It was hard for me to feel that Eleanor's character was real. The pace was slow and the directions unsurprising. Things were larger than life. Still though, I found it enjoyable to live in her fantastical world, even when it was a crushing lie for the character.
Listen to this prose:
"Mummy said that we were empresses, sultanas (india) and maharanis (arabia) in our own home, and that it was our duty to live a life of sybaritic pleasure and indulgence. Every meal should be an epicurean feast for the senses, she said, and one should go hungry rather than sully one's palate with anything less than exquisite morsels. She told me how she'd eaten chili-fried tofu in the night markets of Kowloon, and that the best sushi outside of Japan could be found in São Paulo. The most delicious meal of her life, she said, had been chargrilled octopus, which she'd eaten at sunset in an unassuming harbor taverna one late summer evening on Naxos. She'd watched a fisherman land it that morning, and then sipped ouzo all afternoon while the kitchen staff battered it again and again against the harbor wall to tenderize its pale, suckered flesh. I must ask her what the food is like where she is now. I suspect that Lapsang souchong and langues de chat biscuits are in short supply."
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