La machine à assassiner
20 June 2021 07:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
igenlodeThe trouble with this book is that it's basically what you would get if the entirety of "The Phantom of the Opera" had consisted of the activities of the managers :-(
I've just been reading chapter XX, which consists in its entirety (it's only six pages long) of an account of a meeting at the Institut during which the scientific establishment argues about the existence of the 'poupée sanglante' Gabriel, and concludes by voting decisively that Gabriel does not exist. Then in the final paragraphs an announcement arrives to say that Gabriel has just been arrested, thus making the entire assembled body appear foolish. The whole thing is a not-very-funny detour into (yet again) poking fun at human foibles -- so far, we've had satire at the expense of the Parisian crowds, at the ignorant country-dwellers, at the police, at politicians, at scientists, at the newspapers, and at humanity in general. And then we've had barely two or three chapters of actual plot...
I've just been reading chapter XX, which consists in its entirety (it's only six pages long) of an account of a meeting at the Institut during which the scientific establishment argues about the existence of the 'poupée sanglante' Gabriel, and concludes by voting decisively that Gabriel does not exist. Then in the final paragraphs an announcement arrives to say that Gabriel has just been arrested, thus making the entire assembled body appear foolish. The whole thing is a not-very-funny detour into (yet again) poking fun at human foibles -- so far, we've had satire at the expense of the Parisian crowds, at the ignorant country-dwellers, at the police, at politicians, at scientists, at the newspapers, and at humanity in general. And then we've had barely two or three chapters of actual plot...
