Willoyd's Reading Log 2013

[willoyd]

Light by Margaret Elphinstone *****

It is May 1831, and the Stevensons (see The Lighthouse Stevensons by Bella Bathurst) are in the process of upgrading all the lighthouses round the coast of Scotland.  A small team of surveyors are due to arrive on the (imaginary) island of Ellan Bride, just off the Isle of Man to carry out initial work on the lighthouse there that the Commissioners for Northern Lights have just acquired from its previous owner, the Duke of Atholl.  They will encounter a rather unusual setup: the original lightkeeper, Jim Geddes, was drowned in a storm five years previously, and his work has since been continued by his sister Lucy, supported by his widow Diya, who between them look after their three children (Lucy's son Billy, Diya's daughters Breesha and Mally).  They are a tightly knit family, and their home is under threat as it becomes apparent that the new owners will not retain a woman as lightkeeper. The scene is set for a tense and emotional few days as the intruders get to work.
 
This is the third Elphinstone novel I've read, following on from the brilliant Voyageurs and The Sea Road.  All three have much in common: journeys across the sea to the limits of the known world.  In the first two this is literally true: Voyageurs takes the eighteenth century hero from his native Cumbria across the Atlantic to the western end of the Great Lakes in search of his possibly kidnapped sister, whilst The Sea Road sees the tenth century Icelandic heroine join the Viking migration to Greenland and Newfoundland.  Light explores more the psychological limits: the short sea crossing to the isolated Ellan Bride is in many ways just as extreme.  It is also a much more psychologically orientated book too: there is none of the physical exploration here that features in the previous books.  Instead, the exploration is very much of how the human relationships develop in such a tightly limited space, exacerbated by the social mores of the time. 
 
Light is very much a slow-burner. This is not a book where the plot dominates; it's not surprising to read one or two more plot-orientated reviewers found the book 'turgid' and 'dull'. It certainly rules - after all it sets up the whole novel - but aside from this, it barely intrudes: there are no significant plot twists to surprise the reader, few high tension moments, no major excitement.  Instead, the author sees the situation unfolding through the eyes of the participants, mainly using their trains of thought to narrate and reveal.  It's not quite stream of consciousness, but it's not a million miles away - certainly it's easier to follow - and it's through these thoughts that we address the main themes, building a picture of the characters, and beginning to understand the importance of their very mixed backgrounds to their life on Ellan Bride, and its influence on their feelings and attitudes to both those they know well, and to those who they have only just met (whether one of the visitors or one of the residents).
 
And then there is the island itself.  Elphinstone obviously has an affinity with remote places, and her love of the Scottish offshore island shines through as strongly as any lighthouse.  The interaction of land and sea with the humans and with the wildlife is one of the strongest aspects of this book.  It's surely no coincidence that both wildlife and landscape play a major part in the single most dramatic incident, and all the way through the book it provides an ever changing backdrop that both reflects and influences the story.  A constantly recurring theme is the distant views to more civilised (or, at least, more heavily populated) land and over the sea that separates them. 
 
Margaret Elphinstone is a superb writer, one who deserves to be much better known.  I love the flow of her words, the variety of her language.  There is a density to it such that, whilst she focuses here on the minutiae, one feels that no word is wasted, all contributing to a vivid and tightly woven picture.  I did find this book a mite harder going than the other two, perhaps because there was more of an out and out story with them, but as the island and people grew on me, so I began to appreciate all the more how much bigger stories can be told through focusing on smaller events.  A very satisfying and rewarding read.

Edited July 18, 2013 by willoyd

[Athena]

This is a very well written review!

 

I've put the book on my wishlist, even if it wouldn't be something I'd normally pick up.

[willoyd]

Reading notes for week ending June 21st
 
Not a lot of time to read this week, with school activity going through the roof, but have been plugging away when I can with Seasons in the Sun (Dominic Sandbrook's history of Great Britain in the second half of the 1970s).  This is proving to be a really good read, even if it is a humungous 800 pages or so, and I'm actually cracking through it better than I had originally anticipated.  Only problem is that I'm tending to read in short bursts, and it's not really suited to that.  Interesting stuff though!
 
Trying to really cut back on book buying - way too many books and not enough time to read them all - but still couldn't resist a couple on on Kindle Daily Deals:
 
Au Revoir, Europe by David Charter
White River by Jamie Whittle (especially as we're staying near the Findhorn this summer)

This is a very well written review!

Thank you Athena! I hope it goes from wish list to buying before too long, and that you get to enjoy it soon.

Edited July 14, 2013 by willoyd

[willoyd]

Seasons in the Sun: The Battle for Britain 1974-79 by Dominic Sandbrook *****

It's a fair while (almost three weeks) since I last posted, but it's been a very busy time of year (as always), and I've had my head buried in one very large tome! This is the fourth book in a series focusing on the history of post-war Britain. Each volume appears to cover a shorter and shorter period whilst growing in size: this covers just five years in just over eight hundred pages.  But what a five years!  I had set out to read these in chronological order, but a visit to see the James Graham's play This House, itself focusing on this period as seen from the perspective of the Tory and Labour Whips' offices, inspired me to dig further into the period and take the series out of order.

The author tells a cracking story.  Eight hundred pages it may be, busy time of year it may be, but Seasons in the Sun kept me sufficiently enthralled to want to keep going back, even at times when I could only manage ten or twenty pages at one go. This wasn't a satisfactory way of reading it, but the only way I could manage, and the strength of narrative deserved better. Sandbrook has a reputation for being somewhat right wing in his views, and some reviewers have regarded this work as seeing through rather blue-tinted lenses, but I felt he was rather more balanced than that.  Yes, he definitely had a view on the political machinations of the time - this cannot be regarded as an objective history by any means - and he is particularly scathing of the more left-wing elements (particularly Tony Benn, who is held up to complete ridicule, whilst others, such as Moss Evans, don't come off much better), but the rise of the right and advent of Margaret Thatcher is certainly no triumphal arrival, anything but. If anything, the hero (for want of a better word) of the period is presented as James Callaghan - all too humanly fallible, but a man seen to be striving to find a way between massively disparate and antagonistic (even suicidal) elements, keeping a Labour minority government alive for far longer than it (probably) deserved, and almost achieving the impossible. Maybe that is a right wing approach, but it didn't feel like one to me!

Given my experience of previous volumes, I was surprised at how much Sandbrook stuck to political issues. I was rather glad he did - there was enough in this area without diversifying as much as before - but a result was that some threads were never really tied up. For instance, Sandbrook introduces the Yorkshire Ripper case into the account at one point. He then puts it aside, I thought temporarily, but he never returned to tell us how the case was finally resolved. Others were barely addressed at all: if one is going to include cultural references, is punk, and specifically The Sex Pistols, pretty much the only one worth examining in any depth? If he had, I suppose the book would have been even longer, so I think the answer might have been to strip them out, and focus on the political-economic history. It would certainly have led to a leaner, more focused book, even if not ranging across the whole of British life which is what I think the series set out to achieve. Difficult one.

Doubts have also been cast on the accuracy of some of the historical facts, one reviewer deciding to devote a whole website to deconstructing Sandbrook's books (strikes me as being a bit obsessive - if he's that good, why not write his own book?). That may be the case, but no historian is ever perfect in their research, and none of the alleged inaccuracies seem to detract from the main thrust of the history. Whilst I know it's not a properly historical line to take, what it does do is feel right - the late seventies were the core of my formative years (late school, early university), and this does seem to explain to me so much of what was going on at the time. It certainly helped me understand why Margaret Thatcher succeeded in coming to power, and equally understand why later events, particularly her fight with the unions, transpired the way they did.

Overall, then, an enthralling book, one that has increased my interest in the history of the late seventies, and encouraged me to read further on the period, not least to compare the author's views with others (!). It may be long, it may be a bit of a brick, but it was worth the effort - indeed it was good enough that it didn't really feel like an effort to read it.  When you've got stories like this to tell, who needs fiction?!

Edited July 15, 2013 by willoyd

[Kidsmum]

Hi Willoyd   Just reading your review of Light as i just finished it myself . I agree it's a slow burner i was over halfway through before i really got into the story & started to enjoy it. At first i thought the title just referred to the lighthouse but i liked the way both natural light & man made light featured throughout the story. She's definitely an author i want to read more of so i've noted down the other titles you mentioned. I'm thinking your copy must have differed slightly from mine though as there were only 3 children in the story i read, Mappy....???? 

[willoyd]

Don't quite understand what happened there - but have edited my post to show three children sans the illusive Mappy!
 
Of the two books that I mentioned, Voyageurs is the most like Light, but The Sea Road (the first of hers I read) is marginally my favourite - not least because of the way the author sort of turns the sagas on their collective heads and looks at it all from the female angle.  Gudrid Thorbjornsdottir has to be amongst my top half-dozen or so literary heroes (by far the most of whom, I have to confesss, are women)..

Edited July 18, 2013 by willoyd

[willoyd]

Where'd You Go Bernadette by Maria Semple ***

Shortlisted for the Women's Literary Prize, the format (epistolary) and plot (eccentric mother disappears, and the Antarctic features - which is pretty much all I picked up from a radio review) strongly appealed. I almost always enjoy this format, particularly the way in which plotlines tend to be revealed, and this was no exception: the story fairly bounced along, and, although there were one or two minor unlikelihoods, the mixups and misunderstandings felt reasonably credible and I really enjoyed the underlying sense of humour (not laugh out loud -  I  rarely do that with a book - but definitely bringing a smile to my face).

 

There were weaknesses.  One of the challenges of this format is to get all the storylines over in a reasonably realistic way, and that wasn't quite achieved here: a lot of Bernadette's back story was filled in by a long email that just didn't feel right at all.  Almost as if she recognised this, the author reverted to a conventional recount for the past third, which smacked almost of giving up.  I'm also not so certain how the characters stood on credibility, but then a satire on Seattle life was always going to leave me trailing in the 'geddit' stakes. On the other hand, I loved the plot (and character!) twists.

 

These issues aside, whilst not the most literary of reads, and one that left me slightly mystified as to why the WLP judges had decided to place it amongst the best half dozen books by a woman writer this year, this was a light, well written, piece of fun, ideal for winding down at the end of the academic year and seeing in the summer holidays. The only big question is....why no question mark in the title?!

Edited July 25, 2013 by willoyd

[Kidsmum]

Don't quite understand what happened there - but have edited my post to show three children sans the illusive Mappy!

 

 

I'm sure Mappy was the child she would have had if circumstances had been different 

[poppyshake]

Great review of Light Willoyd .. I like the sound of it so will add it to my wishlist. I've not heard of Margaret Elphinstone before so thanks for the additional info on her

[willoyd]

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte ******

This was a reread, inspired by a visit to the Parsonage with visiting family. This time round, it provoked rather more questions than previously, and I did wonder about the six star status, but there's something about the whole book that gets right under my skin and refuses to let go. I need to have a bit of time to think before writing a review, and as I'm away on holiday, I will wait till I get home later in August to write a fuller version, so in the meantime this is just to note it's chronological sequence and the rating!

Edited August 12, 2013 by willoyd

[willoyd]

White River by Jamie Whittle ***

 

An account of two journeys undertaken along the Findhorn, one from mouth to source on foot, the other covering sections going downriver by canoe, read to accompany a holiday in the area, including walks along the river.

 

When the author writes about his journey, it's a joyful, easy, well written read. Unfortunately a substantial proportion of the book is taken up by various digressions, mostly propounding his philosophy on conservation and the environment. Some of these are absolutely fascinating, but they occupy far too much of the book, and leave the actual journey recounts sadly too insufficiently developed for my taste. A pity: the potential was huge, but the realisation was mildly disappointing. The quality of writing and what coverage of the journeys there is still just about earns it three stars.

Edited July 29, 2013 by willoyd

[Athena]

Wuthering Heights is on my TBR, I'm glad to hear you really like this book. I look forward to see more of your thoughts on it when you return from your holiday .

[willoyd]

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte ******

 

This book is unique. I don't think there's another book that is quite so suffused with passion and emotion. There's a rawness, a wildness, that nothing else I've read has come close to emulating. In purely objective terms, the plot is almost incredible at times: there's a rational part of me niggling away all the time saying that it just couldn't happen this way, that, for instance, Heathcliff just couldn't get away with what he does at one or two points, but there's another side of me that questions that - maybe he just might, especially given the remoteness, the isolation, a sense enhanced by the fact that aside from the main protagonists, virtually no characters feature at all, no other location is described (indeed, they are barely mentioned) outside the two houses and the moors in between, and we see all the action through the eyes of just two of the characters,who Bronte cleverly inserts right into the centre of the action whilst leaving them almost peripheral in their roles: reporters giving an 'objective' story which almost contrarily actually intensifies the atmosphere.

 

It's that unremitting intensity that makes Wuthering Heights such a standout novel for me. When I first read it, that was what dominated my reading, and sucked me along in a totally unresistable fashion. On second reading, it's still there, but the more rational side of me did start to ask questions, not least quite how some of the characters allowed themselves to be taken over in the way they were. This time, one or two chords of melodrama started to be struck, and I even started to feel frustrated, indeed angry, with some of the characters (actually,with pretty much all of them at different stages). But then I'm sat here, now, not there, then, and maybe that is actually one reason why the book is so great: whereas last time I was almost overwhelmed by it, this time it started making me think, asking questions, feeling different emotions. My views on the characters started changing too: Heathcliff is now more of a villain (unremittingly so in fact!), Cathy more grounded than I recall. It'll be interesting to see what I think of it the next time I read it, because I will certainly read it again.

 

What is undoubted in my mind though, is that there really is nothing else like it in the entire canon (at least from what I've read). Whether one 'likes' it or not (and what an inadequate word that feels in the context, a bit like 'nice'), it's one of the very few books I've read that I believe everybody has to read at some stage. It's also a book that is almost impossible to summarise or review in a few words - any review on these pages can be nothing but inadequate. You just have to read it for yourself.

Edited August 13, 2013 by willoyd

[willoyd]

Findings by Kathleen Jamie *****(*)

Findings is a collection of essays, centred on Jamie's homeland, Scotland. They focus primarily on its wildlife and landscape, both built and natural, but include other diversions (one, for instance, focuses on the contents of the Surgeons' Hall in Edinburgh).  It thus has much in common with White River, but frankly is orders of magnitude a better book.  In White River, the author's recording of his experiences were limited, almost perfunctory, before he rushed off into opinion.  Jamie, by contrast, observes what she experiences very closely and records with great precision and clarity.  Only then does she ponder implications, but even then she doesn't simply offer opinion, but approaches topics from a variety of angles, rolling ideas and thoughts around, a bit like a wine taster rolls around a mouthful of wine.  Then, rather than just being spat out though, they are laid out simply but eloquently. It didn't surprise me to find that Jamie is also well known, perhaps best known, as a poet.

I definitely preferred her essays on wildlife or the natural landscape, which fortunately predominated. It just seemed that her eye for detail and sense of engagement were so much more strongly developed (the portrait she paints of a pair of peregrines is just one, near perfect, example, which perhaps rang particularly true as I read it the day after my own observations of one), but wherever she writes about, the sense of place, her consummate ability to evoke her surroundings, shines through, none more so than in 'Markings', where she contemplates the site of a group of ancient summer shielings. But it's invidious to pick out any one essay, and anyway I could probably use each one as a model example of one facet or another. The great strength of the book is the collection, one that I am bound to go back to again (and again?). In the meantime, I'm already looking forward to the companion volume to Findings, Sightlines. 

Edited August 15, 2013 by willoyd

[chesilbeach]

Findings was a wonderful book - made my top five books last year, and Sightlines is still top of my list of this year so far, and it was one of the first books I read this year but had to ration myself to one chapter a day as I wanted to savour it and make it last, it was that good.

[willoyd]

A Month in the Country by J.L. Carr ******
 

A Month in the Country has long featured as one of my favourite books, perhaps my all time favourite, so it wasn't exactly an onerous task to settle down to read this as this month's choice for one of my book groups. In fact, it's a while since I last read it, so a certain amount of trepidation was involved. Would it live up to expectations?

I needn't have worried, as the answer was a resounding yes. In fact, it surpassed them: I had forgotten quite what a brilliant book this is. It's short, barely 120 pages long (Folio Society edition), but it is in my eyes a masterpiece. The plot is reasonably simple. Set in the aftermath of the First World War, Tom Birkin, barely a survivor of the trenches, arrives in the North Yorkshire village of Oxgodby during high summer to uncover and restore a medieval wall painting in the local church, paid for by the bequest of a parishioner from a long standing local family. Told in flashback, Tom recalls the month he spends there. living in the church tower.

The plot may appear simple, but many threads are therein woven. The recovery of the painting may the ostensible focus of Tom's efforts, but it also provides an opportunity for his own recovery, not just from the war but from desertion by his wife. Through the friendships, and more, that he finds and experiences he encounters, he rediscovers much of the humanity obliterated by the war, and rediscovers himself too. At the same time though, there is a strong theme of separateness, of alienation, indeed of the fallen: Tom initially hidden away in the bell-tower, Charles's experience in the war, the vicar's alienation from village (and wife?), the Crusader buried away from the church, the characters in the painting, the painter himself, and others (trying not to give too much of the story away!). The painting itself, whilst revealing much, also contains its own mysteries, paralleled by that of the Crusader tomb, being investigated in the churchyard by fellow war survivor, Charles Moon. Underlying it all though is a recognition that this is a story of a way of life that now no longer exists: just as the summer must come to an end, so is the whole fabric of this particular society inevitably set to change.

Yet this is all told in the simplest of language (or so it gives the impression - on closer examination, Carr's vocabulary is in fact enormously wide ranging and varied). What Carr does though is home in on small details that bring a scene, a dialogue, a character vividly to life. By doing this he prods our senses so that we can feel ourselves recalling the event. and yet he never overdoes it: there is a restraint, a sense of objectivity, that if anything brings things even more to life. Tom may be telling the story, but you feel he's being honest with you. I also love the humour, gentle, but particularly pervasive in the first half; as the author himself admits in a foreword, the tone changes as the book progresses, but whilst there is sadness and regret, there is also a huge amount of happiness, and indeed I would describe this as a happy book. It's just that real happiness needs the opposite to be fully understood and appreciated.

To my mind, this is not just good, but great, one of the most captivating books I've ever read. It doesn't surprise me one jot that it won the Guardian Fiction Prize, nor that it has been published as one of Penguins Modern Classics, because for me it is just that, a classic.

Edited August 15, 2013 by willoyd

[willoyd]

Findings was a wonderful book - made my top five books last year, and Sightlines is still top of my list of this year so far, and it was one of the first books I read this year but had to ration myself to one chapter a day as I wanted to savour it and make it last, it was that good.

 

I think that's a really good idea: each chapter does need savouring.  I've already been back to read some of the earlier ones again - in particular 'Markings' and those about the peregrine and the salmon.  I can see me reading Sightlines much sooner rather than later.

Edited August 15, 2013 by willoyd

[poppyshake]

Brilliant review of Wuthering Heights Willoyd It is such an emotional read. I've read it several times and will probably re-read it several times more .. it's one of those books that you benefit from revisiting. My idea of Heathcliff used to be a ridiculously romantic one .. I was quite shocked when I actually read the book (believing .. as a result of the movie .. that the story ended after Cathy's death). It's hard to forgive him for what came later .. but somehow I can't quite revile him. I never thought of Cathy as grounded though .. even before the breakdown ... she seemed to be always overrun by her passions. The scene where she absolutely loses it in the bedroom, plucking out the feathers and frightening herself in the mirror, stays with me as one of the most affecting scenes in any book .. along with that last meeting with Heathcliff. It's just extraordinary that Emily .. who never strayed far from the parsonage .. and hadn't any romantic experiences to speak of .. should write such passionate prose but then she was a great reader so her mind was probably teeming with ideas .. I think I read somewhere that Byron was an influence.

I'd love to visit the parsonage .. must do it one day

[willoyd]

My idea of Heathcliff used to be a ridiculously romantic one .. I was quite shocked when I actually read the book (believing .. as a result of the movie .. that the story ended after Cathy's death). It's hard to forgive him for what came later .. but somehow I can't quite revile him.

 

I didn't the first time, but this time he comes over as thoroughly unpleasant. The only mitigation is the intensity of his love for Cathy, but aside from that, it's pretty unredeeming for me I'm afraid!

 

I never thought of Cathy as grounded though .. even before the breakdown ... she seemed to be always overrun by her passions. The scene where she absolutely loses it in the bedroom, plucking out the feathers and frightening herself in the mirror, stays with me as one of the most affecting scenes in any book .. along with that last meeting with Heathcliff.

 

Yes, but her decision to marry Edgar was on purely rational grounds. I also felt that a fair bit of these emotional scenes were pretty deliberate: she knew what she was doing. However, I wasn't saying she was completely down to earth - it was just that I started to feel that a lot more of her decisions were more rationally thought through than I thought first time.

 

I'd love to visit the parsonage .. must do it one day

 

Well worthwhile. We live only a few miles away, so it's easy, and we were lucky to go at a very quiet time, so had the house pretty much to ourselves. I don't know what it would be like at a busy time - a bit squashed I suspect! The dining room is almost unnerving - to think that's where the books were written and Emily died. They've manage to acquire a fair bit of the original furniture etc too to make it look very similar to the way it would have been. The setting outside itself isn't quite as atmospheric as you'd expect - mainly because there's been so much tree growth etc since the Brontes, so you don't quite get that feel of being on the edge of the moors that you expect. I've been on those moors in all sorts of weather though, and they are certainly up to scratch!

 

Thank you for your kind comments on the review.

Edited August 21, 2013 by willoyd

[Athena]

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte ******

x

This is on my TBR, great review .

Edited August 20, 2013 by Athena

[willoyd]

 

On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan **

It is 1962. Edward and Florence are two newly weds on their wedding night, staying in a hotel on the edge of Chesil Beach. Consummation looms, and both are virgins, both, in their own ways, very nervous: Edward fearing 'arriving too soon' (to use his euphemism), Florence finding the whole act overwhelmingly repugnant. The story recounts the events of the evening, with flashbacks to their childhood and courtship, building up to a denouement that will affect the whole of their future lives.

 

What we thus have is a couple going through a massive crisis at a critical stage of their lives.  Do I, however, actually care about either of them? Well, not

really, but then I didn't much care for any of the characters in Amsterdam or Enduring Love either, not least because all too often, the people they are, where they come from (neither Edward nor Florence's background can be remotely described as 'normal' - in fact distinctly different), what they go through, are all a bit too contrived. Thus the way the denouement works out, do I believe in it? No I don't.

 

There is no doubt in my mind that Ian McEwan is a technically superb writer, although it's a pity that he seems so aware of the fact too. The sentences just roll across the page, leading you on ineluctably. Actions, thoughts, setting are all precisely, minutely observed. Unfortunately, On Chesil Beach confirmed my suspicions that there is, in spite of all the wizardry, a fundamental emptiness at the heart of McEwan's books, a coldness which leaves me in much the same state. All that observation - all a bit too clinical, too objective, always observed as if from a distance, no sense, even with the extensive inner monologues, of real feeling.  Never has sex been sooooooo boring! 

 

None of this is helped by the facts that (a) far too many factual details are incorrect, from the obvious (internet sales were not an issue of the 1970s/80s) to the obscure (Debenhams didn't arrive in Oxford until the 1990s - not something I knew until reading reviews afterwards, but symptomatic), and (b) I had just read another short novel, A Month in the Country, in comparision with which On Chesil Beach suffers horribly.

 

What it comes down to is that whilst I respect, even admire, Ian MacEwan's writing ability, I cannot say, on the evidence so far, that I like his books, which need to be so much more than simply technically accomplished.  But then I may be biased, as I wasn't really a willing reader: I came to On Chesil Beach solely because it's a reading group choice this month, even though I'd already decided that I wasn't going to go through reading any more of his work.  Sadly, all this did was confirm that decision.

Edited August 24, 2013 by willoyd

[bobblybear]

Good review of On Chesil Beach. I really enjoyed Atonement, and thought Saturday was ok, but I've never been that interested in On Chesil Beach, though I have picked it up (and put it back) many a time at my local library. I think it's the subject matter that puts me off. Just seems an odd topic for a whole book.

[willoyd]

Good review of On Chesil Beach. I really enjoyed Atonement, and thought Saturday was ok, but I've never been that interested in On Chesil Beach, though I have picked it up (and put it back) many a time at my local library. I think it's the subject matter that puts me off. Just seems an odd topic for a whole book.

 

Thank you!  Atonement is the one work of his that might persuade me to give him another go: it does seem to be more consistently recognised as being a 'good' book.  I've assiduously avoided watching the film on the basis that I might give it a go one day.

 

I would agree with quite a few reviewers who feel that On Chesil Beach was a short story stretched to a short book.  Little of the back story actually enhances the novel, and indeed does to some extent get in the way of the continuity.  The flashbacks would have been worthwhile (for me) if they had developed my feelings for the characters, but, if anything, they alienated me further (of the two, I supposeI get closest to empathising with Florence, but McEwan doesn't make it easy!).

Edited August 24, 2013 by willoyd

[vodkafan]

Ouch!  You don't take prisoners Willoyd but then that's exactly what reviews are about. On Chesil Beach is one that always seems to be floating at the periphery of my wishlist , one I might get around to one day if there is nothing more exciting. Maybe I should leave it out there on the edge...

[Athena]

I bought On Chesil Beach for a cheap price a while ago, nice review , though I'm sorry to hear you didn't like it that much.

Edited August 24, 2013 by Athena