Reading Challenge 2008

Well, only three weeks after it was the RevGalBookPals discussion book, I finished The Testament of Gideon Mack.  (I had to wait for it from my library so didn't receive it until two days before the discussion date...so obv. didn't get it read on time.)

This book was mildly reminiscent of Confessions of a Justified Sinner, and also of another book I couldn't quite put my finger on.  I found it interesting and sort of fun to read, and also a pretty good caricature of what life as a pastor could be like in rural Scotland.  Every parish has some of these same characters--the detractors, the supporters, the "heathen" friends.  And, I suspect, every pastor has a bit of Gideon on them, and a bit of Lorna too.  It just happens.

I wasn't always completely on top of the time changes in the "manuscript" as he wrote of 11 years ago, a couple of years ago, and last month in a rather interchangeable way.  I caught on eventually but a couple of times was caught off guard.  I found myself wanting to know what happened to him after the "Testament" ended, but of course will never know.  ;-)  This kind of book always makes me forget it's not real for a little while and then I finish and think "oh, right, it was a novel, not a real manuscript by a real CoS minister.  duh."