Book Review: Run

Another book Lynellen dropped off, after my whining, was Run by Ann Pratchett. I finished it yesterday and I have to say...I'm still not sure what to think. It's one of those books that will probably make high school or college lit class reading lists and be praised from here to tomorrow, but the kids will read it and 99% of them will scratch their heads and roll their eyes and decide that literature is boring and stupid. Because this is another classic in the making simply because it has no discernible point.

That isn't to say it isn't good. I still mostly enjoyed reading it. But I can't tell you what it's about, because it's not clear that you're actually supposed to be able to figure that out. Superficially it's a story, taking place primarily over 24 hours (though there's a chapter at the front and another at the end that are clearly not during those 24 hours but yet are not marked as such, leaving you to try and figure out what the heck just happened as you reel from the bizzaro time warping. While I can sometimes forgive this...not this time. It was irritating.), about a family and their intersection with a single mother and her daughter and various and sundry tragedy in their past and present. But you can't leave it at superficial, because the author goes out of her way to bring up questions about various parts of each of their lives that then never get answered. Or even really addressed aside from having been brought up. So at the end of the book you're left wondering. And I hate that.

Beyond that, I still can't figure out why it's called Run. The father used to be a politician and is trying to keep two of his boys interested in politics, so that's a possibility. Then there's the eldest son who has lived his life simply be escaping his problems, so that's another possibility (as in "Run away".) Then there's the little girl who is a runner and needs to run daily in order to keep her life in order - it's her release. Then there's the girl's mother who has done her own share of running away. But none of them really fit so well that you think to yourself, "Aha! That's why it's called Run." Instead, you're left wondering if it wouldn't have been exactly the same book if it had been called, "Eat" or "Sleep" or "Read" or "Buy This Book". Because the title really appears to have incredibly little to do with the story. (Which circles back to why I'm sure this will be foisted on kids in lit class and oohed and ahhed over in book clubs around the country.)

And maybe this just goes to prove that in terms of literature, I really can sometimes be a Philistine. I like my books to have a plot. To have a point. To have an ending where at least most of your questions are answered and you can close the cover and know that, even if everyone isn't living happily ever after, they are living a life that follows the course set out for them and they won't be entirely miserable (unless they're bad, in which case they will be miserable because that's justice.) It's why I like classic classics like Austen and Forster, or even Dickens - and tend not to like classics like Joyce.

That said, it wasn't a horrible book - I just wish it had answered even half the questions it brought up. I think my next fiction undertaking needs to be something popcorn though, because this one is going to have me scratching my head for another couple days.

3 Unanswered Questions out of 5