The Owl Service

Pointless

I’ve heard this book listed as a great work included with a number of books that I have liked. So I thought I’d give it a try. I downloaded the sample and found it hard to keep track of what was happening. Sometimes dialogue heavy writing that includes short sentences and onomatopoeia sticks better as an audio book for me. So I bought that. The book is performed beautifully. I use the word performed instead of read because of how spectacular a reading it is. However the performance still couldn’t make me enjoy this book. The Samuel Beckett script style minimalist interactions between characters lacks any of the Samuel Beckett cleverness that allows his scripts to be enjoyed. It’s as if you can hear the author in front of his typewriter talking to himself, “This is the point where the female character needs to communicate what she feels and thinks. Women don’t really think they’re creatures of emotion. What do women feel? I don’t know. Ah that’s it! ‘I don’t know.’ Wow, writing women is easy.” I listened all the way through this torture where the female lead’s most quoted line is “I don’t know,” hoping the plot had something to offer. Spoiler: it doesn’t. I cannot fathom what the appeal is of this book.