But do we see him?

Over the weekend I read a novel titled Now You See Him, by Eli Gottlieb. I liked it quite a bit, and it had a lot of plot twistlets (more like little "ah-ha" moments than big plot twists). The narrator, a man named Nick Framingham, is not so much unreliable as he himself is uninformed, but I do love the air of suspense that even a vaguely unreliable narrator lends to a story.

The entire book follows Nick's struggle in the months after his former best friend Rob Castor shoots his former girlfriend and then himself. As he pieces the puzzle of Rob's life together, his own marriage starts to fall spectacularly apart, particularly when Rob's sister Belinda comes back to their small New York home town and turns to Nick for help (which is complicated by the fact that Nick and Belinda used to date).

I'm making it sound horribly dull; it's not. I think I'm starting to figure out that it's not so much that I don't enjoy reading fiction, it's that I find it very hard to talk about. When it's good, I like it very much, I immerse myself in the story, but when I'm done, I just want to be done with it. With nonfiction, I find myself often wanting to think more about the books and their subjects when I'm done, and that means I like to review and talk about them more. I wonder if I've become such a Puritan that I feel vaguely guilty to simply read and enjoy a novel, and therefore want to move on from it as fast as I can, whereas with nonfiction, I often feel like I've learned something and therefore the time was profitably spent.

Either way--it's a good novel. I'd be interested to hear if others have read it and if so, what they thought.

Comments

[Tripp]

Interesting notion that you feel you need to get something out of a book. Do you feel the same way about a movie?

[Citizen Reader]

You know, Tripp, I never really thought about it, but there is something definitely different in the way I read, think about, and write about fiction from nonfiction. I don't quite get it. Perhaps I really like to talk about books, and NF lends itself more easily to discussion, even when it's average NF. I think to be good and "chattable" fiction really has to be superlative, and I only find superlative fiction in one out of about every 50 to 75 tries, I'd say.

I emphatically do not feel that way about movies, although I don't watch as many movies as I read books, so maybe that makes a difference. Actually, I really only enjoy movies where I don't take a whole lot away from it--I've never liked film-length documentaries (PBS is a different story) and I don't often go to see movie dramas. Hmm.

What do you think? Incidentally, if you're up for a lit fic-ish choice, I think you might like this Gottlieb book. It's got elements of suspense/storytelling that it seems to me you might enjoy.

[Tripp]

I will be checking out the Gottlieb as I am a fan of the unreliable/unaware narrator.

I agree that a lot of fiction can be hard to discuss, but I spend a lot of time geeking out with scifi, which is always easy to discuss. Good or bad! I think mediocre literary fiction can be a real challenge as there aren't many hooks on which to start the discussion. Nonfiction as you say, can nearly always be discussed because the author has a point. Sometimes the point of the fiction book is hard to see, if it is there at all.

[Citizen Reader]

Tripp,
I think you're probably right about mediocre lit fic being the hardest/least fun to discuss. And sadly, I seem to find a lot of mediocre (at best) lit fic. Maybe I'm looking in all the wrong places!

[Tripp]

I think in general the percentage of genre that is worth reading is more than the percentage of lit fic that is. Just my take. OT, but I started Truck and it is great.

[Venta]

I'm dying here, CR! I have read this book, but I can't remember anything about it! I'm well into 100 pages, and I don't have a clue what will happen next. I have to reread it. This has never happened before.

[Citizen Reader]

Keep reading, Venta. I would imagine you'll remember some of the bigger twists any time now...
I think retention suffers a bit when we read these more thrillery books. I re-read Agatha Christie's works every few years and can never remember whodunit until I get pretty close to the end. We always had people saying this about thrillers at the library too--they couldn't remember if they'd read certain favorite authors' works, so they just checked them out and re-read them!

[Venta]

I'm the same with Christie. I also can't remember where I am with the Sue Grafton books. I have to read a few chapters in the library before I can remember if I've read it before.

Not to get too philosophical, but this experience is providing me with patience. There are very few books I read more than once, and, at first it was driving me crazy that I'd already read this one. Now it's kind of comforting. I keep wondering why Lucy, the wife, is so snotty although she's kind of funny in her snottiness.

I'm reading away!