A carnival of technology

I didn’t read on Friday, so I’m only two chapters in. I set a chapter a day as a sort of goal, but I don’t know if I’ll bother to catch up on Sunday.

My thoughts on the book so far basically mirror Chris’s, so I won’t repeat all of that. Instead I’ve been trying to figure out why I find this book so dull. I enjoy a lot of Victorian literature; I even took a class in it and I don’t think I had to, French took care of most of my humanities credits. Victorian novels share a lot of the same features—idle rich sitting around getting offended and catching the vapors or whatever—but at least stuff happens once in a while in them. A vampire will come crashing in or someone undergoes some emotional development or at least someone will have the courtesy to die and give everyone else something to legitimately lament. Nothing at all has happened in these two chapters. The characters are boring and unlikeable and nothing is happening. It’s like I’m reading one of those awful soap opera comic strips out of a 150 year old newspaper. Demons wasn’t the title used in the original translation of this book, and I’m starting to think it was really called Apartment 3-?.

The dust jacket tells me there will be a murder, there will be something involving revolutionaries. I hope things start going in that direction soon. I’m still only two chapters in, so I’m still hoping that I’m in the middle of a very long-winded setup.