Finished another little -- well, I won't say "gem", but maybe an aquamarine, or an opal.
The House on the Edge of the Jungle is relatively short and has an interesting cover (yes, I judge library books that way, and it seldom fails me.) It's 206 pages.
This book is a study in foreboding. Foreshadowing. And yet it's not really dark at all. Several times on my way through it I found myself thinking "Did I read the cover blurb on this? Do I have any idea what is supposed to happen?"
The story is relatively simple (and believable, if you strain): two small children, born to English parents on Kuala Lumpur, are evacuated in great haste just before the Japanese invasion in World War II. Their parents disappear in the invasion. Now, as adults, the brother (who has closed himself off from interest in the past) is being sent to KL on a business trip, and invites his sister to go along.
The blurb calls it a dramatization of how the past has a hold on the present, but I think it's more than that - I think it shows how the missing past, or a part of the past we believe to be missing whether it is or not, can define not only who we are, but how we focus our lives. (This is getting a bit deep so I'll back out before anyone has to put on boots.)
It really isn't a major book, but it's interesting enough that, had I picked it up on a Saturday morning, I'd have finished it by Sunday night.
