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paolos's review against another edition
4.0
Jonathan Coe ha un talento particolare e circolare nel ripercorrere generazioni e stagioni dell'esistenza. La sua scrittura costruisce immagini con una forza morbida e seduttiva, e lo stratagemma narrativo de La pioggia prima che cada si basa forse non a caso in venti istantanee (diciannove fotografie e un ritratto) attraverso le quali la protagonista ricostruisce la sua vita, affidando a un vecchio registratore su nastro le parole, i ricordi e le emozioni che ognuno di quei frammenti iconografici suscita in lei. Ma la volontà, anzi: l'ultima volontà di Rosamond non è autoreferenzialmente introspettiva, non soltanto almeno. Arrivata alla fine dei suoi giorni, vuole raccontarsi a Imogen, la sua nipote prediletta e della quale ha perso da tempo le tracce, per raccontare Imogen a Imogen stessa. E nel racconto, legarla finalmente, indissolubilmente, al suo amore. Man mano che scorrono nelle sue mani, prendono forma nella sua voce, quelle immagini però spiegano solo il senso che Rosamond attribuisce alla sua vita, oramai fissata e trascorsa, mentre le vite di Imogen, Thea, Beatrix, Rebecca e Ruth scorrevano fuori dalla sua cornice, indipendenti nell'inevitabilità del loro destino.
canadianbookworm's review against another edition
5.0
This is a story of women, mostly those from one family.
Gill is middle-aged with grown daughters, Elizabeth and Catharine, when her Aunt Rosamund dies. Rosamund has left tapes giving her life history for Gill to give her cousin's granddaughter Imogen. Gill has trouble finding Rosamund, so she and her daughters listen to the tapes. The story on the tapes makes up the majority of the book.
Rosamund's story begins with her evacuation to the country during WWII to stay with her mother's sisters family. She meets and becomes close to her cousin, Beatrix. So this story tells of what happens to Beatrix, her daughter Thea, and her granddaughter Imogen. Coe brings the story alive for us by including Rosamund's commentary and emotional reactions to the story she tells.
I loved this book and the characters portrayed. I will definitely be looking for more books by Coe.
Gill is middle-aged with grown daughters, Elizabeth and Catharine, when her Aunt Rosamund dies. Rosamund has left tapes giving her life history for Gill to give her cousin's granddaughter Imogen. Gill has trouble finding Rosamund, so she and her daughters listen to the tapes. The story on the tapes makes up the majority of the book.
Rosamund's story begins with her evacuation to the country during WWII to stay with her mother's sisters family. She meets and becomes close to her cousin, Beatrix. So this story tells of what happens to Beatrix, her daughter Thea, and her granddaughter Imogen. Coe brings the story alive for us by including Rosamund's commentary and emotional reactions to the story she tells.
I loved this book and the characters portrayed. I will definitely be looking for more books by Coe.
spygrl1's review against another edition
3.0
I love Coe's The House of Sleep -- he's the architect of the most riotously funny footnote gag ever. Rain is not as baroquely weird as Sleep -- In fact, I'd put it in the same category with Penelope Lively and Carol Shields. Through the tapes bequeathed to a mysterious Imogen by his elderly narrator Rosamund, Coe lays bare the complex relationships of several generations of women.
Rosamund has chosen 20 photographs to describe to Imogen in order to explain the tangled history that began during the Blitz. Rosamund describes her girlhood friendship with her cousin Beatrix; Beatrix's disastrous early marriage and neglect of her eldest daughter, Thea; the happy interlude when Rosamund and her lover Rebecca care for young Thea; and Thea's unhappy youth and the tragic way in which she follows in her mother's footsteps.
Rosamund has chosen 20 photographs to describe to Imogen in order to explain the tangled history that began during the Blitz. Rosamund describes her girlhood friendship with her cousin Beatrix; Beatrix's disastrous early marriage and neglect of her eldest daughter, Thea; the happy interlude when Rosamund and her lover Rebecca care for young Thea; and Thea's unhappy youth and the tragic way in which she follows in her mother's footsteps.
penny_literaryhoarders's review against another edition
5.0
This was wonderful! It was so sad but it was so beautiful at the same time.
glyptodonsneeze's review against another edition
3.0
Conversation with my lesbian friend:
Me: "I'm reading a book about a lesbian but it's boring."
Her: "Was it written by a man?"
Me: "Yup."
Jonathan Coe's The Rotters' Club was brilliant and I was excited to read another one of his, but I'm wondering if he pulled off a stunning novel that defines an era because it rests in his lived experience; but The Rain Before It Falls, with its female protagonists, falls flat because Coe can't imagine that being a lesbian, or a woman, is all that interesting. The women in Rotters' Club (girl that the main kid has a crush on, her sister, his sister, the mom) are all portrayed in relation to the novel's men. So is The Rain Before It Falls boring because Coe thinks women are boring? Soft? That their lives are an expression of their relationships to others and banal, undefined feelings, and a sort of existential yearning that can only be fixed with penises? Maybe he does women better in other books. I don't know. I'll probably find out later, but I'm reading about the fur trade next.
Gill's aunt Rosamond dies and leaves four cassette tapes and clear instructions that they be given to a person named Imogen that Gill met once at a family party in the '80s. Unable to find Imogen, Gill listens to the tapes herself and hears the tragic story of three generations of Rosamond's aunt's (Gill's great aunt's) family and Imogen herself. My main problem with this book is with the narrative device. The most erudite person in the world doesn't talk into a tape recorder this way. Rosamond would make it clear that she was describing a photograph into a microphone and begin speaking in the voice of a novel written in the third person, Jonathan Coe. Had there been a line, "Imogen, I wrote this history of your family and am reading it into a tape recorder because you're blind," or if Rosamond just spoke extemporaneously like a person talking into a tape recorder, this book would have been much more plausible. Beyond that, Rosamond's story is reasonably sad, her cousin Beatrix's story is quite sad, her niece Thea's story is unbearably sad, and Imogen's story is tragic beyond all imagining, but the framing devices* temper the drama and make the story dry.
*Beatrix, Thea, and Imogen's story is mediated by Rosamond, who is mediating things through a narrow narrative device of describing photographs into a tape recorder, and all this is mediated by Gill, who's kind of boring.
Me: "I'm reading a book about a lesbian but it's boring."
Her: "Was it written by a man?"
Me: "Yup."
Jonathan Coe's The Rotters' Club was brilliant and I was excited to read another one of his, but I'm wondering if he pulled off a stunning novel that defines an era because it rests in his lived experience; but The Rain Before It Falls, with its female protagonists, falls flat because Coe can't imagine that being a lesbian, or a woman, is all that interesting. The women in Rotters' Club (girl that the main kid has a crush on, her sister, his sister, the mom) are all portrayed in relation to the novel's men. So is The Rain Before It Falls boring because Coe thinks women are boring? Soft? That their lives are an expression of their relationships to others and banal, undefined feelings, and a sort of existential yearning that can only be fixed with penises? Maybe he does women better in other books. I don't know. I'll probably find out later, but I'm reading about the fur trade next.
Gill's aunt Rosamond dies and leaves four cassette tapes and clear instructions that they be given to a person named Imogen that Gill met once at a family party in the '80s. Unable to find Imogen, Gill listens to the tapes herself and hears the tragic story of three generations of Rosamond's aunt's (Gill's great aunt's) family and Imogen herself. My main problem with this book is with the narrative device. The most erudite person in the world doesn't talk into a tape recorder this way. Rosamond would make it clear that she was describing a photograph into a microphone and begin speaking in the voice of a novel written in the third person, Jonathan Coe. Had there been a line, "Imogen, I wrote this history of your family and am reading it into a tape recorder because you're blind," or if Rosamond just spoke extemporaneously like a person talking into a tape recorder, this book would have been much more plausible. Beyond that, Rosamond's story is reasonably sad, her cousin Beatrix's story is quite sad, her niece Thea's story is unbearably sad, and Imogen's story is tragic beyond all imagining, but the framing devices* temper the drama and make the story dry.
*Beatrix, Thea, and Imogen's story is mediated by Rosamond, who is mediating things through a narrow narrative device of describing photographs into a tape recorder, and all this is mediated by Gill, who's kind of boring.
ratherhazy's review against another edition
3.0
I didn't quite manage to read the whole book. At some point with books I end up speed reading the end because I am getting bored with the story. I think with this book I got so disappointed that something had happened, I didn't want to read on but I wanted to know what happened in the end. I think that is what I have done with a few of Jonathan Coe's books. It wouldn't stop me reading another of his.
motsinsatiables's review against another edition
3.0
3,5/5 the story is mindblowing, I just had troubles with the narrative choice.
suebarsby's review against another edition
4.0
different in style to his others I've read. Engaging & I liked the main characters but I would have liked to know more about the modern protagonists. I also thought it ended too abruptly - I would have preferred a face to face denouement.
alarra's review against another edition
3.0
This was a good read, a good rumination on family and the ties between mothers and daughters, the patterns that repeat themselves in family history. Coe's writing is as elegant as ever. I think the ending was both expected and yet rather saddening though, and that made it a bit of a downer.
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