I don’t think reading this book once is enough.
I have re-read the first 30 pages three times. At first, because I started the book at half-asleep so I could barely function. The second time I still couldn’t pay any attention. The third time was because there was simply way too much time between finishing the first 30 pages and actually reading forward that I thought I might as well just start it again. The third time I’ve read it in one sitting.
What do you mean? I asked the author while reading over and over again. It is not an easy book, it is a dark, philosophical thriller that truly eats you up by the time you finish this story. Still, you can’t put it down because the characters are so humane and relatable that you want to know what’s going to happen to them. And also what happened to them in the past.
The Autodidacts starts in 1982 in the UK, with a lighthouse. There is a man living in it, James who is in love with the woman living across on a cliff: Helene. Helene has a husband Lawrence and a baby girl Evelyn. The marriage is far away from being perfect, for a matter of fact, both the husband and the wife have their own demons fighting with them daily. There is also Henry, who is taking care of Evelyn while his mom is cleaning the couple’s house. So we have this idyllic deeply troubled group of people who are literally one step away from spiraling into something even darker. That one step happens when the man in the tower, James disappears and all it’s left behind is his notebook. In it, there are drawings about a child and essays like paragraphs about curses and characters based on real-life ones.
I wasn’t thinking I would be able to read it in one sitting. It was actually years ago the last time when I could do this. Not because of my reading speed but just because I can’t do it anymore. So This was a pleasant surprise. It truly sucked me in and I couldn’t even tell why. Maybe because as I mentioned before the characters were so well done and relatable. I loved that the author was not stagnating on one character for chapters but jumped from every two pages to another one. It kept me on my toes and kept me going because I wanted to know what was going to happen with ‘my characters’ the ones I was rooting for. It also had characters that I almost despised and that’s not a bad thing at all in a book. As long as it’s not the main character camouflaged as a good one. Maybe it was the atmosphere of the book that kept me turning the pages. I live in Fort William, Scotland. Practically from September till March it feels like someone stole the sunlight away and brought some clouds and fog and never-ending humidity instead. And as I was reading the book the way I could picture the small town near the sea just like here near the mountain, it felt like I was reading the right book at the right time. There is something weirdly satisfying about it and also helped me to get through my usual autumn melancholy too.
It is a philosophical book so there is a lot of thinking and me trying to make sense of all of it, while mentally copy-pasting my own messages and my own little dialogues. The poems I wrote when I was in high school. Yes, maybe the other reason why it truly took me away was nostalgia. Or more precisely, the essence, the thought process of my adolescence. Oh man, I did think a lot back then. About literally everything, and oh did I write it all down back then. Maybe this book found my soft spot. My longing for my teenage self who was burning with passion and love for writing.
I truly recommend this book, especially if you want to read something different that is not so easy to find in today’s mainstream ocean. Let it be your lighthouse this autumn and all the time when you need it. When you feel nostalgic for your old self but still love the new one.
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Thank you to Lori from TNBBCpublicity and Whiske(y) Tit for offering a copy and especially Thomas Kendall himself who was kind enough to give me this amazing book. It means the world to me.
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