Alright, I admit it: I was wrong. At the end of 2020, having read just around a quarter of The Go-Between, I wrote:

Well, I persevered, and at around the halfway mark it started to become interesting. The (somewhat subjective) evidence for this was to be found in my attitude. Rather than thinking, “How many pages to go?”, I began thinking, “OMG, what’s going to happen next?”.

I also started to ponder: why the obsession throughout the book with belladonna? I wondered aloud in the discussion group whether this was a deliberate and subtle ploy by the author. The protagonist is in love, or infatuated, with a beautiful woman who, in many respects, is using him. I recalled that in The Devil’s Dictionary, by Ambrose Bierce, belladonna is defined as something along the lines of “In English, a poisonous plant, in Italian, a beautiful woman, thereby demonstrating the similarity between the two languages.”

Through discussion in the group I began to discern the many layers in the prose, and so to appreciate it more. One of these days I shall read it again. Who knows, I might even enjoy the first half too next time!