I guess I’ll start by saying that I totally didn’t see that ending coming! It’s funny to think that something I thought was so poorly written when first beginning this novel to thinking how brilliantly written it actually was when reflecting back on it.
One of the things I was most fascinated with throughout this novel was the play on the imaginary vs. real concept. When Howard commented on the purpose of the hotel was the shed the real/unreal binary I thought that certainly had a bigger meaning than just within the contents of the hotel itself (198). As we had talked about in class the role of confinement throughout the novel, I think this was one of those instances where confining the real/unreal binary to just the purpose of the hotel itself would be impossible considering there was so much commentary on the binary through relationships outside of the so called imaginative story written by Ray.
I thought this novel used so many conventional aspects of tradional novels such as gender construction for example, but used them in a totally untraditional sort of way. There was something about this novel that intriqued me and made me question what was going to happen next and what I as a literary reader and what I as a casual reader wanted to get out of it. I think Egan wrote this novel in such an interesting way because it could be read and enjoyed but so many different spectrum of readers. In example, those who were reading just for pure enjoyment and plot, and those more literary readers who picked about characterization, structure, form, etc. I know this isn’t a question that can have a definitive answer, but possibly the wide spectrum of readership is what makes a novel a good novel…
Yes I agree that the ending was not something that was seen comming. It was truely a unique novel and it brought something different to the table with the way it was written. You are right in that a different spectrum of people can read it.
Comment by kmills923 — April 9, 2009 @ 3:32 pm