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Sex and Stravinsky
The time is 1995, but everybody is linked by their past. Brilliant Australian Caroline can command everyone except her own ghoulish mother, which means that things aren't easy for Josh and Zoe, her husband and twelve-year-old daughter.
Josh has bizarre origins in a South African mining town, but now teaches mime in Bristol. Zoe reads girls' ballet books and longs for ballet...more
Josh has bizarre origins in a South African mining town, but now teaches mime in Bristol. Zoe reads girls' ballet books and longs for ballet...more
Hardcover, 303 pages
Published
by Turtleback Books
(first published January 1st 2010)
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Oh dear. This was a weird one!
It’s not so often that you start a new book and then become totally surprised when it changes genre halfway through.
The first half of this book seemed like contemporary fiction (quite likeable), then it changed into chick lit (quite unlikeable) before transforming into the weirdest and most banal brand of young adult fiction (quite unpalatable). Just goes to show that books can uncannily change everything they ever seemed to be about before your very eyes and withou...more
It’s not so often that you start a new book and then become totally surprised when it changes genre halfway through.
The first half of this book seemed like contemporary fiction (quite likeable), then it changed into chick lit (quite unlikeable) before transforming into the weirdest and most banal brand of young adult fiction (quite unpalatable). Just goes to show that books can uncannily change everything they ever seemed to be about before your very eyes and withou...more
Barbara Trapido excels in developing elaborate character descriptions. Her heroine Caroline is a woman driven to perfectionism and control by parental indifference. Caroline possesses enormous energy, tons of creative ability, effective coping mechanisms and superb budgeting expertise bordering on extreme meanness.
Such depth of characterisation makes it possible to sympathise with Caroline’s constant search for parental approval as she expertly navigates the narrow channel between her husband’s...more
Such depth of characterisation makes it possible to sympathise with Caroline’s constant search for parental approval as she expertly navigates the narrow channel between her husband’s...more
This is the first book I have read by this author and I am grateful to Sarah for introducing me to her books. I really enjoyed this novel and found it hard to put down. The characters are engagingly different. Caroline is the multi-talented Australian Amazon who settles for life in a coverted bus outside Oxford and marriage to a much smaller man who has a degree in theatre arts and mime.
Her daughter would love to have ballet lessons but there is not enough money for this since Caroline feels obl...more
Her daughter would love to have ballet lessons but there is not enough money for this since Caroline feels obl...more
There is a writer I consider to be the antidote to Women's Fiction. It is Barbara Trapido. Oh Barbara Trapido! ~~sigh~~ Barbara Trapido is my bellwether for novels about modern women. There is nothing out of the ordinary about her storylines. No one is starting a not for proffit to help the urchins of the world, there isn't a killer lurking in the background of the heroine's life and no intrepid reporter eager to tell the world of an upcoming pandemic. Still, she dazzles me. Her plots are what c...more
I quite liked this book.
The book is about two families and all the ways they are intertwined and have been for over 20 years.
Each chapter is about a different person in each family. It can get a bit confusing at times as they jump back and forth in time a lot and each chapter is very long, but at least all questions that pops into your head while reading it gets answered at some point in the book.
The book is set mainly in Britain and Africa but the places aren't described much so it didn't lea...more
The book is about two families and all the ways they are intertwined and have been for over 20 years.
Each chapter is about a different person in each family. It can get a bit confusing at times as they jump back and forth in time a lot and each chapter is very long, but at least all questions that pops into your head while reading it gets answered at some point in the book.
The book is set mainly in Britain and Africa but the places aren't described much so it didn't lea...more
Barbra Trapido has a knack of creating quirky, unusual characters that resemble no-one you are ever likely to meet in real life. In her latest novel there are at least six of these. My favourite is the perfectionist Caroline who can do almost anything from making a three-dimensional multi-tiered birthday card to creating her own wedding gown from a remant found in some second hand furniture. Her perfection fails, however, when it comes to resisting the emotional blackmail of her mother. The read...more
Well, it’s an attention grabbing title, but I would have rushed out and bought a new book by Barbara Trapido whatever it had been called. It was around the time of Juggling and Temples of Delight that I first fell in love with her writing. And the backlist that I investigated and the new books that I rushed out to find continued the romance.
The words that came to mind were warm, quirky and real. So Sex and Stravinsky came as a surprise! What did it mean?
Well, it seems that the author has drawn i...more
The words that came to mind were warm, quirky and real. So Sex and Stravinsky came as a surprise! What did it mean?
Well, it seems that the author has drawn i...more
I really enjoyed this. There's not a lot to it, the ending (where the two couples swap round) was embarrassingly predictable and the young daughter's voice (like, like, like) was stereotyped and trite. But...despite all that, it was an easy and absorbing read. And I have to admit I was really completely invovled and horrified when Caroline discovers that her mother, whose mortgage she has been paying to her own detriment, has left everything to her other daughter. Awful.
I love Barbara Trapido. The first book of hers I read was Brother of the More Famous Jack which I devoured and truth to tell none has quite matched that yet though I wonder what I would think if I reread it. I like the way with this book that she tells the story through each character's eyes although I felt sad that neither daughter was very close to her mother. And the ending was a bit pat but all in all very enjoyable.
This was okay, it didn't move me overly much but the characterisation of Caroline as a veritable wonder woman was very appealing - how can you not wish that you were a woman who can make her own wedding dress from random cast-offs of cloth from charity shops and can pack things into a hat box without wasting an inch of space? Secretly I'm sure we all wish we were like that.
I have been told by my online book club that this was not the Trapido to begin with. The sentiment has been echoed by reviews on goodreads. I enjoyed the complex characters. But admit it didn't leave me gushing. Yet given I accidentally plunged into the author's work which assumed previous tastes, I am going to read (or try to get a hold of) another Trapido.
I loved the characters in this novel, set between England and South Africa. I always enjoy Barbara Trapido's writing and her attention to detail that makes you recognize places, types of people, the sense of an era..
But what a strange ending to this book - all tied up with a bow into a farcical series of coincidences and resolutions. Was it post modern, stuff you reader, picking up on the operatic theme of the book? I think the latter, but hmmm...
But what a strange ending to this book - all tied up with a bow into a farcical series of coincidences and resolutions. Was it post modern, stuff you reader, picking up on the operatic theme of the book? I think the latter, but hmmm...
i leap on any new Trapido and this was certainly a smoothly compelling read, but it felt slight - maybe as if the ground has been mined a little too much. also i kept getting flashes of Paton Walsh's A School For Lovers, which pulled off something similar with more elan. (but it's Trapido, so it's still very good.)
I really enjoyed this. The build up as the characters intertwine and the climax as they meet was very good. The main characters were interesting and likeable ( apart from the two that were meant to be instantly dislike able). The very very end was a little weak and flat.
I love Barbara Trapido. Her writing is wonderful, her characters are quirky and wonderfully human, and the parallel between the storyline and Josh's favourite art form is charming... The only reason this one gets 3 stars instead of 4 is because of the ending. Barbara, what are you trying to say about the winners and losers in life?
Yet another of Trapido's comedies of modern manners, in which all the characters are impossible yet not improbable and everyone ends up seemingly happy at the end of all the confusion. I love her sly observantion of the nuances of hunman interaction: for me, she keeps the Austen tradition alive, even though her people live larger and far more mobile lives.
A quirky novel about two familes, one English and one South African. Each chapter is told from a different person's point of view, all leading towards a grand finale. The coincidences in the plot are charming and not meant to be taken seriously.
Thoroughly enjoyable read of global proportions.Characters,particularly Josh, Caroline, Cat and Giacomo were perfectly crafted. While the weaving together of these very separate lives was a little too heavily constructed --it worked.
Read for reading group.
This is an odd one, its an easy read. It's ok, until the last quarter of the book and then you want to read on to find out what happens next. It's just a shame the rest of the novel isn't like that.
This is an odd one, its an easy read. It's ok, until the last quarter of the book and then you want to read on to find out what happens next. It's just a shame the rest of the novel isn't like that.
I had read The Travelling Hornplayer by Barbara Trapido years ago and loved it. I enjoyed this story as well. Each chapter advances the story from the perspective of one of the main characters. The ending is predictable, but the characters are all charmingly drawn. It's a fun read.
This is probably a bit generous, 3.5 would be more accurate. I enjoyed it and romped through it, but once again the ending was a let down. Too neat and a bit sudden. However the style of writing and flow of the narrative is always intriguing.
Really enjoyed this book. I loved the way all the stories were intertwined to begin with, then separated, and showed how they all came back together again. The only downfall was the unrealistic ending, but other than that it was a great read.
Tangled lives maybe, but ending seemed just a little too contrived and neat. From the outset Caroline's reaction to her mother seemed far fetched. Still an engrossing read.
predictable even with the twist about the witch of a mother.... slow moving too. When will I learn not to judge a book by the (probably) paid reviews on the covers?
Another set of quirky characters, some amusing some you want to shake but as usual an entertaining story which feels abit like a Shakespeare comedy or British farce towards the end but well worth a recommendation.
As always, witty and amusing, with middle class mores and a plot that is a little too dove-tailed and coincidence full. Enjoyable all the same.
Jul 10, 2012
MB
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
Fans of Elinor Lipman? Marika Cobbold?
Reading this made me realize how shallow a lot of the books I've been reading lately have been.
Contented sigh....
Wish she'd write more.
Contented sigh....
Wish she'd write more.
Nothing Barbara Trapido has written has had the same impact on me that 'Brother of the more famous Jack' had - that was one of those books read and re-read many, many times - and 'Sex and Stravinsky' doesn't match up either, but whether that's me or it who can say?
This was fine, interesting, sometimes profoundly irritating, separate characters are discovered to have past links and, as the blurb says 'are all drawn together' OK, they were and it was moderately interesting finding out how, but str...more
This was fine, interesting, sometimes profoundly irritating, separate characters are discovered to have past links and, as the blurb says 'are all drawn together' OK, they were and it was moderately interesting finding out how, but str...more
Aug 18, 2010
Cath
is currently reading it
Just starting. First of Barbara Trapido's books I have read for ages. I really enjoyed her earlier novels so I looking forward to this one!
Calcified Trapido - clever as ever, but relatively joyless, saying far too much for too little impact. But wth - I like it.
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