The Wheel of Fortune

A great book should leave you with many experiences, and slightly exhausted. You should live several lives while reading it.
- William Styron

After my trip to Yunnan, I finished the last few chapters of Absolute Truths, finally finished the Starbridge Series. Then, I started on A Question of Integrity(UK title)/Wonder Worker (US title), it's quite a good book I like Nicholas Darrow & Lewis), though not as good as the Starbridge series.

The problem happens when I started, no, it started when I got hooked on the Wheel of Fortune (also written by Susan Howatch), but instead of writing about clergyman, this is one of her earlier works. It is a family saga, "a recreation in a modern dimension a true story of ... the Plantagenet family". (Don't worry even if you don't know about medieval England, I only vaguely remember I have read about the name "Plantagenet", must have read about the family in some novel by Sharon Kay Penman, but don't remember anything about them...)

The story is divided into 6 parts, each part told by a different member in the family. I like reading stories written in the 1st person, as you can know more about the characters, but the problem for me, I need to like the character first. As I don't like Robert (the character narrating the first part of the story), so even tho the story is interesting, when I started the story, I just wanted to get to know the ending, However, I knew I couldn't flip through this 1090-page family saga and expected to understand the ending, so I skipped the lines, even pages, but kept on reading. Ginerva(the second narrator, Robert's wife/his father's cousin/in the end his friend) is more interesting.

Then, I finally got hooked in part 3, John's story. I cried in part 5, when Harry described why his father, John, went back to the loveless marriage, when John finally married Bronwen and during his funeral.

I'm surprised when I read the reviews in Amazon.com, other people like Ginerva, Hal, Kester!!!, I can understand why people like Harry (I like him too), but I like John most. I think I like character whom I can identify with, that is my problem, and that's why problems always occur during my writing. For a story to succeed, I need to different characters, and when I don't like a character I don't like to read/write about him/her.

Anyway, I think the most marvellous thing about Susan Howatch's book is that she can make me understand why her characters do things they do. It seemed like an easy thing to do, but when you read her story, you know it isn't, coz the plot is so complicated, and some of them do things so weird I can't begin to comprehend...

The cost of reading such a book is that you feel exhausted afterwards... well worth it tho...