Struggling with a good book

The book we are reading for my Wednesday book club is a prize winner; when I read the reviews and heard an interview with the author I was immediately intrigued and thought how much I’d like to read it. The other members of the book club thought the same and so a month ago we chose to read it next and it was with great excitement I bought it and plunged in…

I’m beginning to think I might not be much good at reading… except I galloped through the latest Shardlake novel by C.J.Sansom, all 615 pages of it and was gripped from start to finish; although I did not like The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt, I enjoyed The Secret History, and that was 544 pages…

But this one… I am struggling with. It is the Man Booker prize winner, The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan. I really thought I would enjoy it, or at least like it… it is set in Tasmania, a place I am fascinated by, it has a historical aspect but the history impacts on the present… It is wonderfully written, one reviewer described it as elegant and it is, another ‘a magnificent novel of love and war’… and indeed it is…

Somehow though I can’t get to grips with it… I feel muddled by the changes of narrator and the dipping back and forth in time has confused me so I have to reread parts to know where I’m up to, there are a variety of characters and voices and characters at different times of their lives and I don’t feel as if I connect to them or engage with them. The scenes are powerful, the relationships moving and tragic… but somehow I don’t feel moved, their tragedy doesn’t seem to touch me.

I will try my best to finish it, and I hope I will contribute to the debate at book club without sounding too negative… but I am struggling… a brilliant book, a worthy winner, but I’m struggling… it must be me!