Keeping in mind 3 stars in my rating system is it met my expectations, that’s a decent rating for a classic. As much as they are lauded and hyped up, it’s then often hard for a classic to exceed my expectations or surprise me.

I really liked the prose work, though slightly contrived for the main narrators to be as simultaneously extra and erudite with diction, the prose styling was engaging and good. It is also a bit too much constructed for me, though. Meaning it is wildly plotty and is then overstuffed with symbolism and allusions, especially as it goes on and characters have similar names and characteristics to get across the main themes, which begin to beat you over the head until the actual climax plot beat, arguably the only one I actually wanted to know, and kept me reading.

Somethings I did admire about it though, were the indelible nature of physical abuse taking a toll. For the time, it feels more progressive than expected? But, counter to that is the draining over melodrama that manages to curtail how serious it is even as it attempts to prove that very point. It’s also somewhat hindered by how unreliable the narrators are, sometimes. I didn’t feel much satisfaction or even any resolution to that fact; further working to undermine the seriousness for telling something with significant drama. If a number of the narrators undermine one another, it makes it feel more contrived, overblowing what was ostensibly witnessed.

Loved the atmosphere and was here for the drama at some points though. Ending was a bit toothless in favour of The Message.