The Prestige - Christopher Priest

I saw this movie years ago, which I think actually contributed to my enjoyment of the book, because I'd MOSTLY forgotten the End Game but I remembered enough to be like, The horror!  (PS: The Revelation of Secrets in the film is way more EGADS and I heartily approve.  The book seems like weak soup in comparison.)

So.  A dude is duped into a meeting with a lady who wants to tell him a story about his past, in the hopes that it will illumine a GLORIOUS FEUD between their magician-ancestors, and this part is tedious.  The movie cuts it out for good reason, since it contributes nothing to the plot, and then also the writing is very bad.  There's this incredibly hackneyed chapter where Kate (the lady) recounts an event from her childhood (when she was, like, five), and her memory is excellent enough that she can not only recount bits verbatim but SPECULATE on what was discussed while she and her sister played upstairs, but then faulty enough that she forgets the content of an argument that she WITNESSED, all of which is a ham-handed way for Priest to control what his audience sees.

But the rest is all magician-journals and like such as, with two magicians FEUDING (again, why is that not more this:

)

and devising tricksier tricks and then sabotaging each other and swearing up and down NEVER TO FORGIVE and to AVENGE ALL WRONG-DOINGS and freaking Nicola Tesla gets involved (and if you haven't seen the Tesla episode of Drunk History then you are MISSING OUT.  'I am inventing electricity, and you look like an asshole.') and he makes science-magic, and even though the journals are very Ye Olde 1800s the writing manages to be WAAAAY BETTER and less hideously stilted.  Mysterious.

But then we are briefly back to the dude and the lady again and you should probably just watch the movie instead.  It has Hugh Jackman in it.

Six caterpillars.