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326th out of 855 books
—
2,629 voters
The Girl in a Swing
A shy young man meets a beautiful woman in the company of a young girl. He finds himself swept off of his feet and married to her, bringing her with him to live in his family home. She is his erotic dream come true; she does everything she can to bind him to her and join him in his comfortable life.
Soon, however, odd things begin to happen. Things in the house are strangel...more
Soon, however, odd things begin to happen. Things in the house are strangel...more
Paperback, 371 pages
Published
March 2nd 1981
by Signet
(first published 1980)
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Another rich and absorbing novel by Richard Adams, one of my very favorite authors. In his well-known Watership Down, and in his lesser known Shardik, Adams creates a fictional world from which you emerge believing in its existence. In The Girl in a Swing, he creates Kathe, whose beauty and hedonism you want to believe in, but, I found, I am unsure if I can. Anyway, I recommend it, but first you should read his Shardik, which I consider to be stunningly imaginative and a gorgeous read.
Richard Adams is 'hit or miss' with me. 'Maia', for instance, seemed almost smutty when compared to the whimsical beauty of 'Watership Downs', though the imagery was equally stunning and the characters intriguing. I read it in its entirety but had a bad taste in my mouth at the end. However, this book has stayed w/ me unlike any book I've read in a long while. I just can't describe it, neither will I try to give an adequate synopsis. Suffice it to say that it is a psychological thriller that dis...more
This was one of those books which can be read with enjoyment once but as a lifetime is so short and there so many excellent novels to be read, one can hardly imagine wishing to read again. There was a television series in the UK in the 1970's with horror stories of 45 minutes and this story would have provided a good script for one of those. The novel is arguably a little too long for the stroy line and there is perhaps too much aficionado talk about porcelain and pottery as opposed to the sinis...more
I hardly know how to describe this book. It started out very slowly, and I was wondering if I'd have the patience to work my way through it, but suddenly it captured me completely, and I read the last 200 pages in one sitting.
It is so very, very different from Watership Down that it's almost hard to believe it was written by the same author. Instead of being a social commentary, The Girl in a Swing touches upon the supernatural while tying it up to Christian theology.
I'd been warned that the boo...more
It is so very, very different from Watership Down that it's almost hard to believe it was written by the same author. Instead of being a social commentary, The Girl in a Swing touches upon the supernatural while tying it up to Christian theology.
I'd been warned that the boo...more
2 likes · like · see review
Feb 04, 2010
Rosina Lippi
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
fiction,
reviewed-here
The Girl in a Swing is absolutely nothing like Watership Down, no talking animals at all. Instead this is a story about love and obsession and ghosts, and it’s really spectacular. The main character is a young man from a stable family who has taken over his father’s fine china business in a small town in England. He has the slightest bit of extrasensory perception, which shows itself only rarely in his boyhood and young adulthood.
Traveling on business to Scandinavia, he meets a beautiful woman a...more
Traveling on business to Scandinavia, he meets a beautiful woman a...more
4 likes · like · see review
I found this book deeply disturbing. It is a book of two parts. It is a romantic story for the first 300 pages or so, charming without being completely compelling. There are just enough odd occurances in this first part to keep you interested and engaged, guessing where the author was going with this, and thinking you had a good inkling. Adams' prose is always elegant, and thus you remain content as the story chugs along. And then he hurls a sledgehammer at you in the last 75 pages, jolting you...more
This is my first read of Richard Adams novel.The first 100 pages of the novel is really boring.I thought to stop reading this further.But after 100 pages it has gained momentum and absorbed me into the novel totally.The author has great knowledge about ceramics,pottery and antiques.It is reflected in the story.The suspense element is maintained through out the novel.Only at last we got to know it.Though the first half is boring,second half ties the reader to the book.
But some questions are unan...more
But some questions are unan...more
I have read and re-read "Watership Down" so many times - first when I was somewhere around 10 & through the last almost 2 decades and it is still one of my hands-down favorites so I was interested to read a book by Adams about people. For the first maybe 50 pages I honestly wasn't sure I was going to make it. It was dullish in the beginning than was staggeringly dreadful when it becomes a lecture on his ceramics business for what seemed like forever. I personally recommend skimming that part...more
Interesting read. Early on, I had to check the publication date: the writing has a formal quality, and almost nothing locates the story in time except for a car and telephone. Without these artifacts, I'd be unable to tell if the action took place twenty years ago or one hundred and twenty.
I found the first half very slow going, with its stodgy descriptions of the protagonist's upbringing, academic training, and growing collector's passion for the china trade. When the mysterious Kathe enters th...more
I found the first half very slow going, with its stodgy descriptions of the protagonist's upbringing, academic training, and growing collector's passion for the china trade. When the mysterious Kathe enters th...more
The only other book by this author that I have read is Watership Down. That was a long time ago, but I recall loving it. This book is no Watership Down. It is so confusing that I am going to accuse Adams of starting it up at different times,forgetting what he had already set down. It purports to be 'horror', but I was not horrified, if you don't count my reaction to his writing. There was hot sex, but that started with impotence, so I am not sure what we were to make of either. I am not sure wha...more
What a haunting book. Richard Adams has a supreme gift of language that raises everything he does to the level of the best Greek tragedies.
I read a battered paperback copy of this several years ago in a single weekend, each dip into it longer than the one before, until it became impossible for me to set it down - I had to follow it through to the end.
The Girl in a Swing does not reach a place in my head and heart like Watership Down, but it proves to me the universality of Adams' gift, that he...more
I read a battered paperback copy of this several years ago in a single weekend, each dip into it longer than the one before, until it became impossible for me to set it down - I had to follow it through to the end.
The Girl in a Swing does not reach a place in my head and heart like Watership Down, but it proves to me the universality of Adams' gift, that he...more
Frustrating. Overly verbose. Beautiful. It doesn't really start until 100 or so pages in, and then it had me. Adams goes into so much detail about ceramics and pottery that I found myself glazing over whenever he'd start to describe anything that wasn't directly related to the main characters. The relationship between Alan and Kathe was beautifully done and for me the suspense was in her and her implied secret. At the end I was left wondering if what I read into it all was correct. There are thi...more
Sep 11, 2012
Feliks
rated it
3 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
fave-horror,
my-library
Among a very few modern horror novels I've read which unleash a full, powerful, walloping, knockout-punch of crazy, disturbing horror ***only at the very end of the story***. Its just astounding. You rarely see this done, nowadays.
What makes it different from anything found in Stephen King's or Clive Barker's style is that it is more of a genuine novel from the start. It is innocuous; simple, pleasant, sweet. It has nice characterization; no 'stock' or 'prop' characters or obvious settings. Most...more
What makes it different from anything found in Stephen King's or Clive Barker's style is that it is more of a genuine novel from the start. It is innocuous; simple, pleasant, sweet. It has nice characterization; no 'stock' or 'prop' characters or obvious settings. Most...more
The Girl in a Swing - Richard Adams
I was describing to my sister an event early in this book (the school experiment) and she said, "that's like Steven King". [Not implying that Adams is copying, he's an original.] She's right -- i'd not thought of it, but that's one way to descibe how this book is different from some of his other books. That and that this book is not about rabbits, dogs, horses, or cats.
But there's no mistaking Adams -- the strong geographic base and wandering in real terrain, t...more
I was describing to my sister an event early in this book (the school experiment) and she said, "that's like Steven King". [Not implying that Adams is copying, he's an original.] She's right -- i'd not thought of it, but that's one way to descibe how this book is different from some of his other books. That and that this book is not about rabbits, dogs, horses, or cats.
But there's no mistaking Adams -- the strong geographic base and wandering in real terrain, t...more
Aug 21, 2011
Lisa (Harmonybites)
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
Lovers of Hitchockian Horror
You might know of Richard Adams as the author of Watership Down, the classic tale "about bunnies." Well, this is as far away as you can get from that novel. A blurb in the front cover from the New York Times Book Review calls it a story of "beautiful, haunting erotic love and an absolutely terrifying ghost story." It's not erotica--I'd call it more sensuous than erotic and the sex is rarely in any way explicit and certainly never in a pornographic way. What strikes me most is the gorgeousness of...more
A love story, a ghost story, a story which most definitely fits the definition of `haunting'. If you've seen the movie please do not judge the book by the film. I don't think the film was bad but that medium just cannot do justice to this sort of story. You have to live it for yourself. This novel and Trevanian's The Summer of Katya have haunted my imagination for over twenty years. I've read both books a number of times since the first read long ago and they only improve with age.
A gripping, twisting, erotic horror novel. Fascinating character development, even though questions remain at the end of the book. An unpredictable story (at least for me). This is a departure from most of what people know of Richard Adams' work.
It's like a tapestry of horror/supernatural themes, wound around an erotic love story, the history of ceramics, and the headlong journey of two star-crossed lovers.
It's like a tapestry of horror/supernatural themes, wound around an erotic love story, the history of ceramics, and the headlong journey of two star-crossed lovers.
Although I really enjoyed this story, it should probably be rated at least pg-13 due to the sexual nature of much of the storyline. It reminded me of Edgar Alan Poe in the haunting, driven, passion and mysterious forbodings.
I don't think I would read it again just because I remember it as being a bit racey, but it was definitely fascinating.
I don't think I would read it again just because I remember it as being a bit racey, but it was definitely fascinating.
This book was recommended to me by a friend, but sadly it was not one for me. On the positive side, I found the character of Desland sympathetic, enjoyed the author's very visual writing style, and was intrigued by the love affair for quite a long way into the book.
But there was constant question in the back of my mind as to why such a beautiful and desirable woman as Käthe would fall in love with introverted, awkward and by his own admission unattractive Desland. It just didn't ring true. And t...more
But there was constant question in the back of my mind as to why such a beautiful and desirable woman as Käthe would fall in love with introverted, awkward and by his own admission unattractive Desland. It just didn't ring true. And t...more
This is a three star book -- I liked it, and scenes from it (especially some of the erotic scenes) have stuck with me years after I last read it. One day I will read it again.
However, it is flawed. For one thing, it is too long and the plot advances too slowly and with too many long stretches where nothing much really happens. It is a deliberate device -- the little things that signal the advent of the ghost have to take place against a "normal" background, and the author has to build up the rea...more
However, it is flawed. For one thing, it is too long and the plot advances too slowly and with too many long stretches where nothing much really happens. It is a deliberate device -- the little things that signal the advent of the ghost have to take place against a "normal" background, and the author has to build up the rea...more
This completely blew me away. I read it in one sitting, until about 3 a.m., in about 1984. I've never read it since, and don't need to. For me, head and shoulders above his other laborious fictions. This is the real thing. To be compared with Fowles' "The Magus": because based, covertly, on experience.
Maia is one of my favorite novels, so I had high hopes for this book. But after finishing it, it's probably my least favorite Richard Adams novel. Most of the book was slow. Thankfully, the ending delivered a great payoff that made it worth slogging through the first half.
This wa certainly a change from Richard Adams's previous books, going from fantasy to real-life and I'm not sure it was such a smooth transition but he certainly maintained the air of mystery and I like d the book in spite of myself-
Mystery, love story, ghost story... can be classified many different ways....Very different from "Watership Downs" (by the same author). I find that since I read it years ago, parts of the story come back to my mind.
I liked it. He writes well and has a good story line but it did seem to take longer than it really needed to. Unlike Waterhsip Down or his The Plague Dogs, this book did seem to drag on a bit and that at several places. It was all I could do to not skip ahead when it was the same day to day stuff. It is not one I will bother reading again.
While this book had great potential it did not live up to it. It was way too verbose. It took over 300 pages to tell a story that could have been done in 200. As for ghost story, it should have never been given that label.
Read this when it was new, more than thirty years ago. My younger self admired it fully and sped through it with barely a pause. Undeservedly forgotten, like his other work, perhaps.
I enjoyed the slow pace, and old-fashioned feel but it felt a bit like he neeeded to tidy up loose ends. Why did he need to have ESP and then not have it anymore? Still, a nice change.
An interesting book, that seemed to be wondering in places then kicked in again but overall not as satisfying as I hoped it would be. A few too many loose ends for my liking.
hmm, this wasn't Watership Down (in every conceivable meaning). Not really sure what I think about it - weird, pretty gripping in places, 3 stars seems to be my go-to rating these days.
| topics | posts | views | last activity | |
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| Käthe's Secret | 10 | 35 | Feb 08, 2013 06:32pm |
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
Adams was born in Newbury, Berkshire. From 1933 until 1938 he was educated at Bradfield College. In 1938 he went up to Worcester College, Oxford to read Modern History. On 3 September 1939 Neville Chamberlain announced that the United Kingdom was at war with Germany. In 194...more
More about Richard Adams...
Adams was born in Newbury, Berkshire. From 1933 until 1938 he was educated at Bradfield College. In 1938 he went up to Worcester College, Oxford to read Modern History. On 3 September 1939 Neville Chamberlain announced that the United Kingdom was at war with Germany. In 194...more
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“Well,' replied Tony, 'I think [Christ's] line would be the same as it always has been - that [sex without marriage] is understandable and forgivable, but wrong to the extent that it's less than the best.”
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Dec 23, 2009 07:53am