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thecatwhowalksbyhimself's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
4.75
mm676's review against another edition
3.0
Really enjoyed this right up until the very end and then I felt like it took to many turns. If the various plot lines all joined up it would've been satisfying. But they didn't! I felt cheated. And I really enjoy Kate Atkinson's books.
bushbabyninja's review against another edition
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
laurensands's review against another edition
This book was so wild I don't even know what to rate it. Slow at the beginning but became more enjoyable in the last half or third.
jemmacm's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
naiapard's review against another edition
5.0
Această carte a fost ca o pală din vântul de Vest, un amalgam de timp, o dezorientare, fantastic veritabil, nodul din Alexandria, putere divină, însăși înfățișarea omniscienței.
Praful din Arden nu este de fapt praf, ci talcul răposaților un compus fragil ce așteaptă să fie reconstituit.În primele o sută cincizeci de pagini am trăit cu permanența impresie că ceva ficțional se va întâmpla: exemplu, ,,Eliza locuiește în pădure, Isobel este o zână sau ielă, Charlie un pitic..."; după care am primit una după alta, loviturile: cele trei perspective diferite de Crăciun, persoanele Elizei, povestea Doamnei în Verde, poveștile tuturor.
Nimic nu poate ieși din nimic, doar dacă nu este începutul lumii. (p.11)Am depins sentimentul centralizării: ,,ce mică e lumea". Oameni care nu se cunoșteau înainte erau, de fapt, rude (Malcom și Isobel), oameni care se credeau rude nu erau (Doamna de Braville și fiica ei Esme) și toți se întâlneau la un moment dat, ca mai apoi să fie din nou dezbinați.
La început a fost cuvântul, dar la sfârșit este numai tăcere.Numărul incesturilor și abordarea acestora este șocantă. (Cel puțin pentru cineva care nu este obișnuită cu subiectul unei fetițe de douăsprezece ani care să fie maltratată de tatăl ei.)
booksaremysuperpower's review against another edition
3.0
Anyone who knows me at all, or has at least read my past reviews, knows that I love Kate Atkinson with a passion. I love her writing style, her voice, her imagination, her humor, and for the most part, I love almost all of her novels that I've read thus far. Each of her novels are a rich and cleverly crafted piece of heaven, and she writes the types of books I only dream I was capable enough as a writer to write.
This being said, "Human Croquet" is probably her most difficult work to sink your teeth into. I attempted to read this book about 4 or 5 years ago and gave it a pass. Determined to expand my Kate Atkinson collection for my 2013 Reading Challenge, I gave "Human Croquet" a second go. And I'm ultimately glad I did. This is a novel for carnivores. It's chewy, meaty, juicy, and at times you have to gnaw through a piece of gristle to get to the succulent bits. The story doesn't really reach its zenith until well into the second half of the story. For much of the first half, I'm puzzled and a bit overwhelmed by the wild turns in the story: "What exactly is going on here?". The main character finds herself time-traveling back to the early 20th Century and to Shakespeare's day for brief moments, she apparently has a double that other people see wandering about town while she, Isobel herself, knows for a fact she was firmly ensconced in school, and she even turns into a tree for a few hours while trying to escape some lusty fellow teenagers. The story also zips back and forth between past and present examining the torturous relationship between her mother and father ending in a murder mystery.
It's easy to say that the story and writing (in the beginning, at least) is all over the place. We are introduced to several characters- members of Isobel's family- ranging from early ancestors from the 1500s and beyond. The main problem with the first half of the book is that none of these characters, including Isobel, are in any way very likable, except perhaps her brother Charles who is valiantly trying to discover the truth behind his mother's disappearance, although even he can be described as sullen and sulky. In fact, sullen, sulky, and dispassionate seem to be the terms du jour for describing Isobel and her family, and for a while you are left wondering why you should bother caring about any of them. I took issue with a similarly inventive story, "Flight Behavior" by Barbara Kingsolver, and remarked in my review of that book that one of my primary reasons for disliking it so much was that the heroine was such a pill. I realize that I'm not always going to be sympathetic and compassionate with every hero and heroine in literature, but I also do not want to invest my time and energy reading about someone who is truly distasteful and doesn't move a story forward.
But what I have to remember with every novel by Kate Atkinson is that it pays to have patience. She always manages to tie all the loose threads together in such a clever and unique way that I'm left feeling spellbound by her power with story and words. The same is true of "Human Croquet". We eventually learn the truth behind Isobel's mysterious travels through time, her mother's story and untimely end, and even a few side mysteries are solved. And we eventually discover that Isobel is, indeed, a likable and touching human being. What I ended up loving the most about "Human Croquet" is how inventive the story truly is and that Atkinson is such a master with wordplay and humor. She likens the human experience to nature- we are all trees rooted in the earth that continue to grow and sprout leaves that continuously ebb and flow, change color and die, with the cycle of time and seasons. She includes several references to Shakespeare and sometimes the story itself feels like its own Shakespearean comedy and tragedy. Some references are obvious- Fairfax Manor is actually referred to as "Arden", which is the forest in "As You Like It", a play dealing with duality, innocence and shame, and freedom, also themes from the novel- and others are more subtle. "Macbeth", "All's Well that Ends Well", "Midsummer Night's Dream", "Twelfth Night","The Tempest"- all of these plays have themes and plot devices that are also present in the novel.
At first I wasn't sure what Shakespeare really had to do with anything going on in Isobel's life, but the more I thought about it, it became clear why he is such an omnipresent figure in the book. Shakespeare and his works always withstand the test of time. His themes and writing are as relevant today as they were 500 years ago, which I believe is the ultimate point Atkinson is trying to make with her novel: the past, present, and future are almost always destined to repeat themselves. We are rooted in history, yet blindly wandering through life and pushed around by the circumstances surrounding us (this also vaguely and hastily describes the meaning of the title, Human Croquet, which is also a weird party game involving blindfolded people as the balls and two people joining hands to form the hoops).
After a shaky start, I definitely found myself glued to the page, desperately anxious to discover what happens next. As always, I'm entranced by Atkinson's use of humor in the book. Here are a few selections that best describe her style of writing and dry wit:
"This is ridiculous. There should be some rule about time warps (no more than one per chapter, for instance) and surely you should at least be able to tell what bit of the space-time continuum you're in".
"Debbie has moved on to trying to control the pantry, reorganizing everything into alphabetical order. She's got as far as the jam...After every couple of jars she has to go over to the kitchen sink and wash her hands like some strangely domesticated Lady Macbeth. 'I thought the baby would make everything all right', he mutters (I don't think that's how babies work), 'but it's just made it worse'...He carries the baby upstairs and the next time I see it is through the half-open door of the second-best bedroom where it's sleeping peacefully with the Dog lying guard by its cot. (The Dog is very subdued since it time-travelled.) We really should take it back to where it came from, or at least return it to the baby shop and explain it's been sent to us by mistake".
"I haul it [the baby] all the way up to my room and feed it lying on my bed while attempting a critical analysis on one of Shakespeare's sonnets. I don't suppose this is how he imagined his readers. If he imagined them at all."
"I head down to the living-room again. Out in the hall, a big grandfather clock strikes the half-hour- half-past eleven- where has all the time gone? (Where does it go? Is there some great time sump at the bottom of the world?) My sojourn as a silver birch must have disposed of hours of it...In the hallway someone's being sick, and Dorothy, also ravaged by drink by now but still immensely practical, gets the vacuum cleaner out and starts hoovering up the vomit. I debate with myself whether I should tell her what a bad idea this is but decide to keep my meagre housekeeping tips to myself".
A single chapter page is titled "PRESENT" and the following page only has one word,"MAYBE"
"Colder and colder. one day, the last bird sings its feeble farewell and drops like a stone. On another day the final leaf falls and no more buds come. In the beginning was the word, but at the end there is only silence. I am the storyteller at the end of time. I know how it ends. It ends like this".
While not my most favorite of Kate Atkinson's novels (that honor belongs to "Behind the Scenes at the Museum"), "Human Croquet" is still a worthy piece of fiction. If you are unfamiliar with the author then perhaps "Human Croquet" isn't the best place to start, but for anyone who is dying to read ANYTHING that is out of the ordinary and gives you much food for thought, please read this book!
This being said, "Human Croquet" is probably her most difficult work to sink your teeth into. I attempted to read this book about 4 or 5 years ago and gave it a pass. Determined to expand my Kate Atkinson collection for my 2013 Reading Challenge, I gave "Human Croquet" a second go. And I'm ultimately glad I did. This is a novel for carnivores. It's chewy, meaty, juicy, and at times you have to gnaw through a piece of gristle to get to the succulent bits. The story doesn't really reach its zenith until well into the second half of the story. For much of the first half, I'm puzzled and a bit overwhelmed by the wild turns in the story: "What exactly is going on here?". The main character finds herself time-traveling back to the early 20th Century and to Shakespeare's day for brief moments, she apparently has a double that other people see wandering about town while she, Isobel herself, knows for a fact she was firmly ensconced in school, and she even turns into a tree for a few hours while trying to escape some lusty fellow teenagers. The story also zips back and forth between past and present examining the torturous relationship between her mother and father ending in a murder mystery.
It's easy to say that the story and writing (in the beginning, at least) is all over the place. We are introduced to several characters- members of Isobel's family- ranging from early ancestors from the 1500s and beyond. The main problem with the first half of the book is that none of these characters, including Isobel, are in any way very likable, except perhaps her brother Charles who is valiantly trying to discover the truth behind his mother's disappearance, although even he can be described as sullen and sulky. In fact, sullen, sulky, and dispassionate seem to be the terms du jour for describing Isobel and her family, and for a while you are left wondering why you should bother caring about any of them. I took issue with a similarly inventive story, "Flight Behavior" by Barbara Kingsolver, and remarked in my review of that book that one of my primary reasons for disliking it so much was that the heroine was such a pill. I realize that I'm not always going to be sympathetic and compassionate with every hero and heroine in literature, but I also do not want to invest my time and energy reading about someone who is truly distasteful and doesn't move a story forward.
But what I have to remember with every novel by Kate Atkinson is that it pays to have patience. She always manages to tie all the loose threads together in such a clever and unique way that I'm left feeling spellbound by her power with story and words. The same is true of "Human Croquet". We eventually learn the truth behind Isobel's mysterious travels through time, her mother's story and untimely end, and even a few side mysteries are solved. And we eventually discover that Isobel is, indeed, a likable and touching human being. What I ended up loving the most about "Human Croquet" is how inventive the story truly is and that Atkinson is such a master with wordplay and humor. She likens the human experience to nature- we are all trees rooted in the earth that continue to grow and sprout leaves that continuously ebb and flow, change color and die, with the cycle of time and seasons. She includes several references to Shakespeare and sometimes the story itself feels like its own Shakespearean comedy and tragedy. Some references are obvious- Fairfax Manor is actually referred to as "Arden", which is the forest in "As You Like It", a play dealing with duality, innocence and shame, and freedom, also themes from the novel- and others are more subtle. "Macbeth", "All's Well that Ends Well", "Midsummer Night's Dream", "Twelfth Night","The Tempest"- all of these plays have themes and plot devices that are also present in the novel.
At first I wasn't sure what Shakespeare really had to do with anything going on in Isobel's life, but the more I thought about it, it became clear why he is such an omnipresent figure in the book. Shakespeare and his works always withstand the test of time. His themes and writing are as relevant today as they were 500 years ago, which I believe is the ultimate point Atkinson is trying to make with her novel: the past, present, and future are almost always destined to repeat themselves. We are rooted in history, yet blindly wandering through life and pushed around by the circumstances surrounding us (this also vaguely and hastily describes the meaning of the title, Human Croquet, which is also a weird party game involving blindfolded people as the balls and two people joining hands to form the hoops).
After a shaky start, I definitely found myself glued to the page, desperately anxious to discover what happens next. As always, I'm entranced by Atkinson's use of humor in the book. Here are a few selections that best describe her style of writing and dry wit:
"This is ridiculous. There should be some rule about time warps (no more than one per chapter, for instance) and surely you should at least be able to tell what bit of the space-time continuum you're in".
"Debbie has moved on to trying to control the pantry, reorganizing everything into alphabetical order. She's got as far as the jam...After every couple of jars she has to go over to the kitchen sink and wash her hands like some strangely domesticated Lady Macbeth. 'I thought the baby would make everything all right', he mutters (I don't think that's how babies work), 'but it's just made it worse'...He carries the baby upstairs and the next time I see it is through the half-open door of the second-best bedroom where it's sleeping peacefully with the Dog lying guard by its cot. (The Dog is very subdued since it time-travelled.) We really should take it back to where it came from, or at least return it to the baby shop and explain it's been sent to us by mistake".
"I haul it [the baby] all the way up to my room and feed it lying on my bed while attempting a critical analysis on one of Shakespeare's sonnets. I don't suppose this is how he imagined his readers. If he imagined them at all."
"I head down to the living-room again. Out in the hall, a big grandfather clock strikes the half-hour- half-past eleven- where has all the time gone? (Where does it go? Is there some great time sump at the bottom of the world?) My sojourn as a silver birch must have disposed of hours of it...In the hallway someone's being sick, and Dorothy, also ravaged by drink by now but still immensely practical, gets the vacuum cleaner out and starts hoovering up the vomit. I debate with myself whether I should tell her what a bad idea this is but decide to keep my meagre housekeeping tips to myself".
A single chapter page is titled "PRESENT" and the following page only has one word,"MAYBE"
"Colder and colder. one day, the last bird sings its feeble farewell and drops like a stone. On another day the final leaf falls and no more buds come. In the beginning was the word, but at the end there is only silence. I am the storyteller at the end of time. I know how it ends. It ends like this".
While not my most favorite of Kate Atkinson's novels (that honor belongs to "Behind the Scenes at the Museum"), "Human Croquet" is still a worthy piece of fiction. If you are unfamiliar with the author then perhaps "Human Croquet" isn't the best place to start, but for anyone who is dying to read ANYTHING that is out of the ordinary and gives you much food for thought, please read this book!
igemona's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
zoemaja's review against another edition
5.0
I think that it doesn't get any better than Kate Atkinson - she is a genius and I would read a grocery list written by her. I am enjoying the seeming randomness of the beginning because I know she will make it all connect beautifully before the book is done.
I loved it - it gets completely crazy in the best possible way!
library, kindle
I loved it - it gets completely crazy in the best possible way!
library, kindle
the_naked_reviewer's review against another edition
5.0
Kate Atkinson weaves in mystery and reality, science and religion into the same sentence. The story takes you through a thin veil or surrealism. It's a mystery unveiled in each chapter. A very witty, and at the same time, sensitive prose that captures your attention and does not let you be until you've finished the book.