The Sunday Salon – The Glass Book of the Dream Eaters

I’m not sure if I’m fully signed up for The Sunday Salon yet, I’ve filled in the form etc. but I’m not listed (as of typing) as a member, but I’ll join in anyway!

Today I’ve been reading The Glass Book of the Dream Eaters by G.W. Dahlquist, I started reading it last weekend but stopped to read the far more entertaining A Quiet Belief in Angels, but I’ve finished that and I’m now back to ploughing through the very long Glass Book (until I get tempted by another book to read).

I think the idea behind The Glass Book of the Dream Eaters is absolutely fantastic, styled like a Victorian serial melodrama, it was originally published in the UK in ten parts, I’ve just finished reading the sixth part. It is about a trio of adventurers up against an evil Cabal and reading the blurb it all sounded very adventurous, however in reality it is a very long story and although I understand why it is long (as like I said it’s meant to be mimicing the Victorian serial) it could have done with being shortened a bit, there is an awful lot of going up and down in trains / up and down windy country roads / up and down foggy city streets and then getting knocked out, which so feels like padding. It doesn’t help that I sought out some interviews online with Dahlquist, as initially I was very impressed with the planning I thought must have gone into this book, but then I read an interview where Dahlquist more or less said that he didn’t know where he was going when he was writing this (he wrote it during jury service and in twenty minute stints going to and from work on the tube apparently) and everytime I get to a protracted scene on a country road or a train I can’t help but think “he doesn’t know where he’s going”.

Each part features the adventures of one of the heroes (although they do meet up occasionally with each other), I really like the feisty Miss Temple, who I’d imagine if this were a film (and it reads like a film in part, the sort where they’d have filmed virtually all of it in front of a blue screen and coloured it in afterwards), I’d have imagined Miss Temple as Nicole Kidman. The hero assassin Cardinal Chang is also entertaining and I imagine him as Bruce Willis. The third hero however isn’t quite as entertaining, a Dr. Svenson who I’d imagine as Malcom McDowell. The sixth part which I’ve just finished reading features Dr.Svenson so it was a bit of a struggle getting through it and as I’d already guessed there was an awful lot of going up and down on trains and country lanes and getting knocked out. However I am determined to finish this book, I suspect / hope that it will all end spectacularly well and by the end I won’t be able it put it down but at the moment it’s that thought along with the fact that I’ve already invested enough of my time to read 393 pages of this book, are the only things that are keeping me going with this.