Ah, the best venue and food of the year ... (Joke!)
An interesting, existential read, perhaps nihilistic? The narrator is emotionally detached: doesn't cry at his mother's funeral; doesn't judge anyone (arguably not a flaw); randomly / nonsensically kills an man on the beach and shows no remorse. Life seems to be without reason or emotion.
For me, the remarkable detachment of the narrator induced detachment in the reader. I little cared what happened to him or to anyone else as he had no real interest so was unable to enthuse me.
The book was deceptively simple, the language perfunctory and simplistic, reading like a young child's post-holiday essay, a list of things done and undone - "and then I got up and I didn't have any food so I didn't have breakfast. I didn't have anything to do so I looked out the window and there were people there but then they went away."
Alessandro and Jen read this in the original French and felt the language was carefully chosen, even beautiful. I didn't really get that sense from the translation, which was sparse but seemed unexceptional.
In short, for me, some slight academic interest but no emotion, no compulsion to read on, no great disappointment at reaching the end. On the whole, people found it interesting but I cannot remember whether anyone really enjoyed it ...?
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