Reading 1001 discussion

I had never heard of this book so I don't know if I would have ever picked this up if was not for the Randomizer giving it to me. I am so glad it did.

The story involves George, a disgraced policeman turned private eye, and a day in his life. As the day develops we realise it is no usual day - it is the second anniversary of a murder and the story shows us George living this one day and the reflections that this event promotes within him. This is an unconventional crime novel - we know the crime and the criminal from very early on. But the developing layers on layers of story as we learn more about the main character and the events around that day just keep adding depth and emotion to the narrative.

Both our "corrupt cop" main character and his love interest are characters who would usually be seen as unsympathetic by a reader but their story is told with such tenderness that this can be overlooked; nobody is perfect, nobody is without sin in this book, which seems realistic.There is a hopefulness to this novel that is so wonderful. Like George, we start to long for the day that Sarah can see the light of day again.

It is told in a non-linear way, with short paragraphs. I initially struggled with it but soon fell in love with the prose.

This is the first time in a very long time that I have read a book from cover to cover and been tempted to reread it again immediately. It took me a few chapters to fully engage because of the story telling style, where I lived inside the protagonist's thoughts. Typically of that style the story is told through memories which jump around in time. It is quite voyeuristic and felt a bit invasive at times. And then it also felt like I was listening to him tell me his story over a cup of coffee. The prose is simple, spare and beautiful.

4.5 stars from me.

4 stars

Over the course of one day private detective George Webb thinks about his life--the things he has done, the things he has ongoing, his relationships. A disgraced former cop and current private detective, a divorced father of an adult daughter, a man in a relationship of sorts with a former client serving 10 years for murder. A murder he might have stopped had he known it would occur. He himself can't figure out if he should--or how he could--get out of this relationship that consists of visits every 2 weeks.

This book is a bit of a puzzle itself--as George recounts different parts of his past, the reader must fit them all together. The story is not linear, the story is one man thinking about different people and events at different times of his day.

I enjoyed this, though I am sure I missed a few things in trying to piece it all together.

The Light of Day - Graham Swift. This is a story of a murder. The main character, George is an ex cop, private investigator, who was hired by Sarah to follow her husband who was having an affair with a refuge. I found the book to be painfully slow and repetitive. The author reveals the story slowly, as is a common, but really, it could have been a lot less pages and it really never goes anywhere. It is a story of one day, the two year anniversary, and is the stream of conscious of the detective, George. I don't feel anything for any of the characters. I really enjoyed his book, Waterland, but this one, not so much. Rated it 3.5 stars.

The Light of Day by Graham Swift is a tightly constructed puzzle of a book in which George Webb thinks back and attempts to piece together the events leading up to and actually happening two years before. The action, or what little there is of it, all takes place on one day which is the anniversary of the murder.
The way the book is constructed, always staying within the mind of our main character, means that the timeline is that of his thoughts and not of the actual unfolding of events. We the reader find out about the murder early on, meet Helen without realizing until much later that she is a daughter, hear of Rachel way before learning why she leaves George and way before understanding who Dyson is. We meet Rita and are told she will leave George's employment soon but have to wait quite awhile before finding out why. These mysteries create a small tension that is more compelling through most of the book than the actual murder.
The writing is very sparse, mirroring the noir mystery genre of the private detective as tough guy with the heart of gold. However, we slowly come to realize that this book is not a murder mystery but a book about obsession, redemption, what humans grasp for in a relationship and what they are willing to give up. The book is about the holes in our psyche that we will do almost anything to fill. Another theme is that of words, what they can depict and what they are incapable of depicting.
George often thinks about the weather, the rain falling, or the sun and what it is highlighting. He also reflects back on some key moments in his childhood in which he does things for love and is not rewarded for it.
Although I enjoyed the prose, I was mildly suspicious of the author throughout the reading as if he was building a wonderful experiment in writing style rather than writing a novel (as if there is a difference). The characters were not as fully fleshed as I would have liked.
However, there were moments in which I felt that Swift emotionally delivered. The reveal moment in which we the reader visualize exactly what Rachel sees that causes her to act violently worked for me. I felt it in the gut.
3.5 stars

Although this focuses on a murder, it is not a "whodunnit". We know from the start that Sarah Nash is in prison for having murdered her husband. George Webb is the private detective who was hired to provide Sarah with evidence that her husband was having an affair. Now George is visiting Sarah in prison, and the story is entirely from his point of view.

This is a character study rather than a plot driven novel, and all of the characters are flawed. The writing style is deliberately choppy, with short sentences, short chapters, and a narrative that jumps about in time. After I adjusted to this, I found it engrossing, although there were times when I wished it would just continue in a straight line and tell me what happened next.

George Webb is a private detective who looks back over the course of a single day to his meeting with his client Sarah and the tragic events that followed, and to a childhood tainted by a parent’s secret.

This book is very much a product of the 1990s, a rather predictable story of tawdry relationships that are incomprehensible to anyone but the protagonists, set in a dull suburban milieu. There are no twists or surprises, with every revelation being exactly as the reader has been led to expect. The character study of George’s obsession is sometimes convincing, but I cared nothing for him or any of the other self obsessed characters.

Rather disappointed in my first Swift, but I liked the quality of the writing and would read more by him.

This was a 3 star read for me. The prose quality and writing skill were evident, but I wasn't fully enraptured with the narrative.
The claustrophic and choppy tone does a great job at evoking George's inner turmoil. But, I didn't really feel for George and Sarah's relationship to be honest? I understood George's need for connection after the story of his wife is revealed, and felt sympathy for that, and how Sarah's life was upturned by one event that got out of control, but as a couple...eh. I feel like it was more "I'm banking on this relationship to fix things" as opposed to a healthy maybe even genuine relationship I was rooting for? And I'm not sure if the book was on my side or not about that one.