A Change Of Pace

Just made a start on Kazuo Ishiguro's The Unconsoled after completing the extremely funky Blue Moon. Talk about a contrast! In the opening pages Ishiguro's narrator gets his ears bent by an astonishingly loquacious hotel porter for several pages on the gripping topic of how many pieces of luggage it's possible for him (the porter) to carry without placing them on the floor and why he follows a code that dictates porters should not put the bags that they are carrying down. In the equivalent number of pages in Child's novel no doubt Jack Reacher would have dispatched at least two bad guys (usually more) in highly satisfying and inventive ways.

The funny thing is that I'm already gripped by Ishiguro's narrative. Funny thing, fiction.