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The Geographer's Library

Good morning/afternoon/evening good readers.

Welcome back to another round of a sorta review of my sorta opinions on yet another book.


The Geographer's Library is I guess the type books that got hyped by the readers who swore by Dan Brown when the Da Vinci Code fever was araging 2 or 3 years back.
  • It got the right formula.
  • An age old ancient secret about to be discovered.
  • A seemingly ordinary person stumbled upon the knowledge.
  • The quest of arcane/antique objects.
  • People gotten killed because of this knowledge/arcane objects.

So it sound just about right, the story started nicely enough... it started to get confusing and boring and frankly. I couldn't be bothered to care about the characters.

I am going to summarize this story complete with spoilers, but those who want to read the book, will no doubt care very much when they got to the end if they know the spoiler or not. A journalist at a small town for a small weekly newspaper are responsible to create an obit for a seemingly lonely, eccentric old professor of his. So the lonely, eccentric professor is more than just a professor but a guardian of long lost objects.

This objects seems to hold the key of an immortal or longevity of life but it never really specifically say so. At first the story went on fine enough, it is kinda like Gaiman's "American Gods" where 2 plots/stories running parallel with each other. One stories told of the journalist investigation of the professor, the other is how the objects are collected. The latter one, was at first interesting. But then the objects are collected. It was painted as mysterious and sought after. Tapi what it do, why its being constructed, why the hell it even preserve the life of the bearer is not explain.

Then in conclusion, the secret of the immortality (the point of the whole story) is not even these 15 arcane objects! It lies solely in a tablet supposedly from Prophet Abraham (I think that is what the story assume), and that tablet is the reason for longevity or immortality? But it never also really say???? How? Why? Gah! And what's the use of telling readers of these 15 arcane objects? What is their use being held together by 1 person? Gah! Gah!

The other stories that run parallel is how the reporter quest for the truth, found the truth, know the truth, doubt the truth and feel completely ...... I have no idea too. Perhaps its the author ideas to let the endings as open ended. But at the end of the day, I just feel that it just a waste of my time.

I hate stories like this. I hate stories that seemingly seems to forget what they are talking about. Like you spent 150 pages writing about pigeons and suddenly the last 10 pages you are giving conclusions about eagles.

I am fine with open ended endings. Some Japanese authors seems to master it very well in fact. But we understand this, we understand that the ending is an interpretation on how we view the characters and their actions and consequences. If this is what "The Geographer's Library" wanted to convey, the author did not convey it very well. Or either he just got tired of writing and quickly seams a hasty ending.

Comments

ok

i skipped the spoiler. mana la tau might interest me la kan.

but all i can say is this whole "secret order for eons blah blah" plot really have to go

after da vinci, angels n demon and rule of 4 its starting to get boring
Dils said…
Hehe. You might swore after you read this book. But I don't know... probably I just don't have the patience when the author starts to just merapu instead of answering all my questions.

Agreed that these type of plots is kinda tiresome, however, there is still one book I still want to read akin to these type Matthew Reilly book, I forgot the title.

Couldn't find it at Book Xcess store, guess I will forked out my money later on if I didn't find it at the usual place.

Nuffnang

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