The Hare and Hounds October 1st 2015
The fact that we avoided talking about the
book for so long and even let Chris W riff about new developments in drone
selfies tells you how high the level of eager anticipation was to re-live the
pages of The Sunrise.
Neil kicked off by reminding everyone why
he had chosen the book in the first place, and what a good book he had thought
The Island had been when he read it several years ago. He even tried to deflect some of the blame
for choosing it by reminding everyone that he had not chosen the Louis de
Berniere book because Chris W had already read it…but no one bought that
excuse, particularly Chris.
Neil’s overriding feeling was one of
tremendous disappointment that such a potentially interesting idea, that one town
on Cyprus should have been divided and abandoned and maintained as a patrolled
ghost town for 40 years, had then been mined so poorly with such poor
characterisation, poor writing style and wooden plot lines. Clichéd personae and descriptions seemed to
draw on soap opera style dramas of the 80’s such as Dallas. Only the fact that the pace picked up in the
second half made it readable, but then it accelerated to annoying light speed
for the last quarter. The only redeeming
feature he found was that he was slightly more enlightened about the history of
what happened in Cyprus at this time, but only slightly, and he found the
Epilogue perhaps the most interesting part of the book.
Chris
would have preferred a 30 page synopsis that could have saved him having
to read the whole book and found the characters tedious and paper thin. Somehow he finished it but was still left
wondering why Neil didn’t choose the de Berniere instead.
Richard particularly agreed about the
characters not even being 2 dimensional, but barely 1 dimensional. The plot was transparent with the possible
exception of the murder of Marcos. He
found it easy to read and reasonably well paced, but at the same time very
stilted with the language lacking any precision. A terribly mediocre book that only succeeded
in teaching him a tiny bit about Cyprus.
Mark T had enjoyed visiting Cyrpus and was
looking forward to the book until his wife warned him that he would hate
it. It reminded him of reading terribly
written stories in Womans Weekly when he was an adolescent !(well…. didn’t we
all…..????)
Steve meanwhile wondered how a book like
this got past the editorial process and had concluded that it had been rushed
to meet a deadline. He managed to find
some interest in the book when Aphroditi discovered another woman wearing her
jewellery but was dissatisfied with the fact that this was not properly
concluded, and found details entirely unconvincing, such as the fact that the
old guys on look out on the roof were never spotted by a helicopter for
instance.
Mark W likened it to a Mills & Boon
novel and wondered if it was really possible that the author could also be
capable of having written a much better book.
And rather than being drawn into the book he found himself almost
perpetually conscious of the author penning a poor work of fiction. Mark also
pointed out the potential racist bias that painted the Turks as the villains of
the piece in a rather one-sided portrayal of events, which he doubted was fair
and accurate, something supported by reviews from Turkish readers that Steve
had found online. Mark found the hasty
wrap up ridiculous and was also incredulous of certain plotlines and doubted
very much that the Turkish soldiers would have ignored the potential riches on
offer from looting a grand luxury hotel in place of poor housing just because
of a some railings and heavy locks.
Chris B was not at the meeting but had
submitted more positive comments, perhaps partly due to a personal connection
to the events described as he had been prevented from going on holiday to
Turkey at the time because of the problems in Cyprus. This generated a little more interest than
most others managed in reading this albeit fictional account, but he still
struggled with the Janet and John writing style and poor characterisation.
Rob, who had wisely chosen to go and watch
a rather more exciting game of rugby in Cardiff and therefore missed the
meeting, echoed many of the other thoughts about the book and even drew
comparisons with that other much-loved book by the group, Cry of the Halidon.
Neil concluded the discussion of the book
with a heartfelt apology for having put everyone through such a poor experience
and recommended David Mitchell’s Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet as a
suitable antidote.
Average score : 3.4
