Review: Finch by Jeff Vandermeer
Well, I didn't see this one coming. For some reason combining sentient fungi, hard boiled detective, science fiction and magic did not add up to a winning medley in the space between my ears. Fortunately the exceptions are always worth the however many times I end up thoroughly annoyed at myself for trying something outside my norms. Sometimes it's good to try new oddball books.
In any case, Finch is a detective working for the walking mushrooms who have taken over the city of Ambergris (an interesting choice of name if ever there was one). As anyone would expect in a city named after a substance from the aft end of a whale, Finch has to solve a double murder case. To say that the path he takes is convoluted would be understating things a great deal. There are smooth transitions to flash backs when something from Finch's past becomes relevant to the story before the reader, but they don't interrupt so much as add new textures to Finch himself.
Lest you think that I refer to just the plot line, the character development in this novel is also quite the tangled skein. Finch continually lies to himself, but as the yarn progresses, he begins to stop doing so and reorient his mind set to something somewhat better than the constant nervous edge he had before. Granted as soon as I found out he had a cat I was rooting for him, but I still enjoyed the gradual zoom out of how his relatively minor investigation affected Ambergris at large and how his past intersected with the various factions around the city.
The story seems less to be about investigation than it is about Finch's reactions to each new development in his case and the reactions of the people around him. The main players who intersect with his investigation were interesting because they set the stage for the post-Rising world far better than Finch did in the beginning of the book. Finch hedges his own allegiances at nearly every turn and it made for a nice contrast between him and everyone else who did know where they were in relation to the other factions from the Grey caps to the rebels to the spies from Stockton. I really liked Rathven the librarian in particular.
Pretty much the only major gripe I had with the novel was that Finch sometimes seemed too passive at times for my tastes. Fortunately, the interesting setting, the appearance of oddball characters (of whom only a few seem like hard boiled staples) and the fun shifts in flashback and then the revelations surrounding the human-ish murder victim. I found this to be a slow building but entertaining read overall. I shall now have a new spot to explore on my metaphorical reading map. Here there be fungi.
In any case, Finch is a detective working for the walking mushrooms who have taken over the city of Ambergris (an interesting choice of name if ever there was one). As anyone would expect in a city named after a substance from the aft end of a whale, Finch has to solve a double murder case. To say that the path he takes is convoluted would be understating things a great deal. There are smooth transitions to flash backs when something from Finch's past becomes relevant to the story before the reader, but they don't interrupt so much as add new textures to Finch himself.
Lest you think that I refer to just the plot line, the character development in this novel is also quite the tangled skein. Finch continually lies to himself, but as the yarn progresses, he begins to stop doing so and reorient his mind set to something somewhat better than the constant nervous edge he had before. Granted as soon as I found out he had a cat I was rooting for him, but I still enjoyed the gradual zoom out of how his relatively minor investigation affected Ambergris at large and how his past intersected with the various factions around the city.
The story seems less to be about investigation than it is about Finch's reactions to each new development in his case and the reactions of the people around him. The main players who intersect with his investigation were interesting because they set the stage for the post-Rising world far better than Finch did in the beginning of the book. Finch hedges his own allegiances at nearly every turn and it made for a nice contrast between him and everyone else who did know where they were in relation to the other factions from the Grey caps to the rebels to the spies from Stockton. I really liked Rathven the librarian in particular.
Pretty much the only major gripe I had with the novel was that Finch sometimes seemed too passive at times for my tastes. Fortunately, the interesting setting, the appearance of oddball characters (of whom only a few seem like hard boiled staples) and the fun shifts in flashback and then the revelations surrounding the human-ish murder victim. I found this to be a slow building but entertaining read overall. I shall now have a new spot to explore on my metaphorical reading map. Here there be fungi.