Photographic memory

     Have you ever found yourself reading a book and wondering why you don't share the opinion of the reviewers as quoted on the back cover? "It's good, but...." is as far as you'll go in your praise.

     This was my reaction to The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards. The book started very promisingly; a birth, a decision, a turning-point, the fates of a group of people determined in an instant. It moved on with intensity and a careful playing out of the consequences of the earlier crucial moment.

     In the words of a central character, who sees worlds within worlds through the lens of his camera, "A moment was not a single moment at all, but rather an infinite number of different moments, depending on who was seeing things and how", and it was this ponderous quality which let down the novel for me. The long middle section felt like swimming under water or watching a film in slow motion - it lacked pace because every scene, every action was laboured. While Dark Hearts of Chicago, which I read last week, was not a word too long at over 600 pages, this book (at 400) could have done with swingeing cuts, losing perhaps a quarter of its length to much better effect.

     That said, I'm glad I persevered and found out how this "doctor's dilemma" was resolved, because there was a lot of very good, perceptive writing in it. Am I just failing to notice qualities which others have spotted? More generally, do editors nowadays edit in the sense of make cuts in the text (or request additions to it), or is their remit to spot the odd inconsistency and do a little gentle tidying? A full spring clean or a flick with a duster? If anyone has an opinion on the book or knowledge of the editing role, I'd be interested to hear what they have to say.

Comments

[tara]

I have to agree with you about this book; I felt much the same way when I read it. I agree that the beginning was quite promising and the rest of the book just did not live up to the reviews that I read. As a matter of fact, my book club will be reading this in a few months and while I will be joining them, I will not be re-reading this book.

[Helen]

I find that I wonder about those reviewers' comments too, and maybe I'm an old cynic, but I sometimes think they're written by friends of the writer. I'm not saying they're lying, maybe just generous. Quite a few of the reviewers on Amazon agree with you about this one, btw. I've got an awful lot more careful about relying on ecstatic reviews when I'm choosing books, after a couple of big disappointments.

And I'm not sure that an awful lot of editing as we used to understand it goes on nowadays; I think a lot of novels go straight from the word processor to the printer. William Boyd's new novel has a character who buys a packet of tissues in WWII London, a task which would be impossible without a time machine, and also contains this phrase, '... a tall young man with receding hair in a tightly waisted dark suit ...' which suggests to me that it wasn't read through by anybody, not even Boyd. He mustn't do second drafts. A lot of publishers skimp on copy editors today, just to save money. I think first novels don't get checked because they're not important enough, and those by established authors don't because nobody would dare.

[Donna]

I have often had this book in my hands at our local book shop, but for some reason always return it to it's place on the shelf. I think perhaps I will give it a miss now. I have however just finished a book called The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. I found this book to be beautifully written, very simple in it's language. Along the way, the author tells you what will happen, and what you should expect to happen. I also found this book to be very emotional, I found myself weeping for the last fifty or so pages. My daughter also read it, and she said she was sitting in class waiting for her tutorial to begin, and she found herself weeping as well. I really loved this book, and will keep it amongst my favourites like Alias Grace, Anne of Green Gables, and To Kill a Mockingbird. Thanks for posting about the Memory Keeper's Daughter, you have probably saved me money.

[Peg]

Isn't it interesting that you should comment on this book! It is sitting on my bedside table and only partially red - I agree - swimming underwater! I am tiring of the two main characters, and now I might just skip read through. Thanks, because sometimes I think it is me that is not getting 'it'!

[Peg]

Oops! Yes, it may be partially red, but I meant 'read'!
I am not proof reading either!

[jodi]

I am so glad that to read that other people feel the same way about this book. I skipped ahead but have been doing that to more than a few books lately. The Book Thief was very good and I have discovered Donna Leon and am enjoying her writing.

[Curzon Tussaud]

I finished TMKD yesterday, having been able to have a good run at it over the holiday weekend. Re editing: would anybody at all, on either side of the Atlantic, have used the phrase "same old, same old" thirty years or so ago? I found David quite an interesting character, Norah less so, and I felt that the eventual denouement was rather rushed through, as if the author herself had become bored with the outcome of her plot.

[Peter the Flautist]

This Cat wouldn't consider using the phrase "same old, same old" in the year 2007 let alone when he was a kitten.

How about starting a "Campaign for Real Editing"?

Miaow

[Nan]

"Have you ever found yourself reading a book and wondering why you don't share the opinion of the reviewers as quoted on the back cover?"

I don't wonder; all I know is that it happens constantly. I mostly feel that I live in a different book universe from the praisers (a word?) of modern books.

[Les in NE]

I just had this experience with Ami McKay's The Birth House. Everyone I know who's blogged about it gave it great reviews. Not me.

[dovegreyreader]

I remember thinking the plot was good if a little off the wall,but the book seriously needed to lose about 100 pages somewhere along the way.