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Faith Fox
by
Jane Gardam
Faith Fox has led a life full of heartbreak and abandonment, lacking in simplicity and love—and she's not even one week old. She has suffered the unexpected and inexplicable loss of her mother in childbirth; her father, an overworked doctor grown callous with stress, has neither the ability nor the interest to take on the difficult task of raising his child alone; her gran...more
Paperback, 312 pages
Published
February 16th 2005
by Carroll & Graf
(first published 1996)
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Nophoto-f-25x33 This was a good light read. Jane Gardam mercilessly skewers the British upper class yet again as she peels back the layers of customary politeness and reveals snobbery and selfishness beneath. The story revolves around the birth of a baby whose mother dies in childbirth who is passed from hand to hand as no-one in her family wishes to take care of her. She is delivered to her uncle, a charismatic priest who runs a delapidated and failing Priory where he is so invovled in what he ...more
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Jane Gardam is one of my new-found favorite authors and this, too is a good book, though every character save Faith Fox, Toots, Dotty and Phillip has no redeeming qualities until Faith's grandmother comes around at the end. Could be a scathing portrait of the increased selfishness of humans in this age where it has become easier than ever to minimize contact with others, and get lost in one's own little world with no regard for others. These characters aren't meant to be mean-spirited, I don't b...more
Synopsis from book: Faith Fox, set in early '90s Britain, centers around newborn Faith Fox, the daughter of the sweet, healthy, and hearty pearl of her Surrey village, Holly Fox, who inexplicably dies in childbirth. Faith's father can't and won't look after her. Holly's mother—a matron from Surrey's gin-and-tonic belt who is ostensibly full of good nature, good sense, and sociability—refuses to acknowledge the baby whose birth killed the daughter she loved. And so an extraordinary group of famil...more
Pbbbbbbbbbbbttttttttttttttttttttt.
This is the second of her novels that I have attempted, and both times I started with vigor, only to be bored, and then skimming. I get that they are about British class and regionalism, but I just don't really like her style of writing. Eerything happens to slow for me and I feel that I am totally missing all the nuanced about British classism. Well, I tried. Back to being a stupid American reader, I suppose.
This is the second of her novels that I have attempted, and both times I started with vigor, only to be bored, and then skimming. I get that they are about British class and regionalism, but I just don't really like her style of writing. Eerything happens to slow for me and I feel that I am totally missing all the nuanced about British classism. Well, I tried. Back to being a stupid American reader, I suppose.
This book had a couple of wonderful chapters right smack in the middle of the book & another wonderful chapter at the end, but for the most part there were too many not particularly likable or interesting, mostly aristocratic English characters not sufficiently bound by a compelling story for me to get caught up in these few months of their lives after the one character who binds them together dies in childbirth.
Peopled with eccentric (but credible) and some great characters - I think it's a big love story - about doting unconditional parental love and deep spousal love and erotic obsession and carelessly casual love. I wonder if it's a bit about our obsession with our own image and affairs blinding us to what's important.
I had never heard of Jane Gardam before someone gave me this book. I liked it a lot. She has an acerbic wit that appeals to my sense of the ridiculous. I picked up three more of her titles at a used book store. Watch this space for more... and read this book!
Laurel
rated it
Recommends it for:
anyone who likes loads of eccentric characters
Shelves:
just-finished
It took me awhile to get into this book as there are a lot of characters to sort through...but by the end I was really happy to be reading it and following most but not all of these folks through their stories. Everyone except perhaps young Phillip,crazy old Madeleine, and Toots and Dolly (they deserve a book of their own...the passages about them are so vivid and believable) are busy busy busy doing exactly what they should not be doing...skirting the real issues at hand and being completely s...more
Garham is a fabulous writer, still at it in England at age 80 or more. I loved her "God On The Rocks," and this one as much.
Meh. This book started out as intriguing but fell short for me, and I found myself skimming. Maybe I need to read more British authors? Anyone have a recommendation for a book written by an exciting British author?
good-humored and funny novel of manners, with people of all ages and conditions
I wasn't crazy about this book, but it passed the time.
this was one of the funniest and cutest books i've ever read.
Good book!
As engaging a bunch of characters as I've ever encountered -- from potty old ladies to dyslexic 10-year-olds, you really want to meet them, and maybe even tell them what's what. But they figure it out in the end.
puck
rated it
Recommends it for:
people who like circular stories about... everything. and anglophiles.
this book goes everywhere. it's not at all what i had expected - it was more amusing, more heartbreaking, more everything. less boring. it has a feeling of needing a more grounded context than where i'm currently at, somehow, but it was intriguing all the way through.
Krob
added it
What an unusual book! The title character, Faith Fox, never really appears in the book. She is an orphaned infant, and the story is about all of the people who take care of her. The author won several prizes in Great Britain.
I am loving this book! Great, solid writing and characters. Magnificant, touching and funny--reminds me of an Iris Murdoch novel, which is a very good thing. I am totally running out and reading all of her stuff.
I just finished Faith Fox and I'm exhausted. The story was very similar to Abide With Me but FUNNY! Advice to all Sawler Girl readers. Skip Elisabeth Srout and go right to Jane Gardham.
Very light and fluffy so far. Think I may have read it before...
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Jane Mary Gardam OBE is a British author of children's and adult fiction. She also reviews for the Spectator and the Telegraph, and writes for BBC radio. She lives in Kent, Wimbledon and Yorkshire. She has won numerous literary awards including the Whitbread Award, twice. She is mother of Tim Gardam, Principal of St Anne's College, Oxford. Jane has been awarded the Heywood Hill Literary Prize for ...more
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