Secrecy
I chose Secrecy in a rush in a train station bookshop, I liked the title and the blurb sounded good. Wax sculptor Zummo who is from Sicily takes a commission at the court of the Grand Duke Of Tuscany in 1691 and finds himself in a world of intrigue.
The book seemed terribly promising, great endorsements on the cover and a raft of 5 stars on Amazon and was also the Radio 4 Book At Bedtime. If anything this books publisher has done an incredibly successful PR campaign in promoting the book but I confess I found myself baffled by it.
It gets off to a good start, I particularly liked the writing near the beginning, but somehow it just all started slipping away at great speed after say page 100.
A lot of it has no substance, the villain of the piece just isn't remotely fleshed out and we are I think left to infer much from very little. It's as though through the fact that "He's a Dominican Monk" we are meant to infer not only his entire personality, but the entire point and purpose of his schemes, which I felt never really held much water in terms of practical motive. It was a bit Dan Brown School Of Writing.
Other bizarre things happen like Zummo meets a girl he fancies in passing twice and she suddenly randomly sends him the 17th Century equivalent of Viagra. Huh?!
Secondary characters serve little purpose either. One character is brought in only apparently to be attacked at a later date to illustrate that the Monks already pretty unlikely vendetta has escalated to such a degree that he went after Zummo's friends. None of Zummo's relationships feel genuine or possess depth and seem to exist purely as plot devices.
The denouement too is very very strange and lacking entirely in credibility.
In many ways this novel as a personal reading experience suffered in being read in too close a proximity to Ghana Must Go. The two novels are completely different yet Secrecy felt like it stood in the former books shadow in terms of how the quality and style of the plot and prose shone.
I think the best word I can use to describe this book is 'flimsy' - it just feels silly and without much weight.
6/10
Showing posts with label Art. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Art. Show all posts
Friday, 31 January 2014
Sunday, 15 July 2012
Book #62 Notes From An Exhibition by Patrick Gale
Notes From An Exhibition
In this, the first Patrick Gale novel I've read, sensible Quaker Anthony Middleton meets fragile artist Rachel Kelly and somewhat rescues her by taking her back to his childhood home in Cornwall. The novel begins with Rachel's death and then paints a portrait of their family life, through them and their somewhat pretentiously named children Garfield, Morwenna, Hedley and Petroc.
The novel does this in a non sequiturial sense moving not just from character to character, but shifting from past to present events. Each chapter begins with the notes presented in a posthumous exhibition alongside a piece of Rachel's work and then a snapshot of a point in her life or in the life of one of the family, building up like jigsaw pieces until a cohesive whole can be seen.
And so in one chapter we have adult Garfield in the aftermath of the revelation which follows his mothers death, then Hedley working in a cinema in his late teens, Morwenna on her ninth birthday and so on, with each child getting both an older and younger narrative focus. Though this is non linear storytelling, which doesn't always work, this is a really successful example of this kind of format.
Rachel Kelly is bipolar which both fuels and often hinders her creative genius and in many ways the novel is the story of the legacy this leaves her children, both in terms of her artistry but also the impact both genetic and otherwise of living with a mentally ill parent, the childhoods of the older children peppered with bouts of her illness. I found Rachel to be a vivid often painfully accurate portrait of this disorder which gave the real suggestion that either Gale had done his research impeccably or had experience of an individual or individuals with that disorder.
The family is also Quaker, a branch of the Christian tree about which I am not particularly well informed but in the particular case of Anthony leaves a certain kind of spiritual peace surrounding restless unpredictable Rachel, providing a steady cocoon from the depths which others in her situation fall and are shown to fall. But what is interesting is that in this book that sense of peace is at times physically palpable, an accomplished thing for any writer to achieve. There is also a tremendous sense of place in the Cornish setting.
The secrets aspect, as in the secrets kept by Rachel which become clear after her death is less well done and in certain senses feels rather incomplete, though the book as a whole is graceful, engrossing and stays in your mind, both in those times you are not reading it and after its conclusion.
The best compliment I can pay this book is that I kept itching to pick it up and continue to read it, but, sadly for me, I had finished it four hours previously!!!! For this reason, a clear signifier of a great novel : 10/10
In this, the first Patrick Gale novel I've read, sensible Quaker Anthony Middleton meets fragile artist Rachel Kelly and somewhat rescues her by taking her back to his childhood home in Cornwall. The novel begins with Rachel's death and then paints a portrait of their family life, through them and their somewhat pretentiously named children Garfield, Morwenna, Hedley and Petroc.
The novel does this in a non sequiturial sense moving not just from character to character, but shifting from past to present events. Each chapter begins with the notes presented in a posthumous exhibition alongside a piece of Rachel's work and then a snapshot of a point in her life or in the life of one of the family, building up like jigsaw pieces until a cohesive whole can be seen.
And so in one chapter we have adult Garfield in the aftermath of the revelation which follows his mothers death, then Hedley working in a cinema in his late teens, Morwenna on her ninth birthday and so on, with each child getting both an older and younger narrative focus. Though this is non linear storytelling, which doesn't always work, this is a really successful example of this kind of format.
Rachel Kelly is bipolar which both fuels and often hinders her creative genius and in many ways the novel is the story of the legacy this leaves her children, both in terms of her artistry but also the impact both genetic and otherwise of living with a mentally ill parent, the childhoods of the older children peppered with bouts of her illness. I found Rachel to be a vivid often painfully accurate portrait of this disorder which gave the real suggestion that either Gale had done his research impeccably or had experience of an individual or individuals with that disorder.
The family is also Quaker, a branch of the Christian tree about which I am not particularly well informed but in the particular case of Anthony leaves a certain kind of spiritual peace surrounding restless unpredictable Rachel, providing a steady cocoon from the depths which others in her situation fall and are shown to fall. But what is interesting is that in this book that sense of peace is at times physically palpable, an accomplished thing for any writer to achieve. There is also a tremendous sense of place in the Cornish setting.
The secrets aspect, as in the secrets kept by Rachel which become clear after her death is less well done and in certain senses feels rather incomplete, though the book as a whole is graceful, engrossing and stays in your mind, both in those times you are not reading it and after its conclusion.
The best compliment I can pay this book is that I kept itching to pick it up and continue to read it, but, sadly for me, I had finished it four hours previously!!!! For this reason, a clear signifier of a great novel : 10/10
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