The Man in the Wooden Hat

On tap for next week's book discussion - Jane Gardam's The Man in the Wooden Hat.  Generally I do not enjoy reading about unhappy marriages.  This novel (a companion to Gardam's Old Filth which I have not read) has garnered much critical praise, so I trudged through the fractured style at the beginning of the novel, settled into the plot of this solid, but lackluster marriage, not quite interested in the characters (though the sentences are well-crafted).  I always make sure I finish a book that we will be discussing, so I found myself surprisingly charmed as I hit the final (fifth) section of the book which turns in a slightly different direction.

I have gone back to reviews of the book, and I think that next week's meeting will help me to think better of the book than I did initially.