Haven't We Met Before?

Haven't We Met Before?:

'via Blog this'':Flawed, But Definitely Worthwhile - A No B.S. Review, August 13, 2012
By William E. Webb "digitalzen"
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This review Is from: Haven't We Met Before? A Trilogy Of Love (Kindle Edition)


I put off reading "Haven't We Met Before? A Trilogy Of Love" for a year, so that I could sit
down with it and read it all at once, rather than in pieces as I am prone to do with novels.
Let me say at the outset that Austin Bassett is a close personal friend. As such, we do not
b.s, each other, and I'm not going to b.s. you. This book has its flaws, but it is still well
worth reading. Here's why.

Customer Review

Austin has an unusual way of looking at the world and the hereafter. As an agnostic and
hard-nosed skeptic I'm unable to judge its accuracy or pertinence, but I know it has brought
him much peace, and that if I were looking for a philosophy of that sort I would certainly
tend toward something similar. "Haven't We Met Before" is a subtle (OK, sometimes not so
subtle) exposition of those beliefs, but it is much more. For one thing, it is a tour de force of language. When writing about the Victorian Era, Austin writes authentic Victorian prose. As a great Tennyson fan, along with having recently reread "Middlemarch", I was surprised at how well the language of the first book in the Trilogy matched the era. The style creeps over, pleasantly, into the second and third books as well.

The author grew up in Southampton, and his locations exhibit that familiarity. I have never visited "the county," but I feel sure I would recognize it if suddenly transported there.Likewise, having lived through the blitz and much of the aftermath himself, he brings an immediacy to that period born of painful experience. A barber by trade, Austin made dozens of Atlantic crossings as crew on the Queen Mary, before starting his own shop on Fifth Avenue. His familiarity with the New York of the mid-20th Century comes through in the

portions that are set there, and his seagoing experience, along with an attendant interest in
the sea, makes his shipboard scenes perhaps the best in the book. .
Other aspects of Austin's life thread throughout the book, perhaps visible to only a few of his
closest friends. However, it is by no means an autobiography nor memoir. It is strictly
fiction, a work of love that sat in his head for decades before he had the leisure to put it to
paper.
Now the cons. The book is too long, primarily due to the long conversations. The author
pounds his subjects into submission, preferring to make absolutely certain that we "get it,"
rather than giving us subtle clues. Much of this is due to nonexistent editing, and the rest to
an obvious desire to exposit things that are important to him. A writer myself, I know how
difficult it is to self-edit, especially long pieces, and the publisher did not cooperate. Because
of that, there are also errata in punctuation and (rarely) syntax. Furthermore, I read the
Kindle edition because it was more convenient to my rather mobile lifestyle, and the
transposition to eBook did not go well. Some of the problems were obviously due to the
automated formatting. In any case, one becomes absorbed in the story and fails to notice
them after a bit.

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Perhaps the best overall statement that I can make is that I will read "Haven't We Met
Before" again. Of thousands of books consumed over a long life, I can only say that of
perhaps a hundred or less. The book, while flawed, is an extremely worthwhile experience.
If you are wondering why I have not dealt with plot and character, it's because other
reviewers have already done so, and this is too long already. (Self-editing, don'cha know.) I
will only say that you hate the right cads, love the right heros -- flawed though they are --
and can't make up your mind about enough of the others to keep things interesting. I felt
close to, but not intimate with the characters -- another consequence of the book's Victorian
tenor that i personally found enjoyable.