If there’s one book that I’ve been meaning to read for about the last ten years it’s this one. I’ve know for ages that it’s a great book, but for some reason, I was never quite “in the mood” for it.
But now I’ve finished I realise that I’ve been missing a really good work of fiction. Enough other people will have read the book for it to be a waste of time to go into the plot, but do those kind of educational establishments still exist in the US? I suppose it’s the equivalent of some of the smaller Oxbridge colleges in the UK – maybe those not quite affiliated with the actual universities.
I suppose that the book has something of a timeless quality. It was first published in 1992 and there wasn’t the current proliferation of mobile phones. Email wasn’t quite what it is now (even if I’d been using it for about four years by then). Still, for what it’s worth, I think that there were only two people in our school who studied Greek. Latin was a different kettle of fish, and there was quite a full class of whom I was one of it’s number. But please don’t test me these days. I was poor then and worse now. How I got a ‘C’ at O-Level I’ll never know.
I suppose the character who disappointed me most was Julian. I just thought that for someone who’d had the life he had, he’d have been slightly more astute about what his pupils were up to, even if he was the kind of character who has his head in the clouds most of the time.
People who’ve read Donna Tartt’s new book (well not that new), The Little Friend, seem to be a bit disappointed. When I get around to reading it, hopefully in less than ten years’ time, I’ll say what I think.