1/365 Inkheart

It seems somewhat fitting, now I think about it, to begin this blog with a book so very much about books.  Really, when you come right down to it, that's what the book really was about.  I don't want to get into some big Meaning to Me fest (I can't talk symbolism or metaphors anyways), but I just kept thinking about how people live with books.  Escape into them, and all that, don't you know.  This book just sort of swopped things - instead of getting into the story, the story got out.  It's kind of an interesting idea, really - how would favorite book characters react and adapt to "our" world?  I've been giving that an idle thought now and then.

I liked Inkheart, mostly.  I certainly had a hard time putting it down, and that has to count for something. I plan to read the other books in the trilogy and The Thief Lord as well.  Last night, I just-one-more-chaptered until about two in the morning - and I've seen the movie. (And there were differences. Some which, I am sorry to say, I did not like.)  It felt very European, unsurprisingly enough.  Perhaps I'm being fanciful, but somehow I thought I could tell that it was a translation.

I said it seems right to start a blog about books with a book about books - I only wish I'd liked it more.  I feel guilty for not liking it more. I don't know why I didn't.  Well, I'm not 100% sure why.  I've managed to think up a few reasons.

1. I'm old.  I haven't read juvenile fiction in quite a while, and maybe I sort of wasn't with the rhythm.  I kind of doubt this one.

2. I don't think in comparisons.  In the book, people are always thinking things look like this or remind them of that.  She thought he looked like an empty oyster - that kind of thing.  I do not do that.  Like, ever.  It probably shows that my imagination is deficient or something, but there it is.

3. The ending was sort of sadder than the movie.  More realistic (if you can even say that about this book), but sadder. Usually I'm a fan of more real and therefore sadder endings, but not today.

4. I wasn't in the right mood.  I've been reading Lord Peter Wimsey almost exclusively lately, and I'm a bit obsessed.  I daresay it has done something to my brain.  I'm all mopey because I gorged myself on all LPW the books in like a week, and now there are none left to read.  Must learn to savor books.

So blah.  I guess the tone in general just didn't float my boat.  I don't know what it was or what I mean, but we didn't click.  I think I wanted either something very ordinary or very good.  Cheap thrills, an idiotically happy ending, love story, heroics, epic fights or Deep Thoughts and a very dismal theme like guilt.

CONCLUSION:  Good.  I will probably like it more if I read it again when I'm in a better mood.  Reading the rest of the trilogy might conceivably add the dash of closure I'm kind of wanting.

P.S.  I may have only liked the story - but I loved the little pen drawings at the end of the chapters. And they were done by the author herself!