Last August (I know, it’s almost time for this August), I was catching up with a friend, Peter, over drinks. It had been a few months since we’d met while traveling through Europe, so there was plenty to catch up on.
When we were parting ways at the end of the night, Peter pulled a small book with a light blue cover from his bag and handed it to me. I rarely get gifted books, so I was already excited at the prospect of reading something curated, but I became even more enthusiastic when Peter told me it was one of the best books he’d ever read.
Despite my initial enthusiasm, the normal catch-all excuse of “work’s been busy” delayed me starting the book by several months, finishing it by several more months, and writing the review by an extra few months.
Though I’ve started diving into some fiction books recently, David Morse’s The Book of Disbelieving fell orders of magnitude out of my normal selection set. Composed of several, seemingly unrelated but somehow connected short stories, this book was largely dissimilar from most others I’ve read in the past years.
Across all the stories, Morse did a fantastic job of concurrently painting scenes while building a plot. Each narrative had some unique twist that, while not strictly impossible, pushed the boundaries of realism. Despite the uniqueness within each narrative, they all depicted peaceful, positive scenes and interactions between characters. None of the stories had overly complicated plots, but at the same time, none of them seemed to be void of meaning.
The lack of apparent connections between stories opens plenty of room for interpretation (and of course, made it easier to have read this over the course of several months). But they all had some seemingly bizarre element that made me perpetually curious to keep flipping the pages and seeing how the plots developed.
That being said, I don’t think I was able to share the same optimism as Peter when I read this through. Perhaps my expectations were anchored too high or perhaps my non-fiction oriented brain struggled to appreciate the novelties of these absurd stories. Or, perhaps it was the fact that I felt like I read ten narratives in one.
This book certainly wasn’t boring; I’d even go as far as to argue that Morse’s narration was strong enough to turn random plotlines into page-turners. But, I can’t shake the feeling that I didn’t end the last narrative with that sense of completeness usually associated with finishing a book. This won’t be a title I regret reading, but it’s also unlikely to be one I reflect upon in the future.
Peter, it would be an understatement to say we had a lot of characters on our Europe trip, so it already excited me to catch up with you after parting ways. I apologize for the delay in sending you the link to this review; even if my enthusiasm didn’t perfectly parallel yours when reading this, I had a smile painted across my face knowing that you went through the effort of getting this into my hands.
Rating: 3/5