This book is deliberately difficult to read, written in the "future" orthography of a post-apocalyptic, largely illiterate society. At first, I enjoyed the puzzle of sorting out the meanings, and needing to focus on the words made me pay more attention. The book is sprinkled with clues as to the nature of the apocalypse, largely as a part of the corrupted and misunderstood religion they follow, and it was fun to try to figure out what had happened and how that influenced the resulting society.
HOWEVER, about halfway through, the book loses track of the already-weak plot. Most of the second half of the book is devoted to the narrator spouting pseudo-religious epiphanies that sound like the most stoned person you've ever met (the heart of the wood is the heart of the stone, and the one big one wants to become two... wow...). In the first half of the book, the narrator was acting in a lot of ways that didn't make sense, largely involving sudden urges to travel to different towns, despite the extreme danger of doing so. In the second half, even the pretense of self-motivation is lost, and the character appears to be following some pre-ordained path, but the reason for these compulsions or the goal which they are directed toward is never shown. The big reveal doesn't actually affect any of the action at all.
I get the feeling that there was an intent to this book that simply didn't come through, i.e. Riddley is symbolically recreating the events of some other epic story, but as it stands, I found the difficult reading to be the most interesting part of the book.
HOWEVER, about halfway through, the book loses track of the already-weak plot. Most of the second half of the book is devoted to the narrator spouting pseudo-religious epiphanies that sound like the most stoned person you've ever met (the heart of the wood is the heart of the stone, and the one big one wants to become two... wow...). In the first half of the book, the narrator was acting in a lot of ways that didn't make sense, largely involving sudden urges to travel to different towns, despite the extreme danger of doing so. In the second half, even the pretense of self-motivation is lost, and the character appears to be following some pre-ordained path, but the reason for these compulsions or the goal which they are directed toward is never shown. The big reveal doesn't actually affect any of the action at all.
I get the feeling that there was an intent to this book that simply didn't come through, i.e. Riddley is symbolically recreating the events of some other epic story, but as it stands, I found the difficult reading to be the most interesting part of the book.
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