And lo! towards us coming in a boat
I finished Pandora by Holly Hollander about an hour ago. It’s really awesome, particularly considering that it’s nothing like what I expected. From the cover art (img), publisher (Orb) and author (Gene Wolfe), I fully expected it to be some kind of genre fantasy novel; turns out it’s a mystery, set in Illinois in any unnamed year in the early to mid 70s. It’s written from the point of view of a 17 year old girl whose family is embroiled in a plot involving an exploding box at a country fair, love letters from a married man to a married woman, and a man killed after escaping from an insane asylum. It’s very postmodern; the narrator mentions time and again things which would never have happened in a mystery novel; lots of assumptions are turned on their ear and the ending is perfect in many ways — it’s entirely unexpected and 100% natural. Wolfe is a great author, and I really need to get more of his books.
Next I’ll be reading The Amber Spyglass, Pullman’s finale to the His Dark Materials trilogy. I am looking forward to it greatly.