A Living Soul: 5 (Series B)

The eyes through which the reader sees what happens in the novel are so unusual that one tries different ways to understand what's going on. Is it really science fiction, or is the hero maybe lying comatose in a hospital bed and dreaming or half perceiving and reconstructing what's happening around the hospital bed. We do find out, but the puzzle reflects the puzzle the hero has to face in genuinely bizarre circumstances. The end is an astounding affirmation of the uncontrollable affront to the individual of mortality. Jersild is an extraordinarily imaginative and powerful novelist, and each of the novels is has a very different starting point and setting, but his way of looking at experience and circumstance is penetrating and consistent.

I read this in Uni and it's a great book. very entertaining. Something a bit different