Thursday, March 19, 2009

The Gift of Stones - Jim Crace



It wasn't uniformly liked, but neither did it attract the vitriole of the last book.

Personally I enjoy Crace's writing, but I can relate to opinions that it was a little dull in parts and felt a little distant and unengaged.

I have a feeling though that it's a story that will stay with me for a while and it certainly chimed for me as a technical bod, regarding the nightmare of what happens if your area of technology becomes obsolete.

One word of warning if you do read it. I was very glad I hadn't read the synopsis on the back cover - talk about giving the whole story away!

Btw - many thanks to the lovely Caroline for lending it to me :-)


3 comments:

Caroline said...

:) x c

LauraHD said...

Am just about to start Quarantine (too cliched for Lent?). Have you read it or any of his others?

1 i z said...

The only other one I've read is Being Dead (many, many years ago). Best and recall I quite liked it and his writing style in general, but felt that some of the strength of the idea and the poetic potential of the opening sequences wasn't really capitalised on.

However, Caroline is a fan and has a good number of his books (admitedly one less currently - thanks for the lend honey!) and she has exceptionally fine taste in authors in my experience. One of those people where you look at their bookshelves and know why you're friends).