I
immediately want to say that the final expedient has nothing to do with the
plot. This is an idea that mixes fiction and reality, which I always appreciate
a lot in novels. In this case it was able to increase my rating by one star.
The novel,
for my taste, is not worth more than three.
But let’s
proceed in an orderly fashion.
The book
develops in two timelines. The one set in the present sees the young
protagonist Clémence, who finds herself having to look after the eighty-three-year-old
Alastair after the latter has lost his memory due to a fall. The one in the
past is the book that the two of them are reading together and that tells some
events of the man’s life when he was young, culminating in the death of the
love of his life.
The part in
the past is undoubtedly the best part of the whole novel. Here the characters
come to life, also thanks to the evident greater familiarity that the author
has in showing them through the point of view of a man. The story unfolds
between France, Capri and then Scotland, and each place emerges from the pages
with all its colours, involving the reader and giving them the impression of
being there.
In
contrast, the part set in the present (which is actually 1999) seems to be
written by a novice author. The character of Clémence is two-dimensional. Her
being overly naive and gullible appears unrealistic. Her reasoning seems a bit
of a stretch to say the least. No person would arrive at certain conclusions,
on which their decisions are then based, evidently driven by the need to bring
the plot in a certain direction and not by logic. Moreover, the setting and the
small number of characters, instead of contributing to the increase of the
suspense and the claustrophobic sense of the narrative, end up highlighting the
weakness in the characterisation of the same characters, which appear far too
banal.
As for the
crime at the core of the story, as much as the author strives to send us
astray, in such a shamelessly obvious way, this has very little mystery. Just
think about it for a moment and you realise that only one person can be the
murderer: the only one who would gain an advantage from the death of Sophie. I
never had any doubts about their identity and I found the fact that the other
characters, especially Alastair, didn’t even think about it for a moment simply
impossible to accept.
Towards the
end we find some details that were not deductible from the rest of the plot and
only for this reason I must say that I read it almost greedily. The narration
of how the events rush to the resolution, together with the above-mentioned
final expedient, save the book, but only because, in fact, they are at the end.
Finally, I
found it a bit strange that they were talking about a novel in the novel, when,
taking into account the length of the chapters read by the characters (which
they said were the whole book), you can at most end up with a novelette. Yes, I
understand the limited space in the book, but then they would have rather
specify that some parts had been skipped (read by the characters and not
reported, because not important) or that it was simply a long story.
Overall,
however, it was an interesting read, if only because this novel has a certain
originality in the way it was structured. I also realise that it is probably a
rather hasty work, which the author enjoyed writing to develop an idea that had
come to him, without any fancy of giving rise to a product of high literary
level in the scope of thrillers. But, all things considered, despite its faults,
it plays very well its entertaining purpose.
Amnesia on Amazon.
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