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A review by kaz14
Light Perpetual by Francis Spufford
2.0
2021 Booker Prize longlisted book. Such mixed feelings about this book. The author's note explains how he walks past a plaque dedicated to those who died on the site when a V2 bomb exploded on a Woolworths store in London, and how that event inspired this novel which pays tribute to those lost. Spufford takes five children from the many people who lost their lives in this event and invents a future for each inviting the reader to check in with them, more or less seperately, at periods of 5-15 years.
The opening chapters were interesting and I admired the experimental nature of the writing and how it captured the moment of the bomb, its trajectory and its impact, but it was all down hill from there for me. I had no connection with these five characters, who individually and collectively lead ordinary, difficult, or verging on criminal lives. These could have been any five people off the street who had their lives explored in snippets across decades and perhaps that was the point, that these children, had they survived would have led ordinary live, but they were lives not connected to the events of the war so purposely described, there is no sliding doors moment here. I read on thinking this will go somewhere. What I did get was an interesting picture of the changes in British/London society across the second half of the twentieth century. This was a miss for me but I give credit for the first chapters and for the writing, which was not bad, it was the slow, almost pointless plot, and the missed opportunity, at least from the blurb, which I struggled with.
The opening chapters were interesting and I admired the experimental nature of the writing and how it captured the moment of the bomb, its trajectory and its impact, but it was all down hill from there for me. I had no connection with these five characters, who individually and collectively lead ordinary, difficult, or verging on criminal lives. These could have been any five people off the street who had their lives explored in snippets across decades and perhaps that was the point, that these children, had they survived would have led ordinary live, but they were lives not connected to the events of the war so purposely described, there is no sliding doors moment here. I read on thinking this will go somewhere. What I did get was an interesting picture of the changes in British/London society across the second half of the twentieth century. This was a miss for me but I give credit for the first chapters and for the writing, which was not bad, it was the slow, almost pointless plot, and the missed opportunity, at least from the blurb, which I struggled with.