BellaOnline Forums Travel and Culture English Culture The 199 Steps

I'm opening this thread for our discussion on The Hundred and Ninety-Nine Steps. I hope to get a start on it tomorrow.

Happy reading!

Hi Karyn, I'll check in tomorrow then. I have read about half the book so will get busy on the other half. It's a very good book and not something I'd usually read so it's been great.

Joan

I'm only into the first pages, but I will say that I love seeing the English terms for things!

Well, I finished. It only took about 2 hours to read. At least it had a concrete ending, unlike The Crimson Petal and the White, which is his other book that I read.

I thought it was a bit graphic, but overall, I really enjoyed the story. I won't really go into detail about it though, because I don't want to spoil it for anyone. I'll wait until you have all read it.

I want your thoughts on this book being a "meditation on the nature of sincerity." I thought that was an intriguing description of the book prior to reading it, but I really have to think about what that means.

I'm still reading. I'm going to be out of town this weekend and not sure how much computer time I'll get at the hotel but I'll try. Good question to contemplate while finishing the book tho.

Joan

I finished it the other night. I'm not sure what to make of the "nature of sincerity." I may go back through and read it again.

HI All,

I only have a couple minutes as we are traveling. Will be back to my schedule tomorrow tho and can write about the book. I've nearly finished it. So far I'm not sure about the "nature of sincerity" either.

I do like the historical side as I love history. Her processes of restoring the document and finding out the 200 year old mystery are well done! Shows how slow and tedious some of that is but exciting when you unravel a mystery.

Joan

Joan> Well, it is exciting at first...the mystery, I mean. I think it falls rather flat at the end. Not sure if you're at that point yet. But I was kind of let down.

TBunny> What did you think? Were you surprised by the findings of the letter at the end?

I finished the book this weekend and returned from a trip out of town. I think the mystery had to end as it did to show Siam that she was the one who was right about the true nature of people and having faith in people. She was really thrown for a loop when it seemed Marcus was right in his cynicism.

Another thing that kept me reading too tho was to see if she really was dying of cancer. I personally don't have sympathy with the "I don't want to know" approach as I used to work in the operating room and saw too many people who let their curable cancers kill them that way.

All in all I'm not sure she was a very sympathetic character, I guess in that I couldn't identify with her. Sometimes I have trouble with the way men write about women. In fact I rarely read books written by men unless they are non-fiction. I just think men write about how they THINK women are. I know there are people who handle their life the way Siam did but I'm not sure she's someone you'd call a heroine.

Any thoughts?

I was glad she ended up with the one she ended up with tho! I think she got the best of that deal. Don't want to ruin it for anyone who isn't finished.

Joan

The end of the letter didn't entirely surprise me; I sort of had it figured out. Even so, I did enjoy the mystery aspect of it.

I also loved the imagery, though I think it had less to do with the description of the town/sea than my memory of it. As I pictured her standing on the end of the pier, I remembered thinking how rickety it looked and that I *didn't* walk out to the end. I remember hiking up the 199 steps, seeing the graveyard and church, looking over the wall toward the abbey... I don't know if those things came across as well to someone who hadn't been there.

I guess overall I found the characters a little flat. We got a glimpse into Sian's character, but not enough to really round her out, and we got even less on Mack. I do remember having the same thought as Joan regarding a MAN writing about being a woman.