Am I Being Too Critical? Or Is This More Disillusionment?

I have been trying to get through the last half of Timothy Findley's Spadework for the last week or so and it's just not holding me. I have skimmed through most of it as if I had read it, so I know what happens at the end. Has anyone else read Findley's final novel before his death in 2002? What did you think? I'm honestly looking for another opinion, because I'm a little bit shocked at my blasé, critical attitude towards it. Findley is a literary giant for me and frankly, it's rare for me to get so much enjoyment out of a male author.

I don't like the characters in this book and to me, Findley seems to be living out some kind of end-of-life fantasy with one of the main storylines. I haven't read any of his novels before in a modern setting. It takes place in Stratford, Ontario (a town way too close to where I grew up for me to get comfortable and invest in the story's world..what does that mean about myself?!) over the course of summer 1998. I'm not going to get into too much of a plot synopsis because I'd rather you just tried to read it for yourself...but I will say that it seemed totally unbelievable to me what one of the characters decided to pursue in his life.

I've been thinking about it over the past few days, and I think I'm starting to learn even more what sort of literary worlds I'm drawn to. It would seem that I am most absorbed by a story set in the past. This is so much more interesting to me than a novel set in present-time. Or, if a novel is set in present-time, time has to be a vague, secondary point of interest in the story.

Oh well. A novel that I will recommend to you is The Trespass by Barbara Ewing, published shortly after Spadework, but taking place in 1849 and infinitely more interesting. See for yourself..