Nick Davies's Reviews > Ever After

DNF at ~50%. This for me was much more like 'Waterland' (which I struggled through because it came recommended, and persisted with in spite of not enjoying it completely) than the serendipitous punt of 'Shuttlecock' (which had unpleasant characters but a narrative which interested me) - and I gave up at around half-way.

The novel follows an aged academic looking back on his life, as well as discussing family and other people in great biographical detail. A few of these vignettes were interesting and real, piquing my interest for a handful of pages, but the majority felt tedious and disconnected. There was just too little to hold together the various small tales told, too few of the characters held my interest, and epistolary sections about distant ancestors in 19th Century Britain were the final straw in breaking my fragile interest. Swift writes with beauty and no little talent of small description, I have no doubt the fragments did eventually pull together into some kind of plot... but there was just far far too little here to motivate me to continue.