Tuesday, October 7, 2014
2nd Blog Post
As of right now, I am on page 180 of "A Superior Death" by Nevada Barr, and I must admit that this book has picked up quite a bit. After 130 more pages of reading, the story has developed quite a bit. At this point, there has been a murder and possibly a second one, as there is currently a woman missing from the national park. The main character, Anna, is investigating the murder as well as the disappearance. So far, I suspect that the man who was killed, a diver name Denny, was killed by his two good friends, Hawk and Holly, because he was killed at the bottom of lake Superior and those two seem to be the only ones experienced enough to dive that deep. As for the missing woman, Donna, she might have been having an affair with Denny, which means that her husband, Scotty, may have killed her. This is where the fun in the book ends. There is so far no evidence for any of these ideas, and this book is more than half way over. The pace of this story is unbearable slow, and often gets sidetracked by meaningless activities by the protagonist, which usually consist of phone calls or drinking heavily. I find Anna an overall boring character with no depth. Nothing more has been revealed about her over the past 1330 pages. She still appears to be nothing more than a noisy park ranger who likes the outdoors. Her frequent back flips from interest to apathy for the murder case is infuriating and makes it difficult to consistently read this book. Having read this far, I need to finish the book in order to know how it ends, plus I'm hoping for some good action fights (though I won't hold my breath), but I have already chosen my new book. Once I get through this snail's pace murder mystery, I want to switch to a completely unrelated book, Hobbes' "Leviathan", which discusses the nature of man as well as political powers. As I had mentioned before, I was also disappointed by the ending to the last novel I read, "Iron Lake", and I feel as if I've been temporarily disillusioned with fiction, especially when the stories have such anti-climactic endings. At this point, I would prefer a predictable, "the bad guy gets killed by the main character in an epic battle between good and evil and everyone lives happily ever after" ending rather than the "untrained office worker fires gun for first time and blows up bad guy's car" ending. After I make my way through this book, I want to shift my reading from fantasy to philosophy, something I find just as intriguing as fiction.
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For starters, I am quite confident that if I tried to read this book I probably would have abandoned it before the murder and disappearance were even introduced in the story. I am sure Sam discovering that he does like green eggs in ham would be a lot less frustrating for me to read than a loud and unfocused park ranger occasionally focusing on what should be the point of the novel. What I am wondering is if you think there is a reason the author chose Anna Pigeon to be the main character? Why would the author choose such an uninterested and easily distracted voice to tell the story of the murder and disappearance? From what you’ve said, I think that the author might have tried using her as a new angle that is not as predictable as “good guy kills the bad guy, and they live happily ever after” because I honestly doubt that this Anna Pigeon has the attention span or interest to actually solve the mystery. Maybe the author is trying to add the possibility that Anna Pigeon might not solve it because she is a park ranger and has no business investigating murders. Perhaps he’s trying to send the message that people need to mind their own business and not try to do things they aren’t trained to do. I have a feeling that there is definitely a reason behind choosing a character like Anna Pigeon to develop these murders. I hope for your sake that she gets herself together within the last 120 pages or that someone else does for her, and I admire your dedication to the book.
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