I blame the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Really.
After the last few weeks of focusing on the Senate Judiciary Committee and their Supreme Court confirmation hearings I was just not in the mood to read a novel in which a white youth can't be bothered to see the world through anybody else's eyes. I definitely wasn't in the mood to read TWO novels with that kind of protagonist.
Warlight, by Michael Ondaatje, and The Witch Elm by Tana French, are two novels that couldn't be more different. Warlight is the story of a boy growing up in post-World War II London. His parents leave he and his sister for a year, ostensibly to travel to the other side of the world due to his father's job. The people that they are left with are unusual to say the least and it becomes clear very soon that the parents have lied to the children and there is more going on than meets the eye.
The Witch Elm is a crime novel in which the protagonist is beaten to a pulp in the first fifty pages by two burglars, causing a loss of memory. This becomes important when skeletal remains are found and the protagonist can't remember details that might lead to the discovery of who killed the victim.
But despite their differences, they seemed to have basically the same premise. The male protagonist is so self-centered that he spends his youth oblivious to what is going on around him. In Warlight, Nathaniel can't even be bothered to know the real names of the adults who are ostensibly in charge of him. Ostensibly he can't remember them years later because he was so traumatized by his youth.
Oh c'mon.
In The Witch Elm, Toby remembers his teen years at school as being a pleasant time where people occasionally play pranks on each other. He is shocked to learn, years later, that others have memories of bullying and sexual assault. HE doesn't remember that.
Oh c'mon.
I rapidly lost interest in both of these characters. I found myself utterly bored by Nathaniel's story. But it's a short novel so I finished it. I was annoyed by Toby and his white male privilege from the first few pages of The Witch Elm and rapidly found that I didn't care what happened to him. I kept reading because, up until now, I have loved Tana French's books. It never improved. I was never shocked (or even surprised). Even her writing style in this novel annoyed me - far too much exposition.
So all in all, I didn't care for either book and I can't recommend either one. Especially after the last few weeks and the Senate Judiciary Committee.
