Readings and Ramblings

This book was something of a drag. A man's wife leaves him. There are no arguments and she does not explain anything. She just leaves and, of course, he is wondering why. His description of the courtship explains it pretty well to me. He had expended a good deal of effort to get her interested in him and she had just put him off and made excuses until he finally just wears her down. Then her attitude toward him doesn't especially change either. It seems to me that she left him because she was never much interested in him in the first place and considers him a bore. I certainly consider him a bore. When she walks out does he try to find her? No. Does he try to contact her and win her back? No. Does he give up on her and look for someone else? No. What does he do? He just engages in philosophical musings about his situation. Considering that the event does not seem too tramatic for him one might think his philosophical attitude is one of stoicism, but it is not even that. It is more existentialist. That is, this is what happened and that is the way it happened and so what? Then other calamities befall him. How does he deal with those calamities? Again he just engages in philosophical musings. On the whole the protagonist is boring; the plot is boring; the entire novel is boring. I give it two stars rather than one because I kept comparing it to other boring books I have read and I will have to admit that I did not find it as bad as some of those. At least I could read it without my mind wondering to other things, so it must have had something to hold my interest.