The first section of this book was utterly brilliant..it was written so carefully with a precise, slow, delicacy. I felt i was truly there in the setting described and could look about me and see everything and more besides. It was wonderful...but I wished the story had ended there maybe just hinting at the ending of the life that was lost. But instead the book rambled on...I read too often that the narrator became a writer....ok I got it.. the superb scene setting was lost in a rather boring race to the end...it went from being slow and perfect to an ungainly dithering. I was so sad about that.
Five stars for the first section and two for the rest...sort of three stars in the end.