/lit/ - Literature

>>22415705
Inside Man, #2 - K.J. Parker (2021)

As with the first novella what I've written here strays away from my usual write-up. Somewhat more than three weeks later I read this second novella in the setting. After having written about the first book I put off on posting about it because I wasn't sure if I would entirely rewrite it, add some commentary, or know how it'd affect what I thought about it. For me the answer was inconclusive, even though maybe it ought not be, and also I found myself to be surprisingly indifferent to whether that mattered. I don't really feel any differently about what I wrote and that's still what I'm going with regardless.

This second outing is quite different from the first and while I can appreciate what it's going for on a conceptual level, it's not that something that I was able to enjoy. The narrator is the same "demon" as from the first and the unnamed narrator appears as well. The vast majority of the content is a series of self-involved ramblings to the point where I felt that best audience for this would be those who enjoy Parker's writing for its occurrence than whatever it may be about. Stylistically it's interesting in that most narratives are grounded in time, place, and direction, while this tends to drift about, seemingly unmoored to those three ideas. That's a neat trick, but apparently not one of particular appeal to me.

I don't know how accurate how it is, but there certainly are a lot of comparisons to Good Omens and to Pratchett more generally. The humor, of which there's probably about as much as there are theological musings, which is to say, a lot, fell entirely flat with me. The real world pop culture reference jokes, ranging from the JFK assassination to Star Trek, left me more baffled than anything else. There are several religious jokes as well, including about the not-Jewish people, though they seemed good natured. That's a problem because that may be most of the appeal. I don't think it's deep enough for that to be attraction, the characters aren't that developed, nor is that world all that much either. So, it's come for the style and stay for the humor as far as I can tell.

I really don't understand Parker as an author, which makes me both want to read one of his novels and avoid everything else he's written. The latter seems considerably more likely at this time. I probably won't unless I have some compelling external reason to do so. This is just one of those times that an author doesn't seem suited for me and I'm entirely fine with that.

Rating: 2.5/5 (2)