Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature

Yes, dear reader, I am beginning to dread those words. You see them printed on a book, and you know that you are in for it almost certainly.

For example, let's take The Double. I'd sort of rather leave it, actually, but it's too late for that now. Not that it was a painful read or anything. Well, it was sort of painful. Plot synopsis: this guy, who is generally not very happy with his life, randomly discovers that he has a double, a stranger who looks exactly like him. And then it's about his quest to meet this person and determine which of them is the original and which is the copy.

Again, my summary makes it sound more interesting than it is, sadly. A lot of that has to do with the fact that the lead character is really irritating. He's this middle-aged man who is, as I said, generally unhappy with his life, unfulfilled, and rather self-centered and whinny. Not the most fun guy with whom to spend a novel. It's too bad, because the idea is really fascinating: how would we react if we thought we might be a copy? Or are we, regardless, really the sum of our experiences making the notion of a copy absurd?

Sometimes I wonder about authors. So many of this guy's actions felt completely off to me; I mean, the way he reacted to this situation just didn't seem like the way someone would actuallyreact, even taking into consideration the huge variations in how people react to things. Just didn't feel at all real. Maybe this is my own inability to really connect with characters with whom I have nothing in common, but whatever.

And finally, and I know that this is bad and I'm just not a very good reader, but this novel would seriously have full chapters - many, many pages - without a paragraph break. Seriously! Yes, that's a style choice or whatever, and I should just get with the program, but it is annoying.