The Sisters Brothers: Spaghetti Western or Literary Fiction?

You know, I've never really understood the term, spaghetti western. Why spaghetti? Why not fettucine, alfredo, or perhaps a nice penne?

.....I think that may be a tangent I shouldn't follow right now, or I may never get off of it. 

Today's blog is about my experiences reading The Sisters Brothers, not my pasta preferences. So to this end, I shall sally forth and answer the burning questions. 

My initial feelings before reading this book, I think, were ones of mild interest. I remember seeing the book in Chapters months before and thought the title itself was catchy and that maybe it's worth taking a gander at. I'm fairly certain I read the back to find out what it was about, but I don't remember my reaction to that. It obviously didn't grab me enough to buy it, because I left the store empty-handed. I don't think it even really crossed my mind after that to be honest. 

Once it was assigned for class, I took another look at what it was all about, and my initial feelings were one of open-mindedness but not really much enthusiasm. It's not the typical book that I would pick up, but I have been surprised in the past in this same scenario, so I thought who knows, I might just find a new favourite.  So I tried to go in with a hopefully neutral attitude.

While I was reading, I think I maintained basically the same attitude. I wasn't particularly enthused or joyously overwhelmed by it, but neither was I underwhelmed or bored to tears by it. It was a slow paced book that actually turned out to be a fairly fast read. I think I finished the book in 2 or 3 days and that's because I really took my time reading it.  I think I found it was easy to put down and then pick back up again hours or even a day later, and just be able to continue on where I had left off. There was no backtracking to find out where I was, or what the main plot points were. So I enjoyed that much about the book.

I will say, one pet peeve I had with the book when I first started reading it was the way the book was written. The language seemed very formal and proper, but in my mind I read everything with a country twang, so it seemed a bit....hmm stilted? I'm not sure, but something about the writing style threw me off a bit, probably for the first 50 pages or so. Once I got more into the rhythm of it, I was able to ignore that and really get into the story, but I do remember finding it difficult to immerse myself in the story at first. 

I don't think my feelings really changed upon completing the book a whole lot. I definitely enjoyed it more towards the end than I did at the beginning, but it still didn't really inspire any sort of feelings in me. The most I felt was a sort of "aww nooooooo, Tub!!!!!" for the poor horse, but that was about it. I have to say, I liked the ending. I thought it felt resolved to a certain extent, but I think that's because I was never emotionally invested in the characters. And so, I didn't really care what happened next, nor was I interested. I felt the story was told, that was how that adventure ended, it's over now so end of story. 

If I were to describe this book in 1 sentence.....

(This may take a while)

....

Okay here, let's try this: This book is a leisurely, character driven pseudo-western  that explores questions of morality and mortality, brotherhood and self during the mid-19th century gold rush.

Maybe it could be a bit fleshier, but I'm afraid if I start in on it, it will simply run on. So I will keep it simple and say, that's all folks!