Tring Book Club - Milkman by Anna Burns

What can I say? If it had not been a choice for book club I would not have made it past ten pages. 

But I tried to persevere and once I became used to some very long unbroken sentences and paragraphs (one paragraph can take four pages) I found that reading them fast they made much more sense ( just like delivering the words on radio) and that also meant that I could make inroads into the story, although to be quite frank, there is very little in the way of story or plot, meaning we instead hear so much about middle sisters relationships with her maybe boyfriend, her mother, Milkman, longest friend, Somebody McSomebody, third brother in-law, wee sisters etc etc, although I admit I did have to skip certain sections including those about cats and dogs, the women (twelve pages of thoughts sitting in real milkman's van), tablet girl's sister and instead concentrated on the parts which were more interesting. See what I mean?

When this book was chosen at the last book club, I did mention that I originally had it on my to read list but then deleted it. Now I know why. To me, this is an entirely self indulgent way of presenting a novel. Some judicious editing, cutting out introspection for more dialogue and a more traditional format might have introduced more readers to what is an important subject. Can I suggest that a revised and stripped down version might come later? Probably not, given this book's Booker prizewinning credentials. Such a shame as there are moments of true class as well as some very funny passages. The last sixty pages were the best in the whole book. It just took a long time to get there.