Today Astral Travel lands on Relentlessly Purple, where blogger Ember says she really enjoyed reading a 'different kind of mystery book'. I find this gratifying, as although Astral Travel is metafictive and deals with some pretty hefty issues, it is after all basically a mystery. The fundamental mystery is narrator Jo's complicated father whose Irish background is shrouded in silence, and who is two very different men: a talkative charmer in the outside world and in her mother's tales about their early life together, but throughout Jo's childhood broody and bad-tempered in the home. And there are other mysteries: why does Jo's mother have such different memories from Jo's of their life during Jo's childhood? And why did the family move about so often in a way that isn't fully explained? The novel consists of Jo's quest to understand these things, and her discovery of the truth behind it all.
No comments:
Post a Comment