Snow by John BanvilleMy rating: 2 of 5 stars
I received an ARC of this book.
I do have to say this book was well-written. The author did a great job of drawing the reader into the environment of the book. Languid, fat snowflakes drifting through the grey leaden sky characterized the whole book. No one seemed in a hurry. There was no sense of urgency to solve the crime or find those responsible for the gruesome murder of a Catholic priest. At one point Strafford remarks upon how the snow seems to have distorted time. I felt the same way, reading the book. It felt VERY slow. Strafford also remarks, more than once, about how everyone he encounters gives him the sense of actors in a play, portraying their assigned roles. I agreed with him, there, as well. Everyone felt intentionally stereotypical--they knew how they were expected to act. The problem with that was that I, as the reader, really felt like there was much more going on under the surface which was never addressed. Who were these people, and who were these people really supposed to be? Despite all this, I really didn't have a huge issue with the book until the flashback "Interlude," told from the Catholic priest's point of view. It was completely unnecessary. This may be a bit of a spoiler, but I knew exactly what had happened to the priest and why it happened way before I got to this part in the book. "Hearing" the priest's actions in his own words didn't serve any purpose other than to horribly graphically describe things that the reader already surmised had been going on. From this point on, for me, everyone in the book just seemed depressed, sad, and hopeless. The flash-forward ending didn't help matters. I was left confused. Was this a mystery, a commentary on the abuses of the Catholic Church, a tale of people who let other's expectations and the fickleness of fate dictate their lives? While the author did a very good job of transporting the reader to 1950s Ireland in the dead of a snowy winter, I would not recommend this book at all.
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