Uncertain Terms

by Clare Chambers

Hardcover

First published January 4, 1993

About the author

Clare Chambers was born on 1966 in in Croydon, Surrey, England, UK, daughter of English teachers. She attended a school in Croydon. At 16, she met Peter, her future husband, a teacher 14 years old than her. She read English at Oxford. The marriage moved to New Zealand, where she wrote her first novel. She now lives in Kent with her husband and young family. In 1999, her novel Learning to Swim won the Romantic Novel of the Year Award by the Romantic Novelists' Association.

Reviews

[Virginia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Only 28 ratings and two reviews?! Well, I need to add my review here. This was Clare Chambers’ debut novel in the mid-90s. Chambers’s read English at Oxford and this novel centers on a group of friends doing just that. I spent time studying at Oxford in the 90s so I was attracted to this book immediately. Despite the thrill of a familiar scene and period, the characters are well-developed and interesting. They are nothing like that drip Charles Ryder in Brideshead Revisted. They’re seemingly small characters but writ large. I enjoyed every bit of it. So why a 3.5 star rating? It’s a debut novel and has some predetermined plots and unlikely coincidences. They aren’t necessarily detracting from the story, but a little heavy-handed. Still, it’s a great afternoon read.
I read The Editor’s Wife last week, a later Chambers novel, and found it a compulsive read. It’s like elevated chick-lit but British and not so hack. I called it Brit-Chick-Lit which my husband shortened to Brick-Lit which doesn’t do Chambers justice at all.

[Liz Owen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I loved Small Pleasures, Clare Chambers' most recent novel, so much that I wanted to read more. I hope more of her books will be reprinted on the strength of Small Pleasures.
Uncertain Terms was her debut, it's a coming of age novel that reminded me a little of early Barbara Trapido.
It was ok, but it trailed off rather and I didn't enjoy it as much as I'd hoped. Not deterred though, I'm on to Back Trouble as my next read!

[Louise Bureau · Rating 4 out of 5]

A short, first book by Clare Chambers. It really captures the mood of the early '90s & the lives of 4 students. It's also painfully accurate in describing how the future of social media would change society.

"The trouble with trying to change people's attitudes," Patrick was saying, "is that people have got out of the habit of thinking about issues, pursuing lines of thought to a conclusion. We are so used to having everything flashed up at us in unconnected gobbets 'Vote Conservative', 'Give an Argy some Bargy'........ Even art is being reduced to the simplest graphics. You don't need to vote for a political principle any more you can vote for a red triangle or a blue square. It's all fast food, headlines, jingles, slogans. I'm surprised there isn't a telephone 'dial-a-summary' service. Some TV celebrity giving a five-second resumé of Plato's Symposium or the Special Theory of Relativity: 'Jewish Boffin in Twice the Speed of Light Shocker. Pip pip.' We're all being programmed not to think for ourselves, not to be able to concentrate for more than ten seconds at once."

[Virginia · Rating 4 out of 5]

"How is it going - the book?" Patrick asked. "How did you solve the problem of your mother?"
"Ah, that. By renouncing the idea of a solution. Every word I write is still a mere ghost of what I feel, but I press on, inspired and frustrated the turns. After, the alternative is nothingness. Oblivion."

Four students in their last term at Oxford and their various intrigues, poor decisions and disastrous outcomes. Lessons learned on so many levels.

[Barbara Stewart · Rating 3 out of 5]

Love Clare Chambers. This book in my view is not nearly her best though. I will rank it second worst after Back Trouble. Quite dull in several parts.