The majority of us were distinctly ambivalent about this book - while we all agreed it was well written and had a good enough story to make us want to read on to the end, none of us really enjoyed it to any degree. Clearly she writes beautifully and brings her vivid, rounded characters to life, but ultimately it wasn't a book to set any of us on fire with enthusiasm. Her characters are all so flawed that the book's feel becomes quite depressing.
It is interesting to compare our half hearted reaction with this book's high ratings on Goodreads and almost equally high ratings on Amazon. Perhaps Tyler's characters are just slightly too real for reading pleasure: at least of of us was reminded too forcefully of our own family gatherings at which all too often someone collapses into tears, stormy exits and recrimination.
It is perhaps an indictment that none of us could remember the much vaunted last line of the novel ...
We also discussed some other recent reads:
Begums Thugs and White Mughals is an edited version of the diaries of Fanny Parkes, an Englishwoman living in East India Company northern India in 1825-1837. Fanny's lifestyle is extraordinarily ahead of her time: she learns Urdu and travels all over the region, often only with her servants for company, she becomes friends with many Indian families, as well as the hybridised white mughal Anglo Indian families - it is a fascinating easy read and is a hugely enjoyable book. Historian and travel writer William Dalrymple (we read his Road to Xanadu a while back) edited the diaries and brought them back into publication; it comes highly recommended.
Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese. This book is semi autobiographical novel is set in Ethiopia and New York. It is a long dramatic story set agains the backdrop of political turmoil in Ethiopia - a fascinating, engrossing read and also highly recommended.
For our next two books :
JULY (date tbc) Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner, a Pulitzer prizewinner. Emily read this recently recommended by another bibliophile, and in turn highly recommends it.
'Not only a book of a lifetime, Crossing to Safety is a book that comes at the end of a long lifetime of writing. Wallace Stegner was 62 when, in 1971, he won the Pulitzer for Angle of Repose: he was 78 when Crossing to Safety, his last novel before his death, came out. It's a miraculous book, written with the wisdom of age but without seeming old. A novel based on character that has immense narrative power.' (The Independent, 2008)
and
SEPTEMBER (date tbc) A Time Of Gifts by Patrick Leigh Fermor. This is the lushly written diary of the first part of an 18 year old Englishman's walk across Europe in 1933-4. The book has been hailed as a classic of travel writing.
I am late updating this page. Apologies.
