Pavesi is not an author I have tried before, although I am aware of his successful mystery, Eight Detectives (2020). The blurb for Ink Ribbon Red sufficiently intrigued me, so I reserved this one at my local library for the very reasonable sum of 20p. The blurb made the novel sound structurally interesting, and I felt there was the potential for engaging metafiction. Alas for me the blurb turned out to be the best part of the book…
Synopsis
‘Six friends gather at a country house for a birthday weekend. They decide to play a game.
All six names go in a hat. Choose two and imagine one murdering the other.
Write it down. Type it up. Read it out.
Points are given for making the murders sound convincing.
Of course, when given such a task, it’s only natural to use what you know.
Secrets. Grudges. Affairs.
But once you’ve put it in a story, that secret is out.
So with each fictional murder, someone gets a motive for a real one.
Which leads to the most important question:
When a real murder comes, will you be able to spot it in time?’
Overall Thoughts
One of the things which most frustrated me with this novel was the decision to jumble up the chronological order of events. Mixing up timelines is not something that bothers me in and of itself, but the extreme level to which this narrative strategy is taken here, makes the book painful to read. For example, it makes the opening feel more like a bombardment of possible information, as the timeline cuts and changes too quickly and too much. This feeling of the reader being hurried and jolted reoccurs elsewhere in the story, making this timeline feel akin to Tigger after he has had a 6 pack of energy drinks. It is a complete hassle having to keep in your head when each chapter is situated and how it fits into the possible timeline (yes, I keep using the word possible – I will explain more anon). The excessive amount of jumping around really does not add anything positive to the reading experience. I guess disorientation is the idea, but it’s just not fun to read. In addition, I felt it meant the reveal for certain pieces of information was very slowly dragged out. Moreover, I felt this structural strategy exacerbated how dull and boring this book was.
In the author’s note we are told that the stories the six characters write will be included in the overall narrative at various points. These stories in terms of format and writing style are near identical to the other chapters, so the reader has the additional challenge of deciding whether the chapter they have just read is fiction or reality. Whilst not impossible to do, this made comprehending the plot tiresome. During the denouement we are told that there are occasional words and phrases which identify who wrote the stories, but these textual clues are pretty slight.
Good characterisation can often save a book whose plotting is less than ideal, but unfortunately this was not to be the case here. There was no character to particularly like or root for. They’re all unpleasant and irritating in their own ways and to be honest I can’t see how they ever became and stayed friends. It didn’t help that the novel is littered with incredibly dull sensory details, which only serve to pad out the scenes. When a writer adds a lot of sensory information or provides intricate details about a physical activity, I often wonder why I am being told all of this. Sometimes there is a good reason, but I can’t find one for why in this story we get a blow-by-blow account in microscopic detail of one character removing an ingrown hair with tweezers from their thigh. Why do I need to know this? This is a long-ish book, nearly 400 pages, so you need dialogue which keeps you motivated to read on. What the reader does not need is painfully boring conversations between characters such as when two people (who are having an affair) discuss the comparative disadvantages of alternative travel arrangements to Anatol’s house. And no this was not tedium used for comedy purposes.
At no point did this story ever grab me, not even when the narrative hook mentioned in the blurb finally arrives on the page. Despite there being arguably dramatic events in this book, this story held no tension for me. In some ways the violence of the stories that the characters write, numb the reader’s ability to respond emotionally. Furthermore, because the characters were not ones I could engage with, I ended up not caring what happened to them. This impacted my response to the solution, which has some clever elements to it. Due to the stories written by the characters, the narrative contains a lot of fake drama, so when real drama occurs, it just felt flat to me.
It has been quite a while since I have rated a read so low, but upon reflection, I just can’t think of a reason to recommend this book.
Rating: 2.5/5