brookworms - reviews (10)
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The
Promise of Happiness by Justin Cartright about the Judd family who
are reuniting for a family wedding in Cornwall, having not been all together
since one of the daughters was imprisoned for art theft in New York. This too
is a “Richard and Judy” book
I seemed to be the only Brookworm present who had positively enjoyed the book although a couple of others thought it “all right”. Most had found so many parts annoying that it had spoilt the book for them. Chief amongst the dislikes were the colloquial speech, the parents’ depressing marriage, the fact that everyone loved JuJu, Charlie’s doomed marriage, Daphne’s selfishness, the irritating prologue and the fact that everyone knew about the art theft. It was felt that in reality that would have been a small piece of news, not widely publicised. I must say, taking advantage of being the one producing the newsletter, that I felt that the characters were very believable, and I personally enjoyed JuJu’s journey of redemption! There was a query over incest – was there any? We weren’t sure.
Love
in Idleness by Charlotte Mendelson, about young Anna working in a
bookshop in London while trying to uncover her Aunt Stella’s hidden secrets
One Brookworm suggested a very succinct one word review, but suffice to say that it was possibly the worst book we have ever chosen. We thought Anna contradictory – in that she had a university degree, had moved to London and found a job, yet had no oomph, and was self obsessed and lazy – acting like a poorly educated adolescent. Her self absorption reminded us of Kate in “A Child’s Book of True Crime”.
Leonardo da Vinci: The Flights of the Mind by Charles Nicholl, a biography uncovering the real man beneath the genius.
Only one Brookworm at the meeting had finished this book! Many of us, including me, had been put off by the tiny print. Hilary felt that it fell between two stools, in that it was not a scholarly work, although plodding in places, nor did it appeal to the man in the street. She did enjoy finding out more about Leonardo da Vinci’s life and she recommends looking at the pictures! We felt that many of this book’s sales must be due to the “Da Vinci Code” phenomenon, but Dan Brown’s theories were not mentioned in this book.
Lighthousekeeping by
Jeanette Winterson is about 10 year old Silver who is taken in by a blind
lighthouse keeper when her mother dies. The story is interwoven with that of a
clergyman called Babel Dark who lived over 100 years ago.
Quoting from an interview with Ms Winterson, she says “The beams flashing out from the lighthouse are the stories themselves.” and “A beginning, a middle and an end is the proper way to tell a story, but I’m not much good at doing that.” She also admitted to a fascination with Robert Louis Stephenson, the only member of a family of lighthouse builders to break with tradition and become a writer, and said that her character Silver was named after Long John Silver, DogJim, after Jim Lad, and the lighthouse keeper after Blind Pew.
We found the surreal fairytale beginning more coherent than the second part of the book – which we felt merited a second reading. Many of us had reread parts, particularly to check the sex of Silver (female – though not many references) and her lover (we were divided). Light and dark were the main themes and we thought it no coincidence that Silver is a reflective material!. We were left with many images but not a cohesive story – but I think this is what the author intended. It was a quick read but sticks in the mind.
We
need to talk about Kevin by Lionel Shriver. This is a novel written
in letters from Kevin’s mother Eva, to her husband. She is trying to come to
grips with the fact that 17 year old Kevin has killed 7 students and 2 adults
with his crossbow at school.
The discussion was really interesting – so much so that I didn’t make many notes! Suffice to say that it was a very powerful book – that I for one found hard to put down, dealing with every mother’s nightmare – a bad child. There was some talk about whether Kevin was innately evil, or whether the whole thing was caused by his relationship with his mother. Several of us were half expecting another point of view to be expressed during the novel and were disappointed that it wasn’t. I was surprised at myself for having some sympathy for Kevin at the very end – I’m not sure that he deserved any. It was easy to find fault with Eva, but how much blame did she deserve? Would Kevin have turned out differently if Eva had been more open about her feelings? Will she be able to live with him in the future?
Gods in Alabama by Joshilyn
Jackson is about Lena who killed the most popular boy in school (no, not
another massacre!), left Alabama and promised God that she would never return,
never lie and never have sex.
We ended up
thinking more of the book following our discussion than we did before. It was
an easy book to read and most of us had enjoyed it and read it quickly. We felt
all the characters were very real, even the minor ones and we appreciated their
human and complex relationships. The characters were not “black or white”
(apart from in skin colour!) but had both good and bad parts. We liked Burr and
felt that he held his own very well, both against Lena’s manipulation and her
family’s prejudices. He was by far the strongest male character – the rest
seemed a bit dopey. Jim Beverley was the most extreme – wonderful when sober
but done for by the demon drink! Did he beat up Rose Mae, or was it only her
father?
We discussed how guilty Lena and her aunt were, and
how they coped with their guilt. I think we ended up sorrier for Aunt
Florence. She seemed the strongest character in the book, immensely capable,
and we thought she suffered the most too with the death of her son, the loss of
Lena and in coping with Lena’s mother. Lena was more of a games player and
almost enjoyed wriggling out of difficult situations. We discussed the
chronology of the novel as some of us weren’t quite clear on how old Lena was
when the various significant events took place – we did clear it up – she was
only 14 when she hit Jim over the head with the vodka bottle. We appreciated
Lena’s relationship with Claris, love tinged with just a hint of jealousy – and
talked over how this led to Lena’s sexual marathon!
The Bones in the Womb by Patricia Tyrrell is about Cate, who was abducted as a 3 year old and brought up by Les. After 12 years he cannot cope any longer and returns Cate to her mother, who had thought Cate was dead. The book was told in a very contemporary voice; that of Cate, uneducated yet intelligent; and we were surprised to find out that Patricia Tyrrell had been born in 1929. At the beginning of the evening we all said we had liked the book and found it a quick and easy read. On reflection and discussion, we decided that some parts were a bit too convenient, like Les being sent to prison. We felt Cate was a very mature 15 year old considering that she hadn’t mixed with many “normal” people, and we wondered what she had done all day while living with Les. I was surprised that, given the money, she would walk alone into a shopping mall and buy tasteful, middle class clothes! We found it hard to think of Les as a basically sympathetic man who happened to abduct a child in order to save himself from alcoholism; and it seemed that Cate’s mother (and was her name ever mentioned?) felt more sorry for him than angry with him, which we would not, were we in her position. We felt the book rather unravelled at the end and felt unsatisfied with Cate’s mother’s reactions to the results of her investigations into Jeff’s character. She wanted a particular answer and she stopped looking when she found it. Should Cate have been exonerated, or should she have confessed. Would she be more able to live with herself in later life if she was punished? Did Jeff deserve what he got? We wanted to know what had happened to Cate’s father; what happened to her mother’s potential boyfriends, and to her friend Elly, and we wanted to know if Cate and her mother were intending to spend the rest of their lives hiding in Europe, would settle in England or go back to America.
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