I’ve been out with married men. It’s definitely something to be avoided in theory but marriage just isn’t something men tend to mention on the first date. By the time they do mention it, I’m usually fed up with them anyway, so it’s a good reason for getting rid of them (and a much kinder one than ‘you’re boring me to death and I’d rather die than sleep with you’). But what if you actually like the married guy? Giving up someone you like isn’t the easiest thing in the world. Carole Matthews, in Let’s Meet on Platform 8, didn’t quite manage to keep my sympathies with all corners of her love triangle. Catherine Alliott has the same trouble. But it’s not every book that can alternate effectively between hysterical humour and devastating tragedy. A Married Man somehow manages it.
The ‘affair’ begins as a quite worrying case of stalking, but it’s easy to see how it started out. Lucy (yes another Lucy) is still grieving the loss of her husband Ned after four years, and really wants to move on - unfortunately there’s a very prevalent attitude in the world that you can’t be happy unless you’re in a relationship. This view is not only completely wrong, it’s potentially very damaging both for people who aren’t in relationships and for people who would rather be treated disgustingly by a boy/girlfriend than be single. But people get sucked into it all the same.
So perhaps it’s not very surprising when Lucy starts to feel a bit desperate, and develops a crush on a guy called Charlie whom she sees at the shops. But within a few pages, it’s become very worrying: she’s following him into shops; asking people about him under the pretence of being a friend of his; even accepting her dreaded mother-in-law Rose’s offer to go and live with her because she doesn’t live far from Charlie.
The comedy lapses a bit at that point. Lucy’s infatuation isn’t funny at all. It’s almost a relief when it turns out Charlie likes her too – at least that means he’s less likely to take out a restraining order. But another problem with the book is that I don’t know what Lucy sees in Charlie. He’s a bit creepy. So are lots of the men in this book. Out of all of them, I wanted Lucy to end up with Ned’s womanising cousin Jack as he seems by far the least dodgy (apart from the lovely gay couple, Theo and Ray, but you couldn’t split them up!).
The women, by contrast, are extremely well-characterised. Rose is terrifying, even in comparison with other mother-in-laws. Then there’s Charlie’s daughter Ellen, who might just grow up to be just like Rose; Lucy’s wonderful friends, Teresa, Jess and Rozanna (the latter one of the most remarkable creations in chick lit fiction – ‘tart with a heart’ doesn’t cover it) and her scarily competent new friend Mimsy. Poor Lucy goes from one scrape to another, and the more clichéd the situations are, the funnier Alliott somehow manages to make them.
Yet the book has a very serious side as well. It deals with bereavement for a start, not to mention obsessive behaviour. After the frivolity of much of the book, these sections are very powerful and moving. Alliott switches from one to the other with great effectiveness – actually, ‘switch’ is the wrong word because the changes are far more subtle than that. Just when you were rolling on the floor with laughter – BAM. And it works every time.
A Married Man might be frothy in places, but it’s a much more cleverly constructed book than it seems. It’s a book to make you think – not something you’d usually say about chick lit at all – and well worth a read, even if Catherine Alliott isn’t usually your kind of thing. I loved Alliott’s A Crowded Marriage, but whilst the two books have their similarities, this is on a completely different level.
Sunday, 15 March 2009
Sunday, 8 March 2009
Amy - Fairy Kisses
Hi Amy, if you see this I just want to say I can't view your blog. Every time I click on a post it says This blog doesn't exist. Maybe you've blocked me, I can't blame for you that as I can be quite annoying but I hope you're okay. xx
No Dress Rehearsal (Marian Keyes)**
I love Marian Keyes. I do. And she can write about death very well. No Dress Rehearsal was another great idea, but it kind of fell a bit flat, and I was left wondering what the point of it was.
The very short book – just seventy-nine pages long - tells the story of Lizzie, who dies in an accident but fails to realise she’s dead. When her partner ignores her, she assumes it was because of the row they had the morning before she died, but being ignored by everyone else seems inexplicable – until two people show up in her office, and tell her she’s dead.
It’s a great idea. I’ve read about people not realising they’re dead, but never from the point of view of the dead person.
But the book doesn’t work for me. One thing I have said about Keyes’ longer novels is that it often takes me several chapters in order to get into the story. Rachel in Rachel’s Holiday is a pretty horrible person to begin with, so it took me quite a while to learn to like her. Probably more than seventy-nine pages. I had a similar problem with Lizzie - she just didn’t seem terribly nice. As the book was so short, I didn’t really have time to get to know her. Some parts of the book were told from the point of view of Lizzie’s friend, Sinead. But I didn’t really like her either. She was okay, but a bit of a doormat, and her storyline didn’t interest me very much – it wasn’t nearly as original as Lizzie’s.
The book is, of course, wonderfully written, and there was a bit of humour – more than you’d expect from a book with a death theme, although anyone wanting to see bereavement and comedy put together effectively might prefer to read Catherine Alliott’s A Married Man.
But No Dress Rehrearsal just didn’t quite work. Not for me, anyway. This is possibly because it is aimed at adults who have trouble reading - but I would say an adult who has trouble reading needs a good book a lot more than I do. I'm not going to give up on reading because one book (okay, more than one!) disappointed me. This book could be making people decide whether they take up reading or not. Reading can probably enhance everyone's lives if they find the right book - so a book like No Dress Rehearsal really needs to be good. But then I am the fussiest person in the world, so maybe this book works really well!
The very short book – just seventy-nine pages long - tells the story of Lizzie, who dies in an accident but fails to realise she’s dead. When her partner ignores her, she assumes it was because of the row they had the morning before she died, but being ignored by everyone else seems inexplicable – until two people show up in her office, and tell her she’s dead.
It’s a great idea. I’ve read about people not realising they’re dead, but never from the point of view of the dead person.
But the book doesn’t work for me. One thing I have said about Keyes’ longer novels is that it often takes me several chapters in order to get into the story. Rachel in Rachel’s Holiday is a pretty horrible person to begin with, so it took me quite a while to learn to like her. Probably more than seventy-nine pages. I had a similar problem with Lizzie - she just didn’t seem terribly nice. As the book was so short, I didn’t really have time to get to know her. Some parts of the book were told from the point of view of Lizzie’s friend, Sinead. But I didn’t really like her either. She was okay, but a bit of a doormat, and her storyline didn’t interest me very much – it wasn’t nearly as original as Lizzie’s.
The book is, of course, wonderfully written, and there was a bit of humour – more than you’d expect from a book with a death theme, although anyone wanting to see bereavement and comedy put together effectively might prefer to read Catherine Alliott’s A Married Man.
But No Dress Rehrearsal just didn’t quite work. Not for me, anyway. This is possibly because it is aimed at adults who have trouble reading - but I would say an adult who has trouble reading needs a good book a lot more than I do. I'm not going to give up on reading because one book (okay, more than one!) disappointed me. This book could be making people decide whether they take up reading or not. Reading can probably enhance everyone's lives if they find the right book - so a book like No Dress Rehearsal really needs to be good. But then I am the fussiest person in the world, so maybe this book works really well!
Sunday, 1 March 2009
The House at Riverton (Kate Morton)****
You know the main climax of The House at Riverton just from reading the blurb.
But don’t let that put you off. The blurb actually tells you very little, and, in giving up before you’ve read the book, you’d miss so much.
The story is complex and fascinating. Housemaid Grace joins the staff at Riverton, and forms a bond with the two daughters of the house, Hannah and Emmeline. The story is told from Grace’s point of view, and spans almost a century, as Grace rises from lowly housemaid to lady’s maid to becoming a lady in her own right. It shows how the Victorian world was suddenly transformed into one shockingly close to the world of today, with love affairs, sex outside marriage, and even nightclubs.
Kate Morton writes beautifully, describing the actions, the characters and Grace’s surroundings all in lovely, lyrical prose. Unusually, the protagonist, Grace, doesn’t have much of an effect on the action. Her job requires her to be silent, and to observe. Mostly, the action focuses on Hannah and Emmeline, and Grace does little more than witness it. Yet she seems a very vibrant character despite all this. She responds to everything. She observes everything in an non-judgemental way, just accepting everything that happens, but her feelings of interest; of care for the characters make her into a big and important character. Morton could easily have told the story without Grace, but it wouldn’t have been nearly as fascinating.
This is partly because Grace is such an interesting character, but also because no-one else could really have told the story. Emmeline is important, but absent for much of it. Much of the story hinges on what she doesn’t know.
Hannah is also a great character, but part of her allure is in her mystery. Grace can never know Hannah completely because, of course, there is a limit to what Hannah will tell a servant, even one for whom she develops some fondness. But part of the fascination with Hannah is that she’s so unpredictable. You never know what she will do in any given situation. Had the story been told from Hannah’s point of view, we would probably have seen a lot more of the reasoning behind Hannah’s decisions, and that would probably have made her more predictable and consequently less interesting.
There is also a ‘framing’ storyline set in modern times, where a film is made about Hannah and Emmeline’s life. Grace, now ninety-eight, meets the producer and other people involved in the film, including the young actress who is to play the role of Grace (somewhat cheekily named Keira). We also see Grace’s relationships with her daughter, her grandson, and Sylvia, who looks after her in the retirement home. There is not a great deal of story set in the present, but there is so much to hold your interest.
But there are times when the book drags a bit. There are sections where not a lot happens, and I’d have preferred it if these sections were either cut completely (it’s a very long book as it is) or for them to be replaced by something that helps one or more of the storylines along.
Also, the final climax has weaknesses. While Morton builds up to this moment very effectively, and there is (most of the time) far too much going on for you to be waiting impatiently for that part of the book to happen (if I read about something in the blurb that sounds good, I often want it to happen RIGHT NOW). But the climax is indirectly caused by one particular incident in the book that seemed a bit weak and desultory when it happens, and certainly doesn’t really need to be dragged on for years. I’m not going into detail though because I don’t want to put people off. It’s disappointing, considering what Morton has achieved in this novel, but it’s no reason to give the book a miss.
The House at Riverton isn’t perfect all the way through, but the good bits are amazing, and I haven’t read another book like it.
But don’t let that put you off. The blurb actually tells you very little, and, in giving up before you’ve read the book, you’d miss so much.
The story is complex and fascinating. Housemaid Grace joins the staff at Riverton, and forms a bond with the two daughters of the house, Hannah and Emmeline. The story is told from Grace’s point of view, and spans almost a century, as Grace rises from lowly housemaid to lady’s maid to becoming a lady in her own right. It shows how the Victorian world was suddenly transformed into one shockingly close to the world of today, with love affairs, sex outside marriage, and even nightclubs.
Kate Morton writes beautifully, describing the actions, the characters and Grace’s surroundings all in lovely, lyrical prose. Unusually, the protagonist, Grace, doesn’t have much of an effect on the action. Her job requires her to be silent, and to observe. Mostly, the action focuses on Hannah and Emmeline, and Grace does little more than witness it. Yet she seems a very vibrant character despite all this. She responds to everything. She observes everything in an non-judgemental way, just accepting everything that happens, but her feelings of interest; of care for the characters make her into a big and important character. Morton could easily have told the story without Grace, but it wouldn’t have been nearly as fascinating.
This is partly because Grace is such an interesting character, but also because no-one else could really have told the story. Emmeline is important, but absent for much of it. Much of the story hinges on what she doesn’t know.
Hannah is also a great character, but part of her allure is in her mystery. Grace can never know Hannah completely because, of course, there is a limit to what Hannah will tell a servant, even one for whom she develops some fondness. But part of the fascination with Hannah is that she’s so unpredictable. You never know what she will do in any given situation. Had the story been told from Hannah’s point of view, we would probably have seen a lot more of the reasoning behind Hannah’s decisions, and that would probably have made her more predictable and consequently less interesting.
There is also a ‘framing’ storyline set in modern times, where a film is made about Hannah and Emmeline’s life. Grace, now ninety-eight, meets the producer and other people involved in the film, including the young actress who is to play the role of Grace (somewhat cheekily named Keira). We also see Grace’s relationships with her daughter, her grandson, and Sylvia, who looks after her in the retirement home. There is not a great deal of story set in the present, but there is so much to hold your interest.
But there are times when the book drags a bit. There are sections where not a lot happens, and I’d have preferred it if these sections were either cut completely (it’s a very long book as it is) or for them to be replaced by something that helps one or more of the storylines along.
Also, the final climax has weaknesses. While Morton builds up to this moment very effectively, and there is (most of the time) far too much going on for you to be waiting impatiently for that part of the book to happen (if I read about something in the blurb that sounds good, I often want it to happen RIGHT NOW). But the climax is indirectly caused by one particular incident in the book that seemed a bit weak and desultory when it happens, and certainly doesn’t really need to be dragged on for years. I’m not going into detail though because I don’t want to put people off. It’s disappointing, considering what Morton has achieved in this novel, but it’s no reason to give the book a miss.
The House at Riverton isn’t perfect all the way through, but the good bits are amazing, and I haven’t read another book like it.
Tuesday, 17 February 2009
Human Croquet (Kate Atkinson)**
There’s nothing wrong with books about time travel. It can be really compelling. But there has got to be a point to it. For one thing, books with a point are a lot more satisfactory than those that are vague, meandering and often incomprehensible. For another, the fact that characters can travel through time is not enough, on its own, to make a book exciting. It’s hardly a new idea.
Human Croquet does have some good points. Kate Atkinson’s prose can be very lyrical – yes, parts of it are ludicrously overwritten, but some of the images she creates are beautiful. Even the ones that seem totally irrelevant.
Atkinson is also very good at character. The main characters, Isobel, Charles, Gordon and Debbie are all very distinctive, and there is something quite endearing about them, even if they’re not strictly likeable. Isobel is verging on insanity, which is a bit of a problem when she keeps claiming to be the sanest person in the house, but they’re basically okay, in a weird sort of way.
Then there is Eliza – a genuinely creepy and intriguing character who speaks in italics instead of speech marks, and is unlike anyone I ever remember reading about before. I was quite disappointed when Atkinson explained her origins at the end. Eliza’s backstory was the one part of the book where the vagueness actually worked. Eliza really deserved a better book – or at least a different book. It’s possible she would be even more powerful if the other characters in the book were a bit more typical.
But the story is a major problem. The only reason I finished it is because I like writing reviews, and I think it’s a bit of a cheat to write them when you haven’t read the whole book. One of the big problems with Human Croquet is something I shouldn’t really give away to future readers, but as I’m not recommending this book to anyone, maybe it doesn’t matter. But anyway, if you don’t want to know this, stop reading now. I hate it when characters wake up and discover something was all a dream. Plot devices like that are fine when you’re in Year 3 and it seems quite clever, but in an adult author it is unforgiveable unless you’ve got a very good reason. It’s weak, it’s a cop-out, and it’s effectively telling you to discount that huge chunk of book you’ve just struggled through as it isn’t real. So why did you make us read it?????
Human Croquet does have some good points. Kate Atkinson’s prose can be very lyrical – yes, parts of it are ludicrously overwritten, but some of the images she creates are beautiful. Even the ones that seem totally irrelevant.
Atkinson is also very good at character. The main characters, Isobel, Charles, Gordon and Debbie are all very distinctive, and there is something quite endearing about them, even if they’re not strictly likeable. Isobel is verging on insanity, which is a bit of a problem when she keeps claiming to be the sanest person in the house, but they’re basically okay, in a weird sort of way.
Then there is Eliza – a genuinely creepy and intriguing character who speaks in italics instead of speech marks, and is unlike anyone I ever remember reading about before. I was quite disappointed when Atkinson explained her origins at the end. Eliza’s backstory was the one part of the book where the vagueness actually worked. Eliza really deserved a better book – or at least a different book. It’s possible she would be even more powerful if the other characters in the book were a bit more typical.
But the story is a major problem. The only reason I finished it is because I like writing reviews, and I think it’s a bit of a cheat to write them when you haven’t read the whole book. One of the big problems with Human Croquet is something I shouldn’t really give away to future readers, but as I’m not recommending this book to anyone, maybe it doesn’t matter. But anyway, if you don’t want to know this, stop reading now. I hate it when characters wake up and discover something was all a dream. Plot devices like that are fine when you’re in Year 3 and it seems quite clever, but in an adult author it is unforgiveable unless you’ve got a very good reason. It’s weak, it’s a cop-out, and it’s effectively telling you to discount that huge chunk of book you’ve just struggled through as it isn’t real. So why did you make us read it?????
Saturday, 24 January 2009
Rachel's Holiday (Marian Keyes)*****
I didn’t like Rachel’s Holiday at all until I was quite a way into it, but I loved it by the end. A lot of people talk about Marian Keyes’ humour and warmth and great characters, and all those things are demonstrated in this book. But one of the things I really like about books like Rachel’s Holiday, Watermelon and Anybody Out There is that Keyes is not afraid to create heroines that some people might find difficult to empathise with. And maybe the fact that Angels, Lucy Sullivan is Getting Married and particularly No Dress Rehearsal left me cold could be more of a sign of my failure to appreciate such an imperfect heroine than Keyes’ inability to work a miracle every time.
With Rachel’s Holiday, Keyes takes risks. Rachel is a horrible person. I have no real problems with the fact that she’s a drug addict. That in itself doesn’t make her a bad person, although most of her undesirable personality traits are probably related to her dependence on drugs. But I’ve met some drug addicts who are very nice, and there are also plenty of nice drug addicts in this book.
But Rachel is a bit of a bitch. She’s also a total slag. And most of the worst things about her, you don’t even know about until the book’s half-over. She’s smug and superior and shallow. It does seem a bit harsh in the beginning when her family packs her off to rehab. After all, the book is told from Rachel’s point of view, so it’s quite easy to believe her when she says she’s not an addict. In retrospect, I admire her for emptying her valium tablets down the toilet. That can’t have been easy.
I didn’t like Rachel at all, but drugs can affect your personality, so I was prepared to give her a chance - and not stop reading in disgust. And I ended up enjoying the book a lot. I don’t know how realistic it is, and I’m sure that rehabilitation, like counselling, is a very individual thing, and different people will respond differently to the many different approaches. But it was easy to believe that the approach used on Rachel was one that would have an effect on her.
The other characters are great. One good thing about landing your heroine in rehab is that you can put just about any character you like in your story, and it doesn’t matter that Rachel wouldn’t normally hang around with them. Trapping a group of strong and mismatched characters together can be really funny. And also really touching, when you see them learning to get along despite everything. Look at all those comedies set on a desert island. Look at Big Brother. Keyes has filled her desert island with some wonderful characters, and they all have believable stories. She’s also not afraid to make fun of psychiatrists a bit. And quite right too. Most psychiatrists are madder than their patients.
So it’s worth a read – but you need a bit of patience. Rachel has good qualities if you can find them, and the book is full of humour and great characters. And while the ending might be predictable, the twists and turns are not.
With Rachel’s Holiday, Keyes takes risks. Rachel is a horrible person. I have no real problems with the fact that she’s a drug addict. That in itself doesn’t make her a bad person, although most of her undesirable personality traits are probably related to her dependence on drugs. But I’ve met some drug addicts who are very nice, and there are also plenty of nice drug addicts in this book.
But Rachel is a bit of a bitch. She’s also a total slag. And most of the worst things about her, you don’t even know about until the book’s half-over. She’s smug and superior and shallow. It does seem a bit harsh in the beginning when her family packs her off to rehab. After all, the book is told from Rachel’s point of view, so it’s quite easy to believe her when she says she’s not an addict. In retrospect, I admire her for emptying her valium tablets down the toilet. That can’t have been easy.
I didn’t like Rachel at all, but drugs can affect your personality, so I was prepared to give her a chance - and not stop reading in disgust. And I ended up enjoying the book a lot. I don’t know how realistic it is, and I’m sure that rehabilitation, like counselling, is a very individual thing, and different people will respond differently to the many different approaches. But it was easy to believe that the approach used on Rachel was one that would have an effect on her.
The other characters are great. One good thing about landing your heroine in rehab is that you can put just about any character you like in your story, and it doesn’t matter that Rachel wouldn’t normally hang around with them. Trapping a group of strong and mismatched characters together can be really funny. And also really touching, when you see them learning to get along despite everything. Look at all those comedies set on a desert island. Look at Big Brother. Keyes has filled her desert island with some wonderful characters, and they all have believable stories. She’s also not afraid to make fun of psychiatrists a bit. And quite right too. Most psychiatrists are madder than their patients.
So it’s worth a read – but you need a bit of patience. Rachel has good qualities if you can find them, and the book is full of humour and great characters. And while the ending might be predictable, the twists and turns are not.
Sunday, 18 January 2009
Sophie's World (Jorsten Gardner)****
If you’re interested in philosophy, this book is great. Even if you’re not interested in philosophy, you could end up loving it. I used to think philosophy was a bit of a stupid and pointless subject (although this isn’t something I’ve said in front of my six-foot tall philosophy graduate sister) but I ended up really enjoying the philosophic aspect of the book.
However, if you’re just after a good story, you probably shouldn’t waste your time. The basic story is quite weak. It’s all about how Sophie gets messages from a mysterious philosopher called Alberto, and a lot of the book is just her reading about philosophy. Later on, the book turns into conversations about philosophy, but it’s still a bit disappointing as a story. Not a lot happens. The most dramatic thing that happens is probably the fact that Sophie is stupid enough to creep out in the middle of the night to meet a middle-aged man she’s never seen before.
The characters, it has to be said, aren’t that strong. Only the philosophers come over well, and apart from Alberto, they’re not original personalities. Alberto is an intriguing character, and someone I wouldn’t mind meeting (although he’d better not start inviting me out to churches in the middle of the night) but he seems rather emotionless. He is fascinated by the world, but apparently emotionally unaffected by it, and it’s quite difficult to identify with characters like that.
Sophie is okay until she comes under Alberto’s influence. She starts the book as a slightly odd but harmless and very nice teenage girl. But then she develops an inflated sense of her own superiority that is very unattractive. It’s probably not her fault. She’s at an impressionable age, and Alberto’s philosophical writings do say it is better to be curious about the world than to accept it, so it’s understandable really that Sophie has come to the conclusion that being curious makes her a better person than those who aren’t curious.
But one of the main aims of philosophy is to see the wonder in the world, and I think, rather than looking down at her fellow human beings, she should look for the wonder in them instead. It’s true that most people don’t appreciate philosophy, but that doesn’t mean they have no good qualities at all, and that you can’t admire them and be inspired by them. Sophie’s friend Joanna has little character, but she does seem to be genuinely kind and forgiving, and I find that more wonderful than intellectual curiosity.
But the natural world is pretty amazing too. Alberto got that part right.
Sophie’s World is a very challenging book. The story doesn’t make much sense unless you’ve taken in the philosophy lectures, and that can be quite time-consuming. It took me weeks to read this book, and that’s something that only usually happens if I a) hate the book so much, I can hardly bear to pick it up (like Jane Green’s Second Chances) or b) love the book so much, I want to savour every chapter (like Gareth Southgate and Andy Woodman’s Woody and Nord: A Football Friendship). Sophie’s World was c) a bit like reading a text book, so I needed to take in only a couple of ideas at a time.
In many ways, it is a text book. The philosophical writing is of a significantly higher standard than the story. You can’t really move on to the next section until you’ve understood the one before – well, you can, but the story isn’t very engaging when you’re just reading it blindly thinking, what the fuck is that Alberto going on about now? I like to try to guess what’s going to happen in books, and to work things out, and if that means I have to study philosophy, I will study it.
But I have to ask – how useful is the book for philosophy students, really? Jorsten Gardner wrote the book to help philosophy students, but my sister couldn’t read it. She’s not really a fiction person. So, to read Sophie’s Choice, an interest in philosophy is essential but it’s not enough. You probably also need to enjoy reading fiction and have the determination to get through a difficult book. Yet you also have to put up with some pretty crap writing, which a lot of people who love reading aren’t prepared to do.
Some of the problem could be in the translation – the fact that Sophie’s hair changes from fair to dark within the first few pages (no mention of hair-dye) shows something has gone wrong. It’s possible that the clunky and clumsily constructed fiction sections are a result of poor translation.
But there seems to have been only one translator, and the philosophy sections are beautifully written and constructed (which really was a great help when it came to making sense of everything). So what I think is (although the translator is undeniably a bit careless), Gardner is a really great non-fiction writer who knows philosophy very well, and is very good at explaining it to others – but he’s not a natural fiction writer and can’t cope with the complications of conversational syntax.
So, Sophie’s World probably would have been a more accessible book if he’d worked with a fiction writer who was more experienced in the delineation of plot and character. But it’s pretty successful as it is. Gardner does a more than reasonable job with a very difficult and challenging subject. What Gardner has achieved is more remarkable than his shortcomings, if you think about it.
However, if you’re just after a good story, you probably shouldn’t waste your time. The basic story is quite weak. It’s all about how Sophie gets messages from a mysterious philosopher called Alberto, and a lot of the book is just her reading about philosophy. Later on, the book turns into conversations about philosophy, but it’s still a bit disappointing as a story. Not a lot happens. The most dramatic thing that happens is probably the fact that Sophie is stupid enough to creep out in the middle of the night to meet a middle-aged man she’s never seen before.
The characters, it has to be said, aren’t that strong. Only the philosophers come over well, and apart from Alberto, they’re not original personalities. Alberto is an intriguing character, and someone I wouldn’t mind meeting (although he’d better not start inviting me out to churches in the middle of the night) but he seems rather emotionless. He is fascinated by the world, but apparently emotionally unaffected by it, and it’s quite difficult to identify with characters like that.
Sophie is okay until she comes under Alberto’s influence. She starts the book as a slightly odd but harmless and very nice teenage girl. But then she develops an inflated sense of her own superiority that is very unattractive. It’s probably not her fault. She’s at an impressionable age, and Alberto’s philosophical writings do say it is better to be curious about the world than to accept it, so it’s understandable really that Sophie has come to the conclusion that being curious makes her a better person than those who aren’t curious.
But one of the main aims of philosophy is to see the wonder in the world, and I think, rather than looking down at her fellow human beings, she should look for the wonder in them instead. It’s true that most people don’t appreciate philosophy, but that doesn’t mean they have no good qualities at all, and that you can’t admire them and be inspired by them. Sophie’s friend Joanna has little character, but she does seem to be genuinely kind and forgiving, and I find that more wonderful than intellectual curiosity.
But the natural world is pretty amazing too. Alberto got that part right.
Sophie’s World is a very challenging book. The story doesn’t make much sense unless you’ve taken in the philosophy lectures, and that can be quite time-consuming. It took me weeks to read this book, and that’s something that only usually happens if I a) hate the book so much, I can hardly bear to pick it up (like Jane Green’s Second Chances) or b) love the book so much, I want to savour every chapter (like Gareth Southgate and Andy Woodman’s Woody and Nord: A Football Friendship). Sophie’s World was c) a bit like reading a text book, so I needed to take in only a couple of ideas at a time.
In many ways, it is a text book. The philosophical writing is of a significantly higher standard than the story. You can’t really move on to the next section until you’ve understood the one before – well, you can, but the story isn’t very engaging when you’re just reading it blindly thinking, what the fuck is that Alberto going on about now? I like to try to guess what’s going to happen in books, and to work things out, and if that means I have to study philosophy, I will study it.
But I have to ask – how useful is the book for philosophy students, really? Jorsten Gardner wrote the book to help philosophy students, but my sister couldn’t read it. She’s not really a fiction person. So, to read Sophie’s Choice, an interest in philosophy is essential but it’s not enough. You probably also need to enjoy reading fiction and have the determination to get through a difficult book. Yet you also have to put up with some pretty crap writing, which a lot of people who love reading aren’t prepared to do.
Some of the problem could be in the translation – the fact that Sophie’s hair changes from fair to dark within the first few pages (no mention of hair-dye) shows something has gone wrong. It’s possible that the clunky and clumsily constructed fiction sections are a result of poor translation.
But there seems to have been only one translator, and the philosophy sections are beautifully written and constructed (which really was a great help when it came to making sense of everything). So what I think is (although the translator is undeniably a bit careless), Gardner is a really great non-fiction writer who knows philosophy very well, and is very good at explaining it to others – but he’s not a natural fiction writer and can’t cope with the complications of conversational syntax.
So, Sophie’s World probably would have been a more accessible book if he’d worked with a fiction writer who was more experienced in the delineation of plot and character. But it’s pretty successful as it is. Gardner does a more than reasonable job with a very difficult and challenging subject. What Gardner has achieved is more remarkable than his shortcomings, if you think about it.
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