kab11's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
funny
hopeful
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
katejaneamanda's review against another edition
4.0
I was recommended this book as "the most perfect masterpiece of an oppressive English summer". That it is, but it is also an amazingly modern yarn with vividly drawn queer characters that is told with humour and empathy with a satirical twist.
It seems to me to be a book about privilege, an examination of it almost. Multiple threads, seamlessly work together to see the ennui that obsesses some doesn't even come close to the desperate misery than others have no escape from.
Whilst it seems very modern in it's execution, it is also deliciously of a period. I loved the description of clothes and food: I'm not sure a book has ever made me crave eggs in aspic or duck stuffed with cherries before. I also want to drink everything that they do and dress for dinner and go to those slightly fuddy sounding restaurants, of which a few still exist in London. The restaurants are not the only part of the city described, it is extremely evocative of summertime London and of hot summers in the countryside; I long for a garden like the Cornhill's, in fact I am already making plans for a fruit cage filled with raspberries and a carpet of bluebells beneath my cypress. Ha ha, I don't have a cedar in my garden, nor room for a fruit cage. And that's part of it, it's like a delicious journey into a perfect world that is being turned upside down.
This was my first time reading Elizabeth Jane Howard but it absolutely won't be my last.
It seems to me to be a book about privilege, an examination of it almost. Multiple threads, seamlessly work together to see the ennui that obsesses some doesn't even come close to the desperate misery than others have no escape from.
Whilst it seems very modern in it's execution, it is also deliciously of a period. I loved the description of clothes and food: I'm not sure a book has ever made me crave eggs in aspic or duck stuffed with cherries before. I also want to drink everything that they do and dress for dinner and go to those slightly fuddy sounding restaurants, of which a few still exist in London. The restaurants are not the only part of the city described, it is extremely evocative of summertime London and of hot summers in the countryside; I long for a garden like the Cornhill's, in fact I am already making plans for a fruit cage filled with raspberries and a carpet of bluebells beneath my cypress. Ha ha, I don't have a cedar in my garden, nor room for a fruit cage. And that's part of it, it's like a delicious journey into a perfect world that is being turned upside down.
This was my first time reading Elizabeth Jane Howard but it absolutely won't be my last.
lnatal's review against another edition
3.0
From BBC Radio 4 Extra:
Claire Skinner reads from Elizabeth Jane Howard's classic story of a contented marriage disrupted by the arrival of a rich and beautiful third party. Abridged by Doreen Estall.
Claire Skinner reads from Elizabeth Jane Howard's classic story of a contented marriage disrupted by the arrival of a rich and beautiful third party. Abridged by Doreen Estall.
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