Have any of you read this book? (I haven't.) I pulled the following quote from a writer's blog this morning, and it made me think.

It's certainly a peculiarly written one. The POV shifts are absolutely mind-boggling. I actually think they are amateurish, because they continually pull the reader out of the story and make him/her aware of the author.

Shifting POV can be very awkward, but I'd have thought that in the hands of someone like Faulks, it would have worked to make the author part of the reading contract in the sense that it made him and his observations part of the story. I love the 'complicity' of that when it's done well, but presumably it isn't here? Or maybe it is, but this reader simply doesn't like it.

Zoe

I loved it. But then I read it in the halcyon days before I knew what POV was.

Sometimes I think having all this technical knowledge can stop us just enjoying a good story! It's like a friend of mine who is a recordeing engineer, and can never listen to anything, from a rap track to a symphony, without just spotting the edits!

Rosy