50 Book Challenge: book 25
And Then You Die – Michael Dibdin
Well, well. And here we are, at the halfway point. Appropriate that it should be a series I’ve been dedicated to reading this year. And rather satisfying, since it’s the end of May, and I don’t technically have to be here for another month in order to keep on target. It’s possible to be optimistic that I will, in fact, have read 50 books by 31 December 2006. On the other hand, I’ve kept an eye on reality. I have found with challenges in the past that if you get wildly ahead of your target the most likely result is burnout and non-completion. So, I pronounce myself happy.
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And I’d say it’s been a very positive experience so far. Last year was very problematic and I would be surprised if I read 10 books. For a prolific reader this was a bit of a shock. I was doing a lot of writing and people who know often say that it tends to be one or the other – either you have stuff going into the sausage machine or stuff coming out. But it didn’t feel right and now, this year, I’m reading an average of a book a week. This has made inroads into the huge pile of unread books lying around the house and has also prompted me to join the local library again after an absence of years. I find I’m reading a lot of the kind of stuff I like – crime, thrillers, graphic novels – but also that I’m going off in some unexpected directions and prompting Mr Random to read as well. Success all round, I would say.
I’m not going to get caught in the trap of ramping things up for next year. Circumstances could be completely different. While 50 books seems like a good target to aim for (since I’m slightly ahead at the end of this month), trying to read 65 or 75 next year would just introduce an element of pressure and stop it being fun with all the knock-on effects that would have. So I intend to do this again, once more aiming for 50 books, and hope the good karma continues.
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And so to Michael Dibdin. This is a slim volume, and the eighth novel in the Zen series. I think it took me about 24 hours to read. In fact, I might go so far as to say it’s a good thing this is the halfway post or it would be exceedingly short. It was readable and enjoyable – I had absolutely no problems staying interested – but at the same time was anything but a gripping page-turner. It’s literally a bridge, a crossing and a transition – people who have read up to this point will see how beautifully apposite that is. It is an interlude in Zen’s life and a chance for the author to clamber out of the extremely tight corner he’s worked himself into, plotwise. This requires a certain act of understanding from the reader – you have to move through this space in order for the story you are enjoying to continue – one I found myself quite happy to be making.
There’s a desultory sort of murder at the beginning, in a sequence that has strong Death in Venice overtones (though involving no underage boys whatsoever) and then you look up and find you’re halfway through the book and almost nothing else has happened. It’s thematic, episodic and has for parts of its narrative that distinctive dream-like quality that often turns up in Zen novels and which the author can deploy to powerful effect. By the end all the loose threads of Zen’s previous existence are tied up and he is embarked on a new adventure. A line has been crossed that he will never be able to re-cross. He is in a tighter straitjacket and in potentially more danger than at any point in the series, including during Blood Rain.
It will be fascinating to see what the author does with this. In the meantime, this remains a true series novel, book not to read for itself but for what it says about past and future narratives.