Search - The Sea

This novel was good but awfully slow going. I can't believe how LONG it took me to read considering it was less than 200 pages. The prose is beautiful and the insights into the human mind are striking, but almost the whole of the novel is being "inside the head' and tortured thoughts/memories of an middle aged, grief striken man. Suddenly in the last dozen pages there is a total surprise of an ending that leaves you feeling as if you spent weeks plodding through sand dunes and were suddenly thrown off a cliff. Amazing. Had it not been so beautifully written though, I would never have stuck with the long trudge through the lion's share of the book. I suppose the "tortured" slow read makes you feel what the main character is feeling...

The language of this novel is so very rich, I found myself stopped dead in my reading tracks over and over. Incredible descriptions and words. This is fine literature at its best, the kind you read for the beauty of pure reading pleasure.

Challenging reading--beautiful, polished writing. Luminous.