The Whole Day Through
Length Of Time In Possession : around 8-12 months
This book is the third Patrick Gale I have read, following sister novels 'Notes From An Exhibition' and 'A Perfectly Good Man' both of which I greatly enjoyed. Separated into different intervals in everyday life (such as Lunch Break, and Evensong) it covers a longer, yet not wholly specified period.
I did struggle to identify why the book should be separated out in such a way as a device to weave the plot around, having considered it I think perhaps it is there to reflect how the life of a carer is often mapped out in such a way.
Laura and Ben find themselves reacquainted after a twenty year hiatus after each comes to Winchester to look after a relative, Laura her ailing mother and Ben his vulnerable younger brother.
Restrained and elegant, The Whole Day Through is a novel about yearning and loss, how tiny coincidental acts meant that the stars kept two people who were perfect for each other apart.
The writing is as high quality as I have come to expect from him, and he may eventually come to be one of few writers whose entire output I've read.
As a reader I understood the emotions conveyed so well, and yet, I felt almost cheated, cheated on, by the ending which was highly unsatisfactory!
I understand that real life is messy, and so it many ways it is an honest story about reality: real people, real situations. Life rarely turns out the way you plan, God laughs!
And yet, Patrick Gale, REALLY? Did you HAVE TO?
Verdict : 7/10
Destination : Shelves
Showing posts with label Patrick Gale. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Patrick Gale. Show all posts
Tuesday, 15 October 2013
Thursday, 17 January 2013
Book #10 A Perfectly Good Man by Patrick Gale
A Perfectly Good Man
Length Of Time In Possession : 9 months
Last July I read, really enjoyed, and highly recommended Notes From An Exhibition by Patrick Gale, the story of bipolar artist Rachel Kelly and her family.
My second Patrick Gale novel then is A Perfectly Good Man, it is not a sequel to the former but shares some crossover characters and has a similar literary device, building up a portrait of a mans life by taking snapshots of all the different people involved at different ages.
The good man in question is Barnaby Johnson, a local vicar in Cornwall whose story is told through his own eyes, as well as the eyes of his family and one or two parishoners. Each section introduces the character and the age they were in the time period this section covers. Dorothy at 24. Lenny at 20, Barnaby at 8 and so on. This tactic, also employed in Notes From An Exhibition is a device I really enjoy from Gale it really works, and so eventually we can see all of Barnaby's story from childhood to retirement.
There is something about the way in which Gale writes that I find completely engrossing, I get really involved in the world of the characters, but I also get a real sense of place and atmosphere.
Like "Notes" I felt this strong sense of the best of Christianity coming through the prose, forgiveness, acceptance, compassion and love. Barnaby may not be perfect, or indeed always good, he is flawed like all men, but he does the best that can be hoped for even with his mistakes. This is made even more clear by the juxtaposition of Barnaby to Modest, Modest has also made mistakes, Modest in some ways seeks to atone, but Modest will never be a good man, because his "good deeds" mask a less honourable intent, even when he tries to delude himself that this is not so.
If you haven't read Notes From An Exhibition I recommend doing so first, not because it's necessary, Perfectly Good Man isn't a real sequel, but because when the two novels do become linked through their characters, it was pleasurable already knowing who they were and so much about them.
In the end, this novel moved me enough to have a tiny cry when I finished it, this doesn't happen often for me. This is a really good book and I urge you to put it on your own "to read" list.
Destination : Ebook storage
10/10
Length Of Time In Possession : 9 months
Last July I read, really enjoyed, and highly recommended Notes From An Exhibition by Patrick Gale, the story of bipolar artist Rachel Kelly and her family.
My second Patrick Gale novel then is A Perfectly Good Man, it is not a sequel to the former but shares some crossover characters and has a similar literary device, building up a portrait of a mans life by taking snapshots of all the different people involved at different ages.
The good man in question is Barnaby Johnson, a local vicar in Cornwall whose story is told through his own eyes, as well as the eyes of his family and one or two parishoners. Each section introduces the character and the age they were in the time period this section covers. Dorothy at 24. Lenny at 20, Barnaby at 8 and so on. This tactic, also employed in Notes From An Exhibition is a device I really enjoy from Gale it really works, and so eventually we can see all of Barnaby's story from childhood to retirement.
There is something about the way in which Gale writes that I find completely engrossing, I get really involved in the world of the characters, but I also get a real sense of place and atmosphere.
Like "Notes" I felt this strong sense of the best of Christianity coming through the prose, forgiveness, acceptance, compassion and love. Barnaby may not be perfect, or indeed always good, he is flawed like all men, but he does the best that can be hoped for even with his mistakes. This is made even more clear by the juxtaposition of Barnaby to Modest, Modest has also made mistakes, Modest in some ways seeks to atone, but Modest will never be a good man, because his "good deeds" mask a less honourable intent, even when he tries to delude himself that this is not so.
If you haven't read Notes From An Exhibition I recommend doing so first, not because it's necessary, Perfectly Good Man isn't a real sequel, but because when the two novels do become linked through their characters, it was pleasurable already knowing who they were and so much about them.
In the end, this novel moved me enough to have a tiny cry when I finished it, this doesn't happen often for me. This is a really good book and I urge you to put it on your own "to read" list.
Destination : Ebook storage
10/10
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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