Still Waiting...

Sorry for the lag on posting, folks. The internet at the office is still a hit-or-miss affair.

*sighs, drums paws on the table, tail a-swish*

In the meantime, here's a question for you people: do you normally finish a book that you start?

I ask this question because I presently had to pass on Alan Wall's The Night School after reaching the mid-mark. I don't know-- maybe my expectations didn't match my reading of it. Unfortunately, I'm riddled by guilt whenever I don't finish a book (as opposed to continuing it some other time) because it seems such a waste.

I first went searching for this book after I heard Fantasy Grandmaster Michael Moorcock recommend the writer as one of the best he's ever read. Of course, Alan Wall isn't a genre writer, belonging more to the Lit crowd. Still, this book drew comparisons with Umberto Eco so I thought that this should be good.

My mistake.

I don't know-- I didn't think Wall's prose was as scintillating or magical as, say Graham Joyce or Jonathan Carroll. The book wasn't as erudite (and tongue-in-cheek) as Eco. Lastly, it seemed like Wall was concentrating too much on the main protagonist's past growing up English as opposed to anything else, including the book's subject, the mysterious 'Night School' of the title. Granted, nothing wrong about that but-- comparing it to Joyce's English protagonist in Smoking Poppy, I thought I was wasting my time.

Any thoughts on the matter? Am I being too harsh?