The Reading Group Reads
Her Fearful Symmetry - By Audrey Niffeneggar
Well, I thought it was very silly book! Set next door to London's Highgate
cemetery, Her Fearful Symmetry is a very surreal tale about two twins who were
themselves the children of one of two twins who for reasons never made entirely
clear decided to swap, one pretending to be the aunt, the other the mother and
wife.
The story begins with the death of mother-pretending-to-beaunt twin and her materialisation as ghost-about-the-house, well flat actually, adjacent to Highgate cemetery, which the younger twins inherit. Ghost (new twins' real mother) quickly makes herself known to twins, and finds there is a problem in that one twin wishes to escape from the other, whom she finds too clingy. Consequently, a plot is hatched: twin one will commit suicide, her body (packed in ice) will be interred in the family vaults at Highgate and then later snatched back by a friendly neighbour who works there (well, he was in love with Ghost when she was alive) at which point suicidal twin's soul will be quickly reinsteated by Ghost, who has been practising on a kitten, and clingy twin will never know her sister is still alive. All goes swimmingly, except that the wrong soul goes back in the body... . Well, I told you it was a very silly book, and should we have been in any doubt, Swaffham Prior's book group has the advantage of its very own consultant pathologist who smartly pointed out that there had been some serious errors in the dead body research department, not to mention the weight of packed ice, and a number of other things that would have completely ruined an otherwise perfectly coherent plot. Not!
January's book will be The Last Mughal by William Dalrymple and will take place on the first Wednesday in January 2011 at 8pm, Kent House. Just turn up on the night if you would like to come, or get in touch with Margaret Joyce before who will probably be able to get you a library copy of the book.