a decision, and a slight nod of the head to the cleverness with which this was delivered... all in all it is pretty diplomatic for me. And that should suffice, for now.

EDIT: it is the next day and while I am leaning towards 3.5 stars in my mind, I would like to keep my rating as diplomatic as possible at 3 stars.
I am glad I read this book. It was brilliant in its own way, one has to got to admit that. But I struggled to get through it.
I absolutely do recommend it but only to people who have been reading a variety of books and genres for years, it is definitely not for the new reader or the romance/fantasy/thriller/mystery reader. This book is like the summer British afternoon... long but you have a few interesting things in between, bite sized that make it tolerable.
I must add that since my own country is at war right now, too, a lot of things have hit home for me and made me realize how different things are for us right now.
Again, I recommend, but only if you have read a bunch of classics or Orwell before. Definitely not a starter novel.

Este o carte interesantă, deloc optimistă și comică pe alocuri. Al Doilea Război Mondial bate la ușă când personajul principal, George Bowling, e de părere că are nevoie de o pauză (de “o gură de aer”) și plănuiește să facă o vizită locului unde s-a născut și a copilărit.

Ce aș fi eu acum, daca n-ar fi fost războiul? Nu știu, dar ceva diferit de ceea ce sînt. Dacă războiul nu te omora, atunci el era menit să te facă să gîndești. După acel dezastru stupid, de neimaginat, nu mai puteai continua să consideri societatea ca pe ceva etern și nechestionabil, ca o piramidă. Știai că e doar o mare harababură. (p. 146)

Narrated by George Bowling, a man in his late 40s, living in the suburbs with a wife and two children, with an unexciting but stable white collar job, this is a book of reminiscences and a nostalgic look back over his life. Overweight, and with false teeth,George is a first world war veteran, now working in insurance, travelling regularly in an escape from his wife and children.

Set in the pre WWII early 1940s, this book takes us through the life of George Bowling, as a child and adolescent pre-WWI, in a town called Lower Binfield. It is not a particularly miserable childhood, but neither was he the popular boy. His time is the army was no less inspiring; following a minor injury at the front he was sent to a remote stores dump, where he was to monitor non-existent military stores.
Once a month they sent me an enormous official form calling upon me to state the number and condition of pick-axes, entrenching tools, coils of barbed wire, blankets, waterproof groundsheets, first-aid outfits, sheets of corrugated iron, and tins of plum and apple jam under my care. I just entered ‘nil' against everything and sent the form back. Nothing ever happened. Up in London someone was quietly filing the forms, and sending out more forms, and filing those, and so on.

After ruminating about his life, and where he has ended up, George decides he deserves a holiday, to spend his seventeen quid he won on a horse, and has managed to keep secret from Hilda. On a whim decides to return to Lower Binfield, and catch those carp which he had somehow never got around to catching as a child.

So this is not a high octane, thrill a minute book. In fact, very little happens, it is largely an internal monologue, and few people bother to interact with George very much. It is however well written, and descriptive in a depressingly British sort of a way. Worth a read to calm down between exciting books maybe? 4 stars because it was an enjoyable read, but only in a ‘nothing-much-happens' kind of way.