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170 ratings, 3.53 average rating, 67 reviews
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published
January 6th 2007
by Viking
binding
Hardcover, 288 pages
isbn
0670917281
(isbn13: 9780670917280)
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other reviews (showing 1-20 of 328)
Read in February, 2008
This beautifully written book takes the form of an oral narrative, recorded on a set of cassettes discovered beside the body of Rosamund, an elderly woman who has killed herself rather than let cancer do the job for her. It's the story of Rosamund's entanglement with her cousin Beatrix, a thoroughly self-centred and manipulative individual,and several generations of Beatrix's family.
As Rosamund's niece, Gill, listens to the tapes, she learns of the emotional disaster area that was Beatrix'...more
As Rosamund's niece, Gill, listens to the tapes, she learns of the emotional disaster area that was Beatrix'...more
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Read in July, 2007
recommends it for:
numerous people
Gosh, so interesting, such a strong bluesy mood to it, even if a bit slight as indeed the critics complain. But just so beautifully sustained and with such a cool feeling of the experimental about it--I wonder if Coe is feeling more experimental these days since his biography of B.S. Johnson? Anyhow, I read in a Guardian review that Coe took his inspiration from the novels of Rosamond Lehmann--which makes me want to go back and read Lehmann all over again (ahh, Dusty Answer). I found myself fasc...more
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Read in March, 2008
Incredibly beautiful and melancholy, which seems to be quite the undercurrent in Jonathan Coe's books that I've read. I devoured this book in the course of a few days, and it was well-worth it.
The book is about a family tragedy carried down through generations, and the woman who was connected to the family, much to the effect of the events haunting her deeply later.
Jonathan Coe is adept at telling human dramas that could easily seem quaint with another writer, but he makes it into beaut...more
The book is about a family tragedy carried down through generations, and the woman who was connected to the family, much to the effect of the events haunting her deeply later.
Jonathan Coe is adept at telling human dramas that could easily seem quaint with another writer, but he makes it into beaut...more
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Read in July, 2008
I liked this better than The Closed Circle and The Rotters Club, but not as much as What a Carve Up, Like a Fiery Elephant or the The House of Sleep.
Perhaps because I've read so much Jonathan Coe at this stage, I'm overly familiar and never engaged with the characters as being anything other than his latest fictional inventions. For what was a very sad story, I never got weepy.
But I thought the central theme - misery being handed down the generations, deepening like a coastal shelf - w...more
Perhaps because I've read so much Jonathan Coe at this stage, I'm overly familiar and never engaged with the characters as being anything other than his latest fictional inventions. For what was a very sad story, I never got weepy.
But I thought the central theme - misery being handed down the generations, deepening like a coastal shelf - w...more
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8 comments
Read in November, 2008
[Hmmm. After reading what I wrote, this review seems a bit too curmudgeonly for such a sweet book, but I'll let it stand.:]
I read this immediately after the long, unusual novel "The Savage Detectives" by Roberto Bolano, so it seemed a bit too straightforward at first. However, it was not long before the story captured me. I did enjoy the structure and Coe's version of multiple voices, but this did pale in comparison to Bolano's novel with voices that appear once and include thei...more
I read this immediately after the long, unusual novel "The Savage Detectives" by Roberto Bolano, so it seemed a bit too straightforward at first. However, it was not long before the story captured me. I did enjoy the structure and Coe's version of multiple voices, but this did pale in comparison to Bolano's novel with voices that appear once and include thei...more
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Read in August, 2008
I had to read this quite quickly as I felt it had the potential to put me into a bit of a funk. Plus it was very absorbing and I was holiday binge-reading so I ate it in an evening and a morning.
The first chapter, the set up, pissed me off mightily. Far too flowery. I don't know what Coe was trying to do, perhaps he was trying to distance his narrative voice from hers that would follow, but I almost put it down. I don't remember The Rotters' Club feeling like that.
Then it settles into t...more
The first chapter, the set up, pissed me off mightily. Far too flowery. I don't know what Coe was trying to do, perhaps he was trying to distance his narrative voice from hers that would follow, but I almost put it down. I don't remember The Rotters' Club feeling like that.
Then it settles into t...more
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Read in August, 2008
First, I liked this author's style of writing=one star. Second, I liked the format of this book (a great aunt leaves behind tape recordings describing pictures to help convey a story to a distant blind relative)=two star. But that is about it. The story is mainly about a woman and her relationships with her cousin, Beatrix who has a extremely dysfunctional mother, Ivy. Beatrix eventually has a daughter, Thea and turns into a dysfunctional mother herself. The cycle continues, until finally Th...more
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Read in July, 2008
Right, Mo's finished it now so I can review it. This book, I think, could have been amazing and emotional and really and truly gripping, but I found it all a bit sparse.
The entire book should have been dialogue, but it was all very 'written'. Even for an old woman (who might have a more formal grasp of the English language), this obviously wasn't spoken word. If she was writing a long letter to Imogen describing the photos, then it would have worked, but at no time did it really sound like ...more
The entire book should have been dialogue, but it was all very 'written'. Even for an old woman (who might have a more formal grasp of the English language), this obviously wasn't spoken word. If she was writing a long letter to Imogen describing the photos, then it would have worked, but at no time did it really sound like ...more
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Read in December, 2007
recommends it for:
Jeff and Nicola (I'll be giving it to you--happy holidays!)--and other Coe fans
The critical wisdom on this is, as many have mentioned, that it's slight--the generally suspenseful story eventually unfolding into some generically familiar family dynamics. Whatever... maybe. Even on its own terms, the story unfolds with an engrossing sense of momentum, with Coe's fantastic eye for detailing character and context obliquely, in passing.
What I loved--loved quite a bit, and perhaps unwisely? I read it in a couple of long swallows, over a couple of nights--what I loved was ...more
What I loved--loved quite a bit, and perhaps unwisely? I read it in a couple of long swallows, over a couple of nights--what I loved was ...more
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Read in July, 2008
I love Coe's The House of Sleep -- he's the architect of the most riotously funny footnote gag ever. Rain is not as baroquely weird as Sleep -- In fact, I'd put it in the same category with Penelope Lively and Carol Shields. Through the tapes bequeathed to a mysterious Imogen by his elderly narrator Rosamund, Coe lays bare the complex relationships of several generations of women.
Rosamund has chosen 20 photographs to describe to Imogen in order to explain the tangled history that began durin...more
Rosamund has chosen 20 photographs to describe to Imogen in order to explain the tangled history that began durin...more
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Read in November, 2008
I really enjoyed this novel, so much so that I devoured the entire thing in one sitting. Granted, I was on a train traveling from New York to Boston, but still. The conceit: an old woman dies, leaving three heirs (one of whom is MIA). In attempting to find this missing woman, the old woman's niece begins to listen to audiotapes that she's left behind, slowly unraveling the family's history through descriptions of photographs. It actually works much better than that description would indicate...more
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Read in May, 2008
recommends it for:
Adults
I enjoyed the way the story was told, through the description of pictures to a blind person. Every memory related is full of visual delights. The tale itself was interesting, an old woman's memories of a family dragged down by mental health issues, but I was left wanting more. I felt that the main character should have come to some realization about her own complicity in the story and that never happened. I also wanted to know more about those listening to the story, but that didn't happen e...more
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Read in February, 2008
Another stunner from Jonathan Coe.
A horse of another colour - still the same dark realism, but this time a novel of family and loss and what it takes to make someone who they are. Parts were profoundly disturbing, parts were very heartening but I was left feeling rather sad - it's quite a sad story although there are glimmers of redemption there too. Given the premise of the book (the description of photographs to someone who is blind) I did wonder how I would feel about it but Coes descrip...more
A horse of another colour - still the same dark realism, but this time a novel of family and loss and what it takes to make someone who they are. Parts were profoundly disturbing, parts were very heartening but I was left feeling rather sad - it's quite a sad story although there are glimmers of redemption there too. Given the premise of the book (the description of photographs to someone who is blind) I did wonder how I would feel about it but Coes descrip...more
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The bad news...it's not "House of Sleep" or "The Rotter's Club".
The good news...it's still a Jonathan Coe novel, and therefore better than pretty much anything else you'll read. I enjoyed "Like a Fiery Elephant", but it's sure good to have Mr. Coe back with a new novel.
This one has a pretty simple story, following the thread of Rosamund and her ties to Beatrix and Beatrix's family over a series of twenty described photographs. It took me a while to get into ...more
The good news...it's still a Jonathan Coe novel, and therefore better than pretty much anything else you'll read. I enjoyed "Like a Fiery Elephant", but it's sure good to have Mr. Coe back with a new novel.
This one has a pretty simple story, following the thread of Rosamund and her ties to Beatrix and Beatrix's family over a series of twenty described photographs. It took me a while to get into ...more
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Read in March, 2008
Rosamund has just passed away, and her neice finds a series of casettes that were apparently home-recorded. For the most part, Rosamund narrates this story via these tapes. Each chapter is based around a different photograph she is trying to describe for the benefit of a blind girl she long ago lost contact with. The story is propelled forward by the chronology of these photos, uncovering an untold family history of cruelty and tragedy. Coe's use of the descriptions of photographs serves as ...more
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Read in May, 2008
Gil's elderly aunt Rosamond dies and leaves her a series of audiotapes and instructions to find another heir, Imogen. Who's Imogen? Gil thinks she met her once at a birthday party of Rosamond's. The story is mostly Rosamond's, though occasionally brings us forth to the present as Gil and her daughters listen and react to the tapes.
It's ultimately a story about mothers and daughters and mistakes made and fixed (or not) and their impact on the next generation of women. It's well-written, a...more
It's ultimately a story about mothers and daughters and mistakes made and fixed (or not) and their impact on the next generation of women. It's well-written, a...more
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Read in May, 2008
The writing was good and the story was engaging. I enjoyed the conceit of telling the story through the 20 photographs and accompanying cassette tapes which narrate the story behind the images. The main character, a woman who has recently died, leaves these artifacts behind to her designated heirs in the hopes of sharing the truth about her life and the children entrusted to her, which had been obscured or downplayed by other people in the lives of those young people. There were no huge surprise...more
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Like most people I loved this book. Its the first of his that I had read and only picked it up as the surname is the same as a good friend of mine - I'm glad that I did.
I loved the idea of having a story around the photos it led you through the story very well and and easy transition from one piece to the next. It was an easy although deeply moving read, in fact when I found the book to put away I was not sure at first whether I had read it at all as the cover was immaculate.
I know tha...more
I loved the idea of having a story around the photos it led you through the story very well and and easy transition from one piece to the next. It was an easy although deeply moving read, in fact when I found the book to put away I was not sure at first whether I had read it at all as the cover was immaculate.
I know tha...more
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Read in October, 2007
Coe's latest is certainly a departure in terms of tone and structure from his satirical comdies that often tipped into surrealism. More in key with the emotion mined in The Rotters Club and the Closed Circle it's quite a bleak, sparse and measured novel which has garnered sniffy reviews.
I have to say that I did enjoy it though mostly because Coe keeps you turning the pages with the direct tone of the narrator's voice. Sad, honest and not a feelgood read, it is, nevertheless, and accomplishme...more
I have to say that I did enjoy it though mostly because Coe keeps you turning the pages with the direct tone of the narrator's voice. Sad, honest and not a feelgood read, it is, nevertheless, and accomplishme...more
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Read in November, 2008
This book took me awhile to read, but it wasn't the book's fault. I thought it was beautifully written and a great story, but I am a fan of Jonathan Coe's earlier works that demonstrate his ability to write novels that circle back with amazing coincidences and twists of fate. This book very lightly touches on that talent, but it doesn't fulfill what I had hoped would be a trademark of Mr. Coe's. I would read it again for the beauty of the story, even though it was sad.
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