ezekielsdaughter | just finished "The Separation"

Last week’s book was “The Separation” by Christopher Priest. The story line twists and turns upon itself like an ouroboros snake. After I read it, I went searching for reviews. This is by the same author who wrote “The Prestige”, so if you had a problem with that book (or movie), seek out a different book. This one is just as challenging. I want to let it percolate in my head for a bit.

I will say that a lot of the detail probably went over my head because I am not one of the folks who read books on WWII and the personalities (especially Churchill and Hess) involved. And this is more technically detailed than Connie Willis’ books set during the same time period. Some of this is dry and very reserved. The technical details---like the description of piloting a WWII bomber—make the novel convincing. Somewhere after the first half of the book, things start to get subtly stranger. Although—maybe they were strange from the beginning. That blind spot that I have for WWII history, you see. It would be interesting to see what the war gaming guys in my workshop would make of this. They would know where the strangeness actually began to creep into the story.