Apparently Absolute Beginners by Colin MacInnes is this hipster odyssey through London in the late 1950s. Unfortunately, I just Didn’t Get It. It’s a breezy read, especially just having read a William Faulkner book where you have to concentrate on every word. But, I’ve missed something, or its coolness is completely lost on me. Maybe I don’t know enough about England at that time and what was going on…but I didn’t enjoy this book very much at all. I didn’t like the characters very much and I didn’t feel I could relate to them or what was going on. And, although I’ve visited London, I don’t know the city well enough to picture where the characters were or what they were doing.
Also, on an embarrassingly superficial note, the copy of the book I borrowed from the library smells very musty. It is a few feet away from me on the dining room table now and I can SMELL it. I don’t think this one gets into circulation too much.
Next up for me…Marissa has The Abbot C in Connecticut so I will get started with that. She also has borrowed Ada for me to read during my visit. It’s something like 589 pages! (I requested The Absentee via interlibrary loan, but it won’t be in for a while yet.)
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