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434th out of 723 books
—
646 voters
Consequences
The Booker Prize-winning author's first novel since The Photograph is a sweeping saga of three generations of women, their lives, and loves
A chance meeting in St. James's Park begins young Lorna and Matt's intense relationship. Wholly in love, they leave London for a cottage in a rural Somerset village. Their intimate life together�Matt�s woodcarving, Lorna's self-discov...more
A chance meeting in St. James's Park begins young Lorna and Matt's intense relationship. Wholly in love, they leave London for a cottage in a rural Somerset village. Their intimate life together�Matt�s woodcarving, Lorna's self-discov...more
Hardcover, 272 pages
Published
May 31st 2007
by Viking Adult
(first published January 1st 2007)
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liked this novel. I always enjoy a Penelope Lively novel. This one is superbly written. The tone of the novel is soft and thoughtful, with little that jars. Considering the fact that two of the three heroines in the novels die prematurely, as does the man who's the center focus of the novel, that's an achievement. Lively has a way of muting the traumatic by focusing on ancillary things. The way one gets through periods of great sorrow or stress by cleaning the bathtub as it's never been cleaned...more
Boring. The entire concept of fiction is that a character's choices lead to consequences. It is how any novel is meant to move. Lively, however, decides to skip forward and try to do too much. Each generation gets replaced by the next in her narrative and as I've thought about it, I feel that the author's approach comes off as naive and disrespectful of characters as they age. In an attempt to express some feminist ideals, she ignores the rich cause and effect relationship that I long for in fol...more
I picked this up in the Popular Library the other day & read maybe a third of it. Gave it a good try, but I was frustrated at the lack of real characterization. Lorna meets Matthew & they fall in love instantly & never have even a momentary conflict. They marry, have a baby, & prove to be perfect parents defined by their hard work & artistic tastes. Their daughter Molly doesn't seem traumatized by having grown up an orphan; she too makes decisions on the basis of her tastes &...more
1 like · like · see review
Graceful and highly distilled (i. e., short---no Galsworthian saga here) story of three generations of women in one family. It's rare to read a novel with a visual artist as a main character---not counting all the novels about famous artists of history. The opening scene's depiction of an artist sketching on a park bench, therefore, was a great delight for me.
I liked it all the way through, too. In spite of some brusque transitions in the story line (remember, it's a short epic!), it's well con...more
I liked it all the way through, too. In spite of some brusque transitions in the story line (remember, it's a short epic!), it's well con...more
Consequences: Something Logical or Naturally That Follows, 28 Jul 2007
4.5 stars
"Consequences: Something that logically or naturally follows from an action or condition.
The relation of a result to its cause.
A logical conclusion or inference." Dictonarly.com
"The women are buffeted by events but do not break. The consequences come from their refusal to conform; which generally leads to happiness." Ruaridh Nicoll.
Penelope Lively manages to tell a story of three generations of women, from the e...more
Loved it! The story begins in London with Lorna, and tells of her family life, sudden marriage, the cottage they live in, their daughter Molly, and the war that takes her husband Matt's life. She marries her husband's friend Lucas but dies as she gives birth to Simon.
The story jumps about 15 years and focus is on daughter, Molly, who works as a librarian, then for a publisher. Molly is a selfish young thing. She becomes pregnant but won't marry the publisher, James, and raises Ruth alone. She m...more
The story jumps about 15 years and focus is on daughter, Molly, who works as a librarian, then for a publisher. Molly is a selfish young thing. She becomes pregnant but won't marry the publisher, James, and raises Ruth alone. She m...more
Penelope Lively won the Booker, the literary prize for writers in English I respect the most, so she must be worth reading. That was my thought when Consequences fell into my hands. As it turns out this four-generation family saga (done in 268 pages) is a rather slight work whose depth doesn’t begin to match its scope. We begin with a charming romantic scene in St. James park in the nineteen thirties, which romance carries us to a rude Somerset cottage. Then we rush on through mostly predictabl...more
Jan 04, 2012
Paul Curd
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
first-edition,
fiction
Penelope Lively has been writing for thirty years now, and she has produced around forty novels. It is safe to say that in that time she has learnt her craft to perfection.
Consequences is the story of three generations of women, beginning in the 1930s with Lorna, then focusing on Molly in the post-war years and finally rounding off the tale with up-to-date Ruth. But this is no 'family saga' novel. The book is about the way time changes perceptions, and about memory and loss.
Lively paints with qu...more
Consequences is the story of three generations of women, beginning in the 1930s with Lorna, then focusing on Molly in the post-war years and finally rounding off the tale with up-to-date Ruth. But this is no 'family saga' novel. The book is about the way time changes perceptions, and about memory and loss.
Lively paints with qu...more
I loved this novel. Penelope Lively's beautiful, understated prose successfully evokes the changing face of British life from the mid-thirties to the 21st century. When Lorna Bradley meets Matt Faraday in St. James's Park on a June day in 1935 their lives change and those of future generations are set in motion. Lorna is from a well-to-do family but has never felt she belonged and rebels against social expectations. Matt is a promising artist, a wood engraver. When they decide to marry her paren...more
There is something in the writing of Penelope Lively that never fails to captivate me. Perhaps it is due to the subtlety of her writing, the way in which the characters are built up so slowly and perfectly that you feel like you know all you need without any of the long soliloquies found throughout much contemporary literature. Perhaps it is because many of them are set in an England similar to the one that I myself have experienced, a past that I know of and have been told about by my grandpare...more
Apr 20, 2009
Marigold
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
family-saga,
set-in-england
I really like P. Lively – there’s a certain something about the way she writes. Big things are understated while little things are lovingly described in great detail. I see from other reviews that a lot of people feel the characters in Consequences were given short shrift in an effort to create this short multi-generational saga. For me, Lively pulled it off & it was a success. I felt like she was trying not to create fully fledged life stories—but to create a sense of the timelessness of li...more
This book is about 3 generations of pretty independent minded women, starting with Lorna in 1935 who marries outside of her class and into a very different life from that of the upper middleclass home she was brought up in. He daughter, Molly, also chooses a path which is different from what society prescribed for woman in the early 1960s, and finally Lorna's granddaughter Ruth, finds her independent spirit as she approaches her 40s. All of these women were indpendent minded in their own right f...more
I know I've asked this question before but I really do wonder how a big a factor our moods (or where we are at in our lives) have on whether we like or dislike a book. I picked this book up about three years ago, read the first page and was immediately disappointed with the depiction of the meeting and falling madly in love of the two main characters, Matt and Lorna. It was dealt with in such a perfunctuory fashion that I didn't want to read more. I felt cheated, put the book aside and picked up...more
My second book by this author, who also wrote FAMILY ALBUM. I like this author, but this book wasn't my fave. The idea behind it is that seemingly meaningless choices we make (Should we take this bus or the later one? Should I sit down on this bench in the park and feed the birds for a moment or hurry on my way? Should I take a look at the jobs wanted section of the paper left behind on this train seat or just stare out the window?) can lead to momentous changes of direction in our lives. To dep...more
The stories of three generations of women told in sparse but elegant prose, Lively covers 70 years of social history in England, begining just before WWII, in this rather short novel, with characters entering and leaving the stage often. Of the three female protagonists, the grandmother Lorna and mother Molly emerge, play their roles in centre stage, and exit rather suddenly and it is left to daughter Ruth to tie the loose ends and bring the novel to its circular close.
The character's lives are...more
The character's lives are...more
2 likes · like · see review
Feb 07, 2011
Kathleen Hagen
added it
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
2011-audio-books,
2011-general-fiction
Consequences, by Penelope Lively, narrated by Josephine Bailey, produced by Tantor Media, downloaded from audible.com.
This is a love story involving three different generations of a family. Matt and Lorna meet by chance in St. James Park in London. Matt is a wood engraver who is very good and is making his living in the art world. Lorna comes from upper middle class stock and her parents don’t believe that an artist can support their daughter. The two get married anyway. Lorna becomes pregnant,...more
This is a love story involving three different generations of a family. Matt and Lorna meet by chance in St. James Park in London. Matt is a wood engraver who is very good and is making his living in the art world. Lorna comes from upper middle class stock and her parents don’t believe that an artist can support their daughter. The two get married anyway. Lorna becomes pregnant,...more
I have had the luck to read great book after great book recently. Penelope Lively's writing is crisp, clean, using a handful of details to capture a setting, a few words to encompass emotional complexities. She is rather the polar opposite of A.S. Byatt, whose latest book I am also reading and enjoying right now. Byatt offers you elaborate lists of the items found in a museum or the clothing choices of everyone at a costume party, a surfeit of rich and finely picked-out details that immerse you...more
Rating this book was conflicting for me. Do I only give more than 3 stars if I agree with everything in the book? Do I only give more than 3 if the characters share my values? Apparently not.
I haven't read a Penelope Lively book before and now wonder how I'd never heard of her before? I think she is a wonderful writer. I really loved the timeline of moving from the 1930's to the 2000's with this fractured family tree. Her imagery of times and places, her depictions of people and feelings, and he...more
I haven't read a Penelope Lively book before and now wonder how I'd never heard of her before? I think she is a wonderful writer. I really loved the timeline of moving from the 1930's to the 2000's with this fractured family tree. Her imagery of times and places, her depictions of people and feelings, and he...more
This is a light read. Basically the book begins just before the start of the Second World War and moves up to about 2004? It follows the lives of three generations of women in the same family and tells their stories. However, it leaves a lot out and skips over some interesting events that I would love to have read about. There are some characters that floated in and out - male characters mostly: Lucas, James, Peter, Sam - that were sadly neglected and let fall by the way-side. How did they feel?...more
Feb 05, 2009
Bookmarks Magazine
added it
In spare, elegant prose, Booker Prize
I stumbled across Consequences on GoodReads and added it to my list of books to read because I was intrigued by the idea of a multigenerational book. However, Consequences is a multigenerational book that was poorly executed.
Lively’s best characters, Lorna and Molly, exist at the beginning of the book but by the time you finally get to “know” Ruth, Molly’s daughter and Lorna’s granddaughter, I had lost all interest in her plight. As a whole, the characters were very one-dimensional and I couldn’...more
Lively’s best characters, Lorna and Molly, exist at the beginning of the book but by the time you finally get to “know” Ruth, Molly’s daughter and Lorna’s granddaughter, I had lost all interest in her plight. As a whole, the characters were very one-dimensional and I couldn’...more
This was a pleasant read, but a bit more lightweight than I expected. The story follows Lorna, Molly, and Ruth, who are mother, daughter and granddaughter.
What I liked: 3 interesting female characters; a good picture of life in England leading up to and during WW II; a spotlight on 2 artistic skills of the time; the character Lucas; the authors writing style which is clear, concise and very readable.
What I didn't like: the 3 females didn't really interact much because the author more or less d...more
What I liked: 3 interesting female characters; a good picture of life in England leading up to and during WW II; a spotlight on 2 artistic skills of the time; the character Lucas; the authors writing style which is clear, concise and very readable.
What I didn't like: the 3 females didn't really interact much because the author more or less d...more
Consequences is the story of falling in love, breaking down social barriers, dying young, raising children, falling out of love, finding yourself, growing old, and falling back in love again. On this level it can be read like a drama of three generations of women in one British family. But I found the story to be much more.
For me it showed the reach of our ancestors across time, the passing of the torch from one generation to the next, and the way events can come full circle over the course of...more
For me it showed the reach of our ancestors across time, the passing of the torch from one generation to the next, and the way events can come full circle over the course of...more
As usual, Lively's characters come alive for me in her writing. This story starts with a young couple: Lorna, from an upper class background and Matt, an artist working in wood engravings. As the story follows their married life, living in a rural cottage without electricity or running water, the characters show theirselves more clearly. The novel continues with their daughter, Molly and her daughter Ruth. The theme of love comes through strongly here, both the love between women and men and the...more
I loved reading this book, which had all the elements I like in a novel: a moving story, interesting and authentic characters, a strong sense of place that influences the characters, relationships that have highs and lows, strong and independent women, families that span more than one generation, and characters who learn from their experiences. Penelope Lively's writing is very clear and the feature I like best is that she leaves out dull parts about her characters’ lives causing the story to mo...more
The first part of this book was enchanting. I like Lively's writing style and her prose: "Everything that might be said hung in the air, until none of them could stand it any longer..." But then everything changes, and the book starts to jump around, and it never regained my interest. I wonder if it was intended to resemble Matt's engravings? Also, and this is a minor quibble, the description on the dust jacket is wrong. It says that Lorna is pregnant when Matt dies, and this is just not true. P...more
1 like · like · see review
Consequences is a thoughtful, elegantly written book that I keep thinking of as graceful. While the plot is filled with drama, spans three generations, and includes war, death, sex, and every deep and dramatic emotion possible, it nonetheless floats along without ever bogging down in sentimentality or morbidity. Lively's prose is clear and concise, and after slogging through some of too-long books recently, it was also something of a breath of fresh air.
The book tells the story of a chance meeti...more
The book tells the story of a chance meeti...more
Penelope Lively is one of my favorite authors, but I hadn't read anything by her for a while. What a delight to return to her with this book, which is a gentle, wise story of three generations of women. The title seems weighty and perhaps portentous, but it simply refers to life -- that any choice or circumstance leads to consequences; as usual, Lively's disarmingly understated writing style tells the women's stories simply and well. A quick, warm, engaging read that's sending me back to the boo...more
A chance meeting in St. James's Park begins young Lorna and Matt's intense relationship. Wholly in love, they leave London for a cottage in a rural Somerset village. Their intimate life together--Matt's woodcarving, Lorna's self-discovery, their new baby, Molly--is shattered with the arrival of World War II. In 1960s London, Molly happens upon a forgotten newspaper and a seemingly small moment that leads to her first job and, eventually, a pregnancy by a wealthy man who wants to marry her but wh...more
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Penelope Lively CBE (born March 17, 1933) is a prolific, popular and critically acclaimed author of fiction for both children and adults. She has been shortlisted three times for the Booker Prize, winning once for Moon Tiger in 1987.
Born in Cairo in 1933, she spent her early childhood in Egypt, before being sent to boarding school in England at the age of twelve. She read Modern History at St Anne...more
More about Penelope Lively...
Born in Cairo in 1933, she spent her early childhood in Egypt, before being sent to boarding school in England at the age of twelve. She read Modern History at St Anne...more
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“If we had not met, that day, I think I would have imagined you somehow.”
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7 people liked it
“I have no idea where I am going, she thought, but I have begun.”
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6 people liked it
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Apr 11, 2013 03:55am