Melmoth
Ratings18
Average rating3.4
'Hugely readable and profoundly important ... Perry's masterly piece of postmodern gothic is one of the great achievements of our century' The ObserverSHORTLISTED FOR THE 2019 DYLAN THOMAS PRIZEOBSERVER FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR 2018'Beautiful, devastating, brilliant' Marian Keyes 'Astonishingly dark ... exquisitely balanced' Francis Spufford 'Packs a punch of atmosphere, creepiness, fear and melancholy' Susan Hill 'Mythic, ominous and sensitively human' Frances Hardinge 'Richly atmospheric, daring and surprising' Melissa Harrison 'Striking and brave, ... moving and terribly beautiful' Sam GuglaniOh my friend, won't you take my hand - I've been so lonely! One winter night in Prague, Helen Franklin meets her friend Karel on the street. Agitated and enthralled, he tells her he has come into possession of a mysterious old manuscript, filled with personal testimonies that take them from 17th-century England to wartime Czechoslovakia, the tropical streets of Manila, and 1920s Turkey. All of them tell of being followed by a tall, silent woman in black, bearing an unforgettable message. Helen reads its contents with intrigue, but everything in her life is about to change.
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This pretty much sums it up: pg 257 “ I think Melmoth would be better than this.”It took me over a month to read this and I should have DNF'd but the thing is that I am a sucker for mediocre characters doing terrible things. Perhaps they realize they will never be heroes and turn to the dark side instead or perhaps they are already dark inside and the reader just gets to watch the moment it comes out? For the record, I don't believe what Helen did was a terrible thing, it just had terrible consequences. So, I stuck it out. For those thinking about DNF'ing....it doesn't get any better. I did enjoy the stories within the stories, I think I just couldn't stand the pacing and the repetition. Good god, at one point I devised a game: the next time Perry says “jackdaw” take a drink! I did not have to wait long. Also the girls night out with the dropping pearls...for crying out loud, how many pearls were on that strand? Where is the physics in them falling off all night????I'm overthinking it. These are the things that kept ripping me out of the story and annoying me so much I would put the novel down and go read something else. So, my 100th read this year was a bit painful to suffer through- and the only book I didn't love that I continued with. I think I've been reading so many rave reviews about [b:The Essex Serpent 32075861 The Essex Serpent Sarah Perry https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1482090227s/32075861.jpg 46209947]that I thought: this one has to be good! Sidenote: I own ES and will probably never get to it now. I guess I should have read that instead.
