novel

In reading The Knowledge, several of the quotes at the beginning of chapters were ones from A Canticle for Liebowitz. Given the book was one of Paul's favorite books in high school, I thought I would read it again. I mean, really, it's been so long since I've read it that it is almost as if I hadn't read it, so it could be new for me again. Though, let's be real, reading a book as a kid, then reading it as an adult means you are reading a new book.

One of the defining ideas of the book is that, well, humanity pretty much destroys itself with a nuclear war, sending the world back to the dark ages where anarchy rules along with mutants and the church. No surprise there, the book was written in the sixties when the overt threat of nuclear war was far more in the front of people's consciousnesses. I would argue that the threat isn't really that much reduced, people as a whole have just moved on a bit. The threat of a nuclear bomb is sufficient, no one REALLY wants to use it.

In Canticle, people used it. People destroyed the world. Humanity survived. Humanity rebuilt. Humanity had the same stupid existential arguments, the same pettiness, the same everything that makes us human. Which means, of course, that we would regain the world, only to destroy it again.

In reading the book this time, I was struck with just how much of the discussions we had as a group in high school included the arguments and discussions from the book. I suspect just as my world was shaped more than I'd like to admit by the books I read in high school, this book shaped Paul's world. I could be projecting.

Many of the philopsophical discussions stuck with me, and I had to pause reading to think about them. I wish I had someone reading the book at the same time, so that we could talk about it.

This is the third of three books currently published in the Cormoran Strike series by Robert Galbraith / J. K. Rowling. This one was also the most grisly (which, well, given all the violence in the world, isn't actually THAT grisly), and the one I read the fastest. Picked it up last night, finished it today.

Continuing in the series, we have Robin Ellacott still unable to communicate effectively with Cormoran, about needs and wants and desires. Cormoran isn't special, though: she can't communicate with her fiancee, Matthew Cunliffe either. We have the continual male-female tension between Cormoran and Robin, both attracted to each other but neither admitting it or moving forward with it, the tension made doubly so with a shocking (not shocking) revelation from Matthew early(-ish) in the book.

My enjoyment of characters and plot development in the last book lead me to believe I would enjoy this one, which I did for the most part. We learn a lot more of Robin, which is great, and a bit more of Cormoran, which is also great. We don't really learn that much about Matthew, other than he's still a money-obsessed asshat, but I suspect that's what J.K. want us to feel, so shrug on that one.

The delivery of the bottom half of a woman's leg, along with a couple other incidents of violence against various women, made parts of the story uncomfortable, but I think that's likely the point. The mystery's solution was revealed slowly, and in a good way to not have the reader going WTF, NO, which is good. I hope there's another Cormoran Strike novel, I'm enjoying the mysteries.