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jaclyncrupi's review against another edition
5.0
This might be my favourite Tessa Hadley and I have LOVED them all!
vacantbones's review against another edition
1.0
I don't have anything against literary fiction, per se, but Late in the Day is just dreadfully boring. The characters aren't interesting enough to make their bad decisions and betrayals feel consequential, and it all feels emptily artsy. I just set the book down three minutes ago and I already can't recall why anything that happened in the past or present of the story mattered to four people who clearly don't like each other.
Also, why do authors make the stylistic choice to forgo quotation marks? It makes me want to tear my hair out the entire time I'm reading.
Also, why do authors make the stylistic choice to forgo quotation marks? It makes me want to tear my hair out the entire time I'm reading.
grouchomarxist's review against another edition
2.0
Three's Company
What happens when two overly-enmeshed couples experience a sudden tragedy, leaving only three of them (4-1=3) drowning in grief and / or gin-tonics? What happens when one of the three moves in with the other two, keeping in mind that this book lacks the whimsy of a sitcom?
....What happens is exactly what you think would happen.
And then a whole lot of nothing for approximately 200 pages. I usually don't mind a whole lot of nothing, if it's written well, or character-driven, or has some kind of deeper message. But the characters never really rang true, or had much depth, or seemed likable in any way.
This book was like an ignorant parody of a Bergman film. There was some engaging prose, but based on this book, anyway, I think the medium of film is better suited to portraying moody pauses, long road trips, staring out windows, and silently grieving alone in a room.
I'm just a dumb American, but to me, the characters managed to handle every conflict in the most hyperbolically (upper-middle-class) British of ways. Like lots of liquor, very few expressed emotions, and constant worry about how they would be perceived. Thankfully, one of the couples was posh enough for very few people in this story to have to worry about anything awful like work breaking up their smoldering contemplations and / or very fluid boundaries.
Two stars largely so I feel better about spending the time to finish it. The prose was good; I'll say that much.
What happens when two overly-enmeshed couples experience a sudden tragedy, leaving only three of them (4-1=3) drowning in grief and / or gin-tonics? What happens when one of the three moves in with the other two, keeping in mind that this book lacks the whimsy of a sitcom?
....What happens is exactly what you think would happen.
And then a whole lot of nothing for approximately 200 pages. I usually don't mind a whole lot of nothing, if it's written well, or character-driven, or has some kind of deeper message. But the characters never really rang true, or had much depth, or seemed likable in any way.
This book was like an ignorant parody of a Bergman film. There was some engaging prose, but based on this book, anyway, I think the medium of film is better suited to portraying moody pauses, long road trips, staring out windows, and silently grieving alone in a room.
I'm just a dumb American, but to me, the characters managed to handle every conflict in the most hyperbolically (upper-middle-class) British of ways. Like lots of liquor, very few expressed emotions, and constant worry about how they would be perceived. Thankfully, one of the couples was posh enough for very few people in this story to have to worry about anything awful like work breaking up their smoldering contemplations and / or very fluid boundaries.
Two stars largely so I feel better about spending the time to finish it. The prose was good; I'll say that much.
davechua's review against another edition
4.0
Wonderful writing, though I can't say I felt much for the characters. I still prefer her short stories to this novel, though there isn't a dull sentence in the book.
lovelykd's review against another edition
2.0
There’s nothing wrong with Tessa Hadley’s writing; she has a beautiful way of describing the sometimes mundane, often complex, way we arrive at our emotions.
But these people ...in THIS book? I couldn’t stand them; they were all far too miserable—mostly of their own making—and much too compliant in their decision to remain that way.
Two married couples (Alex & Christine & Lydia & Zachary) share a lifetime of friendship between them. When Zachary suddenly dies, the remaining three are thrown off balance and a betrayal ensues.
The book has an annoying timeline, one that is at times indeterminate, and also tries to incorporate the insignificant lives of the offspring of said couples; honestly, their movements were an irrelevant backdrop to the meat of this story and did nothing more than add more pages to read.
Alex and Lydia are an insufferable lot. I often wondered how much more spineless Lydia could be?
She was like a Stepford Wife; she didn’t seem to have any other impulse in life except that of placating the unimportant whims of whatever man she was beholden to serve—and I do mean serve.
Alex, by contrast, was apparently intelligent but he was also a chauvinistic pig.
As for Christine ...she was the most likable but that isn’t saying much when you consider her need to be like, or liked by, Lydia was so strong she neglected to ever figure out who she could be on her own.
The “problems” of these folks were laughable. If not for the writing, I’d have stopped reading at the midway point because all of them were basically jerks who needed to step away from their privilege for a moment.
Good writing but nothing about the story resonated with me.
But these people ...in THIS book? I couldn’t stand them; they were all far too miserable—mostly of their own making—and much too compliant in their decision to remain that way.
Two married couples (Alex & Christine & Lydia & Zachary) share a lifetime of friendship between them. When Zachary suddenly dies, the remaining three are thrown off balance and a betrayal ensues.
The book has an annoying timeline, one that is at times indeterminate, and also tries to incorporate the insignificant lives of the offspring of said couples; honestly, their movements were an irrelevant backdrop to the meat of this story and did nothing more than add more pages to read.
Alex and Lydia are an insufferable lot. I often wondered how much more spineless Lydia could be?
She was like a Stepford Wife; she didn’t seem to have any other impulse in life except that of placating the unimportant whims of whatever man she was beholden to serve—and I do mean serve.
Alex, by contrast, was apparently intelligent but he was also a chauvinistic pig.
As for Christine ...she was the most likable but that isn’t saying much when you consider her need to be like, or liked by, Lydia was so strong she neglected to ever figure out who she could be on her own.
The “problems” of these folks were laughable. If not for the writing, I’d have stopped reading at the midway point because all of them were basically jerks who needed to step away from their privilege for a moment.
Good writing but nothing about the story resonated with me.
han0997's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
lambsears's review against another edition
2.0
I only got 30 pages into this, but won't be going any further.
While the writing is very good, I couldn't give a fig about any of the characters and have, so far, found the narrative cold and somewhat remote.
Not for me.
While the writing is very good, I couldn't give a fig about any of the characters and have, so far, found the narrative cold and somewhat remote.
Not for me.
flanandsorbet's review against another edition
3.0
I feel like I know the kinds of people in this book well (I'm even married to an Eastern European named Alex) but that there is something not quite right. They are well drawn, but their likeness to plausible people is off just enough to cause irritation. I felt that Hadley's deep perceptiveness was deceived or deflected by her own characters. Alex, for example, has an empty core that cannot be explained by mere vanity or selfishness.
The section of the book where young Lydia poses as a babysitter in an attempt to steal Alex, the exotic, tortured poet from his wife could have been me at seventeen. Lydia made sense here in this scene, she did things that a certain type of headstrong, self-absorbed young woman would do. (Fortunately I had no success in such escapades, let it be known.) But elsewhere she is a beautiful, lazy blowup doll who inexplicably fascinates Christine because of her sardonic, unflinching worldview. If you say so, Tessa Hadley, but I'm not getting that from her.
And Alex, who is he? We see him led about by his libido in small interludes over the years, but the rest of him never comes into focus. When he performs a heroic act of thoughtfulness, driving to Glasgow to spare his dead friend's daughter the pain of hearing of his death by phone, I was unable to imagine such behavior. No one acts like this, certainly not artistic, moody cads.
Hadley never provides a satisfying explanation for why these four people have stayed emotionally intertwined for thirty years. All four want the other's spouse, and the male and female friends have a deep connection, supposedly. I understand that, or am willing to take it on faith. But the quartet seemed bound together past the time when such a group would naturally drift apart. Lusting after each other throughout their twenties, thirties, maybe even forties. That their children were also completely bound up in this web into a second generation seemed far-fetched. Some stronger glue would be needed than any Hadley shows us.
Zachary, Lydia's husband, does not annoy by being only lightly sketched in. The hints one receives of his psyche are enough. But Christine, a plausible stand-in for the author herself, is almost as maddeningly empty as Alex. What is she, except a woman who needs "a room of her own"? I wanted to feel her triumph when her artistic powers returned to her at the end of the book, but I didn't know her well enough to share her joy.
The section of the book where young Lydia poses as a babysitter in an attempt to steal Alex, the exotic, tortured poet from his wife could have been me at seventeen. Lydia made sense here in this scene, she did things that a certain type of headstrong, self-absorbed young woman would do. (Fortunately I had no success in such escapades, let it be known.) But elsewhere she is a beautiful, lazy blowup doll who inexplicably fascinates Christine because of her sardonic, unflinching worldview. If you say so, Tessa Hadley, but I'm not getting that from her.
And Alex, who is he? We see him led about by his libido in small interludes over the years, but the rest of him never comes into focus. When he performs a heroic act of thoughtfulness, driving to Glasgow to spare his dead friend's daughter the pain of hearing of his death by phone, I was unable to imagine such behavior. No one acts like this, certainly not artistic, moody cads.
Hadley never provides a satisfying explanation for why these four people have stayed emotionally intertwined for thirty years. All four want the other's spouse, and the male and female friends have a deep connection, supposedly. I understand that, or am willing to take it on faith. But the quartet seemed bound together past the time when such a group would naturally drift apart. Lusting after each other throughout their twenties, thirties, maybe even forties. That their children were also completely bound up in this web into a second generation seemed far-fetched. Some stronger glue would be needed than any Hadley shows us.
Zachary, Lydia's husband, does not annoy by being only lightly sketched in. The hints one receives of his psyche are enough. But Christine, a plausible stand-in for the author herself, is almost as maddeningly empty as Alex. What is she, except a woman who needs "a room of her own"? I wanted to feel her triumph when her artistic powers returned to her at the end of the book, but I didn't know her well enough to share her joy.
sctittle's review against another edition
4.0
I didn’t think I was going to like this book. After an initial thump of action it really slows down, lingering over the four main characters, trading points of view. But about halfway through I understood what the author was doing. Its about middle age plain and simple, about what happens after the kids are grown, after someone in your circle dies, after you’ve fussed about your career and are looking down the toward the end, instead of at the beginning of the road toward your future. I haven’t read a lot of books about middle age, and I can’t imagine anyone much younger or older than I am appreciating the full depths of this story.
In the opening scene, announcing the death of a close friend, one of the main characters, an artist named Christine, locks her studio door and places the key underneath a vase. She doesn’t unlock the studio until the last page. Throughout the novel there is reference to her art, and occasionally to the locked door. But along the way a marriage unravels, a friendship disintegrates, new romances occur, and even new life. The book is divided non-chronologically into sections that spool out the story of these four friends. This structure can be a little confusing, but once you get used to it, you realize that you’re going to learn something new with each section that will deepen the story. I related so much to the two women characters, how marriage can subsume your identity, and that’s fine because you do that for the sake of your children. But at a certain point your partner can feel like they don’t quite fit, and there’s an adjustment, sort of like getting a new pair of glasses and suddenly seeing all the cobwebs in the corners of the ceiling. Sometimes you just need to dust them away. But other times you need to move.
A lot of readers may grow impatient with this novel of ideas, which reminds me a lot of Iris Murdoch. There’s a lot of internal musing, but also some lovely descriptions: Sitting in a pub one afternoon, Lydia says, “It’s hard to believe in progress, in here . . . If I try to imagine eternity I think it might feel like an English pub on a Saturday afternoon. Time’s actually standing still, isn’t it? It’s like a ghastly syrup and we’re all preserved in it.” Hadley also knows how long-married people can pester each other. While on vacation, an ugly little exchange between husband and wife exposes larger cracks in their relationship. “Because they had an audience, the temptations of denunciations won out. She said Alex spoiled occasions, like a child, to assert his own power; he said she smothered everyone, fussing over them, subduing them to her good intentions.”
After this book I’m ready for some good plot-heavy storytelling. But for now, I’m feeling understood and seen (if not particularly optimistic!). Thanks to Tessa Hadley for making ordinary lives feel extraordinary.
In the opening scene, announcing the death of a close friend, one of the main characters, an artist named Christine, locks her studio door and places the key underneath a vase. She doesn’t unlock the studio until the last page. Throughout the novel there is reference to her art, and occasionally to the locked door. But along the way a marriage unravels, a friendship disintegrates, new romances occur, and even new life. The book is divided non-chronologically into sections that spool out the story of these four friends. This structure can be a little confusing, but once you get used to it, you realize that you’re going to learn something new with each section that will deepen the story. I related so much to the two women characters, how marriage can subsume your identity, and that’s fine because you do that for the sake of your children. But at a certain point your partner can feel like they don’t quite fit, and there’s an adjustment, sort of like getting a new pair of glasses and suddenly seeing all the cobwebs in the corners of the ceiling. Sometimes you just need to dust them away. But other times you need to move.
A lot of readers may grow impatient with this novel of ideas, which reminds me a lot of Iris Murdoch. There’s a lot of internal musing, but also some lovely descriptions: Sitting in a pub one afternoon, Lydia says, “It’s hard to believe in progress, in here . . . If I try to imagine eternity I think it might feel like an English pub on a Saturday afternoon. Time’s actually standing still, isn’t it? It’s like a ghastly syrup and we’re all preserved in it.” Hadley also knows how long-married people can pester each other. While on vacation, an ugly little exchange between husband and wife exposes larger cracks in their relationship. “Because they had an audience, the temptations of denunciations won out. She said Alex spoiled occasions, like a child, to assert his own power; he said she smothered everyone, fussing over them, subduing them to her good intentions.”
After this book I’m ready for some good plot-heavy storytelling. But for now, I’m feeling understood and seen (if not particularly optimistic!). Thanks to Tessa Hadley for making ordinary lives feel extraordinary.
bookbirder's review against another edition
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0