The first book of a new year. It’s easy to mistake something as a change of a year as something greatly monumental, though after the year that we all just had, I can’t imagine people feeling at least some sense of relief and that there is a sense of good things to come on the horizon. On the same tangent is the notion that you should start the year off with a bang, a good book, a bunch of resolutions, etcetera. I tried the whole goal thing last year, and it’s safe to say that I will not be making a list like that for the next few years. As for books, those are never in a short supply in my home and I am excited for the adventures I will be going on through them.
I would argue that my literary start to the year may not have been as strong that I could have had, reading time-wise, all good, but rating and overall feeling towards the book, mixed. Outline circles around ten conversations the protagonist has over her week-long trip to Athens, Greece, where she finds herself meeting with old friends and delving into conversations with persons she may no encounter again.
From the start you are introduced to a female protagonist, only to learn her name in the penultimate chapter. Over the course of the novel you learn about her career, reasons behind her recent travel to Athens and that she has a family, though the links she has with them are uncertain as it is a subject not largely delved into. At the end of a chapter she gets handed an envelope and all I want to know is what was in it. Rumour has it that this is the first of a trilogy, so this may be something that is explored later, but from what I’ve seen on Goodreads, there are mixed reviews as to readers will like the following books based on their opinions of Outline.
Another thing that irked me slightly was the relation she gained with a local whom she met on the flight from London. As a reader, I saw little to no interest in this man coming from Faye, be that romantic or platonic, so I was left mildly confused when he kept reappearing. Aside from lengthy conversations about his ex-wives, for the most part, there wasn’t all that much that I thought he brought into the plot.
There are two chapters that stood out to me. One where she meets a woman who she has already met, though the former does not remember ever having interacted with the protagonist, and the other which features lengthy conversations about animals. The latter of the two conversations brought with it an interesting sentiment on animals and ‘that we use animals as pure reflections of human consciousness, while at the same time their existence exerts a sort of moral force by which human beings feel objectified and therefore safely contained?’ (p. 224-5). Outline offers a lot for reflection, but it is also easy to get lost in the plot threaded throughout.
It’s an interesting perspective on literature that does not go unnoticed, but the psychological aspect was a little lost for me, I didn’t feel like there was a moment that really tested my thinking and opinions about any of the situations that unfolded. The chapters flow together well and the novel overall is well written, a relaxing tone flows through the pages, filled with simplicity but simultaneously intrigue, adding to its thought-provoking nature. Despite this, I found the book a little tricky to get fully immersed into some of the plot points, or conversations, that feature over its course. It is a unique read, there is a lot to it and I can see how it can be a book favoured by many. As it is a rather easy read, it is also easy to recommend to any reader, it is easy to delve into the conversations, but sticking around for their entire duration is where I struggled.
Notable quotes (a narrowed down list of moments that stood out to me on the page): He spoke a refined and formal kind of English that did not seem wholly natural, as thought at some point it had been applied to him carefully with a brush, like paint. (p.7) That's writing for you: when you make space for passion, it doesn't turn up. (p.49) It seems success takes you away from what you know, he said, while failure condemns you to it. (p.65) He didn’t once glance back at me, for people are at their least aware of others when demonstrating their power over them. (p.71) If love is what is held to make us immortal, hatred is the reverse. (p.82) I realised that our whole sense of life as a romance - even our conception of love itself - was a vision in which material things played far too great a role, and that without those things we might find that certain feelings diminished while others became accentuated. (p.126) Music is a betrayer of secrets; it is more treacherous even than dreams, which at least have the virtue of being private. (p.141) … but perhaps (…) the best way to confront out fears is to put them in costume, so to speak; to translate time, for the simple act of translation very often renders things harmless. (p.149) For instance the word ellipsis, he’d been told, could literally be translated as ‘to hide behind silence’. (p.180)
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