I was really looking forward to reading this. Booker shortlisted, well reviewed, and one of those English middle classes on holiday in exotic places novels in which families and friends politely tear themselves and their lives apart. I must be missing something. The positive reviews talk about 'allusive, elliptical and disturbing storytelling', 'an epic quality', 'sharp as a wasp sting', 'an urgent world humming with symbols'. I thought the symbolism was clunky and too obvious, the prose awkward and strange, the characters poorly drawn and their behaviour implausible.