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Giancarlo (Giancarlo)
Username: Giancarlo
Registered: 11-2008
Posted From: 85.116.228.5
| | Posted on Monday, May 02, 2011 - 07:58 am: | |
I've finished reading "The Grin of the Dark" and I've decided it's easily one I'd bring along were I confined to a deserted island! I am still captured by the atmosphere yet I am perplexed about the shocking revelation in the final chapter. Maybe it would need a second reading session of me, or it's because of English not being my native language, but I really can't catch up to the nature of the shocking revelation. I might have missed something in the marvelous implicitness of the text or not been up to the task. I can go on by intuition but still it eludes me. I don't mean to start a spoiler here, I suppose there are some who may not have read the book yet. I will read again in time, hoping to grasp a different perspective. |
Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 2.24.27.195
| | Posted on Monday, May 02, 2011 - 09:46 am: | |
Giancarlo, it does make sense – but it combines elements of plot resolution with a disorientating shift in outlook. It's one of the most far-reaching conclusions in any weird fiction novel, I think. Part of the revelation is quite literal and shouldn't be revealed here, but part of it is intensely strange and open to the reader's interpretation. You wondered if you had missed something; I wondered if I was going mad. It's brilliant, terrifying stuff. Go back, read again. It's not the language that's difficult, it's rearranging your mind to make room for the ideas! |
Frank (Frank)
Username: Frank
Registered: 09-2008
Posted From: 85.222.86.21
| | Posted on Monday, May 02, 2011 - 11:54 am: | |
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Carolinec (Carolinec)
Username: Carolinec
Registered: 06-2009
Posted From: 92.232.199.129
| | Posted on Monday, May 02, 2011 - 12:42 pm: | |
"a disorientating shift in outlook"
Joel's hit it on the head there. That's the key phrase. It's that "things are not quite the way they seem" moment that smacks the reader around the face. Hard for the reader to comprehend, and needs an oh-so-skillful writer (like Ramsey) to pull it off on the page.
Funnily enough, I've just finished reading another book which has the same disorientating shift (well, a few shifts in fact) - Pete Crowther's "By Wizard Oak". Quite brilliant too. |
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