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3.91 AVERAGE
3.91 AVERAGE
Admired but not enjoyed, impressive but depressing, suceeded in its cleverness but failed to engage.
One of top 5 Booker winnder of the last 50 years. I enjoyed reading it, and there were some lovely touches of writing - such as telling the same interactions from 2 or 3 different people's perspectives. As an exercise in telling a story over the years with flashbacks it was everything that Vincent O'Sullivan's book wasn't. Crisp, sharp and insightful. Just not earth shattering enough for 5 stars.
I'm puzzled at how good this book is. The narrator is dying. She has lived a full life, and describes some of it. She is not particularly likeable, she has been a poor mother and a challenging individual to friends and family, but for a very brief period during the second world war she is in love, and it is requited. And the reader understands and forgives her the rest.
emotional
reflective
sad
challenging
funny
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
What a beautiful, simply but elegantly written book! If I had only read the description, I probably wouldn't have chosen to read it. However on the Guardian Books podcast, a panel were discussing the 50 year best Booker. Although they all liked Ondaatje's English Patient the majority said they would have picked this 1987 Booker winner. That peaked my interest for a book group and I was so pleasantly surprised by the emotional lightness and the writing methods used to show " history" from different narrator perspectives. All this without " hitting you over the head" with technique. A very skilful writer who has written award winning children's books! A great way to hone simply but elegant writing styles.
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
challenging
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced
“When the times are out of joint it is brought uncomfortably home to you that history is true and that unfortunately you are a part of it. One has this tendency to think oneself immune. (124).”
In an hospice, a freelance journalist and popular history writer Claudia falls in and out of consciousness as she relives the history of her life from childhood to old age in non-chronological order, negotiating the way our personal lives and the larger scale of history intertwine. The narrative mixes fictional biography and historical fiction focused on World War II (although occasionally bringing in other areas of history) with literary seriousness. As Claudia recounts her life, the novel focuses on her most important relationships—the ones that made her who she is—such as with her argumentative and successful brother Gordon who is her mirror image and at one point she engages in an incestuous relationship, her brief relationship during World War II with a soldier named Tom and the ramification of the tragedy the war has for their lives, her on-again-off-again relationship with the controlling and greedy Jasper who is the father of her child, alongside her pale ordinary daughter Lisa, the emotionally-erratic survivor of the purge of Hungary by the Soviets named Laszlo who she acts as a surrogate mother, and her timid sister-in-law Sylvia.
The novel confronts the myth of individuality that we are separate from history and historical processes.
It’s something that happened to other people in the past or only important leaders like modern politicians, but then a huge event—like World War II in this case—forces us to confront the fact that we are part of big moments of history.
Claudia insists her personal biographical story is inevitably influenced by with historical events that occurred to her, but also that are part of far away lands and events. At first, the larger-than-life beautiful, intelligent, and clever Claudia comes as grating, being a bit too satisfied with herself and her narcissistic self-importance, but as the reader encounters her life story we come to understand her better. The reader sees firsthand how history shapes the person she becomes, but also how she tries to craft her own personal history. It suggests a tension between the individual and the larger societal forces constantly at play. She is a big personality that desires independence and to showcase her talents, while being restricted by social norms for women, often arguing with the men in her life such as her brother Gordon and her lover Jasper, but also pushing back on their attempt to control and dominate her, which gives the book a strong feminist overtone. At the same time, the book hints history and relationships looks different depending on what perspective you view it. As we see when Gordon is dying and Claudia purposefully picks a fight because she knows that is what he wants, their fighting is a way of expressing their intimacy.
“History is disorder, I wanted to scream at them – death and muddle and waste. And here you sit cashing in on it and making patterns in the sand (178).”
She is critical of those trying to control history and make it orderly and cash in on the tragedy and spectacle of it. For her history is personal and in reality is chaotic, which is why she tells her own biographical story without a set chronology jumping back-and-forth in time.
If our personal lives are intertwined with history, then at the same time history goes on without us. The world and people’s lives continue after we die and we become a small moment of history that might affect someone else’s life in a roundabout way. In essence, it is the story of how Claudia’s life goes on after the tragic death of her true love in World War II, but also her coming to terms with the egocentric impulse that others lives such as her daughter will go on when she is gone, and even that she won’t be able to control her own story anymore.
As Gordon states Claudia two days before he dies while reading a newspaper article:
“‘One resents being axed from the narrative, apart from anything else. I’d have liked to know the outcome.’ (211).”
emotional
funny
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated