March 7, 2013
Present: Jane, Gill, Jen, Nic
A rare book group appearance by Jane, who undoubtedly travels furthest to get here - Mexico City's loss is our gain and delight.
Mark couldn't make it but sent comments: "... very much enjoyed the book and am a little bit in love with one of the characters!". It transpired that Gill, too, was in love with Kolya. Well, I didn't see that coming, any more than he saw the bullet that hit his arse! Entertaining in print, irritating as a really serious irritant in real-life, I suspect, especially if you were female.
Jane and Jen were not in love with Kolya but did love the book. I didn't, though I found it hard to express why. It had everything a compelling book should have: a transformative adventure, a hapless young hero, a more mature guide, vile villains and virtuous victims, a quest, an astonishing mix of comic, tragi-comic and downright tragic events, snippets of breath-stopping information about the siege of Leningrad that we had never known and the shocking recollection that it was a true story. Something about the style - the simplicity? - failed to engage me as much as that story would have done in other hands but it was, possibly, that same quality that set up a juxtaposition between the complexity of human nature and the simplicity of the telling that beguiled others.
The book was declared a winner, the food was delicious, the service was abysmal (well, I do love to say I told you so). Seeing Jane is priceless. For everything else, there's Mastercard and it does take a hammering at Yauatcha.
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