Tring Book Club - One Hundred Years of Solitude and The Shock of the Fall

Only one of us at Book Club finished the Gabriel  Garcia Marquez classic One Hundred Years of Solitude and that wasn't me. Like so many others before, I could not get on with this book and I gave up about a quarter through. I found the language to be quite difficult to read, maybe because of the translation? It promised to be the sort of book I would like, a family story full of interesting characters. But unfortunately not.

The Shock of the Fall is such an emotional and brilliant book. I will always remember what happened a few days ago when I was in John Lewis, having coffee and cake, and I turned to page 179 and nearly burst into tears. Out of the blue, someone did something so nice for Mathew, our mentally challenged narrator, that I had to close the book and compose myself. Was it the tragedy (teasingly, we have to wait until near the end to know what really happened) when he was nine that hurt Mathew so badly, or did he always have a mental problem? I'm not sure if the book answers this question as, like all mental illness, it is hard to pin down the cause. But Mathew is smart, always was a gifted student, and writing his story he is an engaging, though not wholly likable, character. I loved the prose and the way the narrative dodges about different periods over the previous ten years. There is a superb technique in not telling the reader where we are in time but giving clues early enough in any one passage to make it clear. Nathan Filer is a talented author and his first novel deserved to win the Costa Book of the Year. Sometimes funny, sometimes sad and always highly readable. It is worth it just for the final chapter. I cannot recommend it highly enough.