I originally rated this three stars when I finished it last night, because I did enjoy reading it and it went very quickly, but upon reflection am dowI originally rated this three stars when I finished it last night, because I did enjoy reading it and it went very quickly, but upon reflection am downgrading it to two stars because of the ending.
(view spoiler)[First of all, I hated the contrived irony of Hubert finally managing to escape his fate only to get his testicles all twisted (literally!) and need them removed anyway. I guess I'm glad that he did end up with a successful singing career, since he had to go through the procedure anyway, but it just seemed too contrived. Second, here I am enjoying the setting of this alternate version of Europe, liking the characters, wanting to know what happens to them, and then all of a sudden a story about one eleven-year-old boy has out of nowhere become a story about the Pope purposely starting a holy war in order to keep the population under control?! When his underlings' medical experiments about purposely causing an epidemic proved too difficult to control? It was jarring and I didn't buy it. I get what Amis was trying to do - he's obviously not a fan of the Catholic church - but it was way too heavy-handed and didn't seem to fit with the rest of the book (yes, I know it was foreshadowed briefly, but still). (hide spoiler)]
There was still much to like about the book. I liked the characters, and the setting of an alternate Europe where Martin Luther never split from the church and science is banned was intriguing. There were a lot of entertaining in-jokes such as the characters reading a book by Philip K. Dick titled "The Man in the High Castle" that is an alternate history - that describes our own actual world (for those unfamiliar with it, The Man in the High Castle is Dick's alternate history about if the Axis had won WW2). I enjoyed the experience of reading it, but just didn't like the ending. YMMV!...more
Loading...
