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A review by oldpondnewfrog
The Patrick Melrose Novels by Edward St Aubyn
3.0
It's cynical literary fiction about wealthy British people in the last half of the 20th century—which I wouldn't normally enjoy, and in fact I didn't enjoy the first two books, but kept reading on the recommendation of a friend. And the third and fourth books were redemptive, perhaps partly because of the unrelenting unhappiness of the first two. Catharsis: When Patrick finally admits his child abuse, exhausted by hatred. When at the end of the third book he leaves the party and walks in his dress shoes over the snow toward a lake and sees swans launch, circle, and land again.
In the first book Patrick is five, second book he's twenty, third book he's about thirty, fourth book he's maybe forty. Kind of like Richard Linklater movies.
Very good prose style, maybe a little too finely crafted sometimes:
"What could he do but accept the disturbing extent to which memory was fictional and hope that the fiction lay at the service of a truth less richly represented by the original facts?"
That's well written, but a little too formal. I think I would like that sentence more in Jane Austen than in a modern writer. But I had a lot of page corners turned down anyway, and at other times the writing is nice and simple and effective:
"They walked back and forth, pouring sea water into the sand until Thomas fell asleep in his mother's arms."
In the first book Patrick is five, second book he's twenty, third book he's about thirty, fourth book he's maybe forty. Kind of like Richard Linklater movies.
Very good prose style, maybe a little too finely crafted sometimes:
"What could he do but accept the disturbing extent to which memory was fictional and hope that the fiction lay at the service of a truth less richly represented by the original facts?"
That's well written, but a little too formal. I think I would like that sentence more in Jane Austen than in a modern writer. But I had a lot of page corners turned down anyway, and at other times the writing is nice and simple and effective:
"They walked back and forth, pouring sea water into the sand until Thomas fell asleep in his mother's arms."