Our Tragic Universe

OH, bloody hell. First, the more I thought about the previous book, the more irked I became. But it wasn't completely without merit. This one, though...It was the single most pretentious soap opera I've ever read. My hopes weren't too high. But still. The blurb on the back of this little tosser makes it seem really quite high-minded. It's not. It's just how much can Ms. Thomas tell you about all the ingenius stuff she knows–and she knits too! Whoopee.

No plot, lame characters, stupidly long bits with babbling philosophizing, and a very random Beast of Dartmoor–which, frankly, amounts to practically nothing, although it is virtually the only plot point in the book. So...goodness. I can't even form a cohesive thought right now, I'm so irked at this book. The gimmick of the storyless story is perhaps not meant to be in book form. If it is, it should be handled by a more capable writer. Not a glorified chicklit writer.

This book was amazing, if only because it got me back into doing two hobbies that I had abandoned: knitting and writing. Scarlett Thomas encouraged me to believe that one day I'll be able to knit a pair of socks too, and also made me think about the kind of stories I create when I write, and that the storyless stories I like best are perfectly okay, if not actually exceptionally awesome. This book has stuck with me weeks after finishing it, and I'm thinking about going back to it soon.