I wanted to be very blown away by David Bezmogis’ The Betrayers. The novel has many elements I find appealing, the setup, mood, characters, all had the potential to coalesce into a great novel. Alas, this is just a good novel.
Part of the problem is compression: it is a relatively short novel, and the author’s themes are very large -- so he has no real chance of treating them adequately. He does an in-depth job when he does, but the overall picture adds up to a thin novel.
There should have been more character development, plot set-up, and time span; this should have been a big novel capable of handling its themes. As it is, it reads like a sketch of a much longer work yet to be written.
Part of the problem is compression: it is a relatively short novel, and the author’s themes are very large -- so he has no real chance of treating them adequately. He does an in-depth job when he does, but the overall picture adds up to a thin novel.
There should have been more character development, plot set-up, and time span; this should have been a big novel capable of handling its themes. As it is, it reads like a sketch of a much longer work yet to be written.
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