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angie_ranck's review
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
informative
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
oldpondnewfrog's review
5.0
Richard Hughes knows how to write just for me.
Incandescent, romantic, incredible imagination. He lives in such a child's-world, of deadpan strangeness and vividness and emotional intensity. I love when his twins try together each to lift one end of connecting dachshund. I love the early scenes in Prohibition-era New England with the forest children, and I love Augustine in Morocco later, made even better by the great rich-kid juxtaposition of his own adventures there against the life back home of the Welsh miners he idolizes.
I didn't write down some of the best bits because I want to come back to them fresh later. Plus I admire it when writing, like a bit of shell, is drained of its vivid color when removed from its context, so I want to leave the best shells where they are.
"Then had come slaves with glowing earthenware braziers poised on their heads, and incense thrown on the white-hot charcoal filled the room with blue aromatic smoke. The jittery Ali must have been badly in need of warmth, for he squatted on top of one of the braziers tucking it under his skirts as a personal central-heating system, and groaned with pleasure as tiny smoke-wisps of incense came curling out at his neck."
"No wonder Augustine was torn two ways, for imagine Joan in a Newton whose mistress he once had expected Mitzi to be: with the ghost of Mitzi blindly feeling its way room-by-room to wherever they were—creeping between them in bed..."
On the other hand it is fairly wandering, loose, unwieldy overall. Hard to figure out the shape of the elephant.
Incandescent, romantic, incredible imagination. He lives in such a child's-world, of deadpan strangeness and vividness and emotional intensity. I love when his twins try together each to lift one end of connecting dachshund. I love the early scenes in Prohibition-era New England with the forest children, and I love Augustine in Morocco later, made even better by the great rich-kid juxtaposition of his own adventures there against the life back home of the Welsh miners he idolizes.
I didn't write down some of the best bits because I want to come back to them fresh later. Plus I admire it when writing, like a bit of shell, is drained of its vivid color when removed from its context, so I want to leave the best shells where they are.
"Then had come slaves with glowing earthenware braziers poised on their heads, and incense thrown on the white-hot charcoal filled the room with blue aromatic smoke. The jittery Ali must have been badly in need of warmth, for he squatted on top of one of the braziers tucking it under his skirts as a personal central-heating system, and groaned with pleasure as tiny smoke-wisps of incense came curling out at his neck."
"No wonder Augustine was torn two ways, for imagine Joan in a Newton whose mistress he once had expected Mitzi to be: with the ghost of Mitzi blindly feeling its way room-by-room to wherever they were—creeping between them in bed..."
On the other hand it is fairly wandering, loose, unwieldy overall. Hard to figure out the shape of the elephant.
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