Category: Wenvoe Page Turners

 

The Legacy of Elizabeth Pringle by Kirsty Wark

Kirsty Wark is the respected BBC television presenter. This, her first novel, was mostly a disappointing read for the Page Turners.

We are introduced to Elizabeth as a nonagenarian who harps back on her single life and some love but little excitement. She bequeaths her house on the island of Arran to a passing stranger whose daughter becomes the beneficiary.

We found the plot of the novel to be somewhat turgid and annoying. We had little empathy for any of the various characters, but enjoyed some of the historical facts about Arran. Between us we offered only a few positive adjectives for this month’s read. However the majority of us did finish it and we scored it an average of four out of ten.

 

---

---

 

 

Ice Trap by Kitty Sewell Published 2007

Dafydd Woodruff, a young surgeon, experienced the horror of making a near fatal mistake on the operating table. Very shaken by this he takes a locum position in Northern Canada in a remote community Moose Creek to help overcome the guilt he suffered. He returns to Cardiff and fifteen years later he’s a consultant surgeon in the Heath Hospital and is married to Isobel, an interior designer. Their marriage is crumbling under the pressure of infertility.

Dafydd receives a letter from Moose Creek from a teenager, Miranda, claiming that he is the father of her and her twin brother. Her mother, Sheila, is the head nurse of the hospital there, with whom Dafydd is adamant that he had never had an intimate relationship. However, DNA results prove Dafydd wrong. His marriage by now is extremely unstable. In his effort to unearth the truth he returns to Moose Creek and stumbles upon long buried Moose Creek secrets.

It took very little time to establish that to varying degrees everybody disliked the book. It was felt that one would have to stretch one’s imagination to the limits to have any belief in the characters or story line. It was said to be not well written, boring, tiresome, very flat, and it’s only minor interest was that it was partly set in Cardiff and Penarth. Nobody felt that they would recommend the book. Not surprisingly the score was 3 out of ten.

 

---

---

 

 

“THE PAGE TURNERS”

Stone’s Fall by Iain Pears

Pears has inverted the chronology of his tale so that, as the puzzle becomes more intricate, we move backwards from Edwardian London to Paris in 1890 and finally to Venice in 1867, in search of reasons for Stone's death? The use of 3 characters to tell the story was quite intriguing.

The book included interesting historical characters and varied settings. It played with ideas like spying switching from obtaining gossip from military personnel, to tracking money and industrial processes and using a clause in a will, to delay disclosure of a weak financial state.

The First part of the novel told by Matthew Braddock, a journalist, was the least satisfying. In the second part of the novel the story heats up. In Paris, Stone's tale is taken up by Henry Cort, an ex-banker and government informant with a longstanding connection to Stone's wife. The book gains pace here. The characters in this section are much more satisfactory and believable. Cort is a terrific character. His professional adventures guide us not only to the secret life of John Stone but to a fascinating period in history the arms race and spying.

In the final part of the novel Stone takes over his own story. A young man now, he has travelled alone to Venice, leaving his wife behind in England. His own account serves only to tie up a few loose ends. As a result, the pace of this section is slower.

The plot is well thought out and the incidental detail is excellent throughout. It is often a dense read, there are many characters and you have to concentrate on each one to keep up with the story. The ending was a twist too far!

A busy month so not read by all members but those who read it enjoyed it.

The book scored a 7.

 

---

---

 

The Invention of Wings

Sue Monk Kidd

Set in the American Deep South “The Invention of Wings” unflinchingly describes the brutality of slavery in vivid and precise detail.

The book is the fictionalised history of the Grimke sisters, Sarah and Angelina (Nina), who were at the forefront of the abolitionist and women’s rights movements, wound around the intriguing life story of a young slave. Most of us thoroughly enjoyed the fictionalised history, just a little dissension on the “faction” element. We felt we should thank the author for introducing us to the lives of these fascinating and ground breaking sisters, none of us had heard of their pioneering work before.

The novel is outstanding, the exceptional writing quietly yet powerfully raising our awareness of the abhorrence of slavery.

We would all recommend this book and it scored 9.

 

---

---

 

Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

This book follows a single day in 1923 in the life of Clarissa Dalloway, an upper class London society hostess, preparing for a party. The day interweaves her thoughts, reflections on the past, life choices and actions, with several other characters, including Septimus Smith (a war veteran, suffering from post traumatic stress) and Peter Walsh (an early admirer). The day ends with the suicide of Septimus and Clarissa’s party.

The book published in 1925, is considered a classic, an example of ‘stream of consciousness’ storytelling. It touches on suggestions of a Lesbian relationship, mental illness and lost love.

However, the majority of our group did not enjoy it. People found it repetitious, with overlong sentences, the characters hard to visualise, lacking in story and boring. Several members did not finish the book.

Those in favour rated it as a favourite read and beautifully written. The reader gets to know the characters really well and they are cleverly connected at the end.

 

---

---

 

 

This month we all read a book of our own choice.

Coming ‘Highly Recommended’ were a variety of novels:

‘The Dry’ by Jane Harper.

‘And the Mountains Echoed’ by Khaled Husseini.

‘Nutshell’ by Ian Mcewan

‘Such a Long Journey’ by Rohinton Mistry

‘The Devil in the Marshalsea’ by Antonia Hodgson

Also, ‘Eggs and Anarchy’ by William Sitwell, a bio-graphical story of Winston Churchill’s cabinet in World War Two, was recommended, as was Barack Obama’s autobiography.

Finally Penelope Lively’s non fiction ‘In the Garden’ comes recommended for those gardeners who also love literature.

Virginia Wolf next month. Quite a change!

 

---

---

 

‘The Quality of Silence’
by Rosamund Lupton

Yasmin who is an Astrologist, and her daughter Ruby, who is deaf from birth, have flown to Fairbanks to meet up with her husband Matt, who makes documentary wildlife films. They were met by a policeman who explained that Matt had been staying in Anaktue, a village north of the Artic Circle where a fire had claimed the lives of everyone living there.

Yasmin felt strongly that Matt would have survived and set out with ten year old Ruby, who is a bright little girl and internet savvy, in a hired giant ice-road truck across the Alaskan tundra in search of Matt. Within hours they were faced with biting piercing coldness, raging storm conditions and a bleak and unforgiving landscape.

The majority of us accepted the implausibility of the idea of mother and daughter taking on the ice road and an Arctic monster storm and concluded that they were either very brave or delusional. The adventure, events and descriptions of the wilderness compensated for the far-fetched storyline. Most of us were of this opinion, some thinking that credibility was a bit of a stretch and in fact quite ridiculous, the idea that a mother would subject her 10 year old daughter to such danger.

In spite of the reservations concerning the credibility of the storyline, the majority felt that they would recommend the book and that it would appeal to adults and early teens alike. The average score out of 10, was 6.

Tea and cake were served and being November the evening concluded with a brief but spectacular firework display

 

---

---

 

 

The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins

This is a classic novel, written in 1868 and declared to be the first detective story. It is number 19 in the 100 best books on the Guardian list.

To quote Carolyn G Heilbrun from Goodreads. “The Moonstone unfolds its amazing story through the recounting of several narrators, all of them enticing and singular. Wilkie Collin’s spellbinding tale of romance, theft, and murder inspired a hugely popular genre – the detective mystery. Hanging on the theft of an enormous diamond originally stolen from an Indian shrine, the novel features the innovative Sgt Cuff, the hilarious house steward Gabriel Betteridge, a lovesick housemaid and a mysterious band of Indian jugglers.”

The majority of us thoroughly enjoyed it. Our descriptions were:- Each character really well drawn; intricate, fascinating with its old use of language; style of different narrators interesting. At times it felt too wordy and simplistic but the humour was good and the weaving of detail was excellent. There is a happy ending, always heartening. It has all the ingredients for a good read: wit, romance, theft, murder, a bit fanciful and lovely language.

There were 2 dissenters who felt their heart wasn’t in it, it was slow, verbose and difficult to get through to the end.

Our scores were mainly good, we had one 9, the overall score came out as 7. That is definitely a recommended read. The Moonstone was made into a film in 1934 and a BBC TV film was made in 1997 starring Greg Wise and Keeley Hawes so good reading or good viewing ahead!.

 

---

---

 

The Year of the Runaways
by Sanjeev Sahota

This Booker-short listed novel traces the lives of three Indian immigrants over a year.

The three young men, Tarlochan Kumar (Tochi), Avtar Nijjar and Randeep Sanghera, move into a house in Sheffield which is shared by numerous migrant workers. The fourth character in this story, Narinder Kaur, is a young British-raised devout Sikh girl, the visa-wife of Randeep, who moves separately into a flat in Sheffield. The author tells the story of each character’s past in India, the events that bring them to this country as immigrants and the struggle they then face in the daily fight for work, money and survival in England, as their lives become entwined.

The majority of the group agreed that the book is superbly written, simply expressed and a real page turner. It is thought provoking with clearly drawn characters and incidences. We are given good insights to Indian culture and the Sikh religion. Although the story-lines were tragic and moving at time, harsh details were not unduly dwelled upon. Unusually, the view was expressed that this is a book people need to read as it opens our eyes to a greater understanding of why people want to come to our country as immigrants.

One member of our group listened to this novel on Audio and expressed her delight at the way in which the background sounds really enriched the story and helped bring the culture alive.

However not all opinions were positive and a view that the book was depressing with continual hardships was also expressed. Additionally, it was agreed that a Glossary would be useful as the author has included many foreign words and phrases which were a bit daunting a times.

After a lively discussion the overall score was a positive 8 out of 10 and therefore a highly recommend.

The evening was pleasantly rounded off as we enjoyed tea, coffee and delicious snacks and cakes courtesy of Val.

 

 

---

---