Master of the World

Continuing my quest to read the classics, I have now completed Master of the World.

Oh. My. God.

The hero of this book, written in first person, never did anything! For example, he is an investigator for the government, and, after reports of a mysterious event in a mountaintop, he spends exactly 1/2 a day trying to climb the mountain with a few other men, one of whom is lame, then gives up. Heads back to his boss to say he’s sorry, he can’t complete the task.

But he does a lot of thinking. Days and days of thinking about what might or might not happen, while everyone around him is doing stuff, big stuff.

And a lot of sleeping. The hero falls asleep during all the important events so the author can avoid describing complex events.

Even reading this book with the lens of ‘oh, it’s a classic, with different standards’ I had a hard time completing it.

Save yourself some time and skip it.