The Fig Eater: A Novel (Paperback)

However, the way Shields evoked Vienna made me want to visit. She has a real talent for bringing a place to life even though most of her characters seem pretty wooden and aren't filled out enough.

It also made me want to read more about Freud's "Dora" which was a more interesting character then the sketched out murder victim in this novel.

I did enjoy the book.. I have always been fascinated by the turn of the century in Europe. The author really settles the reader into the Vienna of 1910: the sounds, music, food (espeicially the food), the people and their traits, the city itself. She even provides a map.

The book is a mysery, one that evolves in a very gradual, languorous manner. Two people are trying the discover the murderer, the Inspector and his Hungarian wife. He is very methodical, mindful, sifting through every bit of evidence using the latest thinking of the criminologists of his time. She is impulsive, imaginative, emotional and very much a believer in "signs" and in the folklore and divinations of her Hungarian culture.

This dual track of solving the crime I found fascinating.

The novel has an almost dreamy quality about it. The reader may feels her is floating on a drifting barge immersed in the life and time and beliefs of 1910 Vienna.

The book's evocation of atmosphere and characters interested me at least as much as the mystery. ( I usually don't try to figure out mystery.)

As for the ending, it is one of those that leaves the reader a little mystified. Something I like.

The Inspector likes to talk about his work at home and his Hungarian born wife, Erszebet, who is of Gypsy ancestry, loves to listen. In the case, of Dora, she does more than listen, however. Disagreeing with her husband's methods, Erszebet decides to find the killer herself. She's assisted by an enigmatic Englishwoman, for reasons that are just as enigmatic. As Erszebet goes in one direction in an attempt to solve Dora's murder, her husband goes in another, and it's anybody's guess as to who will find the killer first and how.

THE FIG EATER isn't a conventional mystery, which was fine with me because I really don't like mysteries; I bought this book because it takes place in Vienna, a city I visit often and love very much. And, it is extremely evocative of Vienna. I wasn't in 1910 Vienna, but Shields gives us so many details in THE FIG EATER that I really felt like I was. I think this wonderfully atmospheric setting, as well as the strong characterization of Erszebet are THE FIG EATER'S greatest strengths. Unfortunately, they are its only strengths.

Structurally, THE FIG EATER is a mess. If this is supposed to be a fictionalized account of Freud's patient, Dora, then Shields didn't provide enough authentic details, yet she peppered her book with far too much gratuitous gore-gore that didn't exist in the "real" case of Dora (and strangely, as far as this book is concerned, the facts surrounding the "real" Dora were far more interesting). Most of the time, the book trailed off into meaningless plot strands that were never developed or never resolved. There were far too many red herrings. I know a red herring isn't going to lead us to the truth, but it does lead somewhere, or at least it's supposed to. In THE FIG EATER, however, it doesn't. The red herrings in this book aren't there to tantalize or serve any other useful purpose; they just annoy the reader. Shields hasn't learned to control her narrative and because she hasn't her plot is scattered and, ultimately, meaningless and unfulfilling. And what about the fig? Why go to all the trouble?

I gave THE FIG EATER one star for its atmosphere and one for the characterization of Erszebet, but I can't recommend the book at all. It's a totally unsatisfying reading experience. I wouldn't even read another novel of Shields. She's lost my trust for good.