A Couple of Short Books for a change
Apr. 9th, 2011 10:11 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alobearTwo short books borrowed from Katie at work:
The Victorian Chaise-Longue by Margharita Laski:
Intriguing premise - you don't normally expect time travel novels to focus on a 50s housewife who can't get up from her chair. Having the entire 1864 sequence take place in one room, with the time traveller unable to move made for a refreshing take on the genre. It was very contemplative, rather than action-oriented, though I thought the depth of description didn't really gel with her distraught frame of mind. There was a hinted mystery about the past of the character she jumped into, which was incredibly obvious from the start, but I'm not sure it was actually meant to be that much of a mystery, just adding layers to the experience rather than providing a surprising revelation. The end was left ambiguous - did she really travel in time? If so, did she get home, or did she die? An odd and quite unsettling little story, but very well written and very different to anything else I've read.
At Freddie's by Penelope Fitzgerald:
Nothing much to this one - a light and entertaining story about a 60s stage school, providing a portrait of thespian temperaments and the difficulties of teaching. The characters were well drawn enough that the lack of actual plot didn't really matter, and it was very funny in places. A sense of impending doom suddenly turned up towards the end, making the last few pages quite tense, as various characters indulged in lengthy conversations to resolve their plot strands, but the potential tragedy came to nothing - a relief but also an anti-climax.
The Victorian Chaise-Longue by Margharita Laski:
Intriguing premise - you don't normally expect time travel novels to focus on a 50s housewife who can't get up from her chair. Having the entire 1864 sequence take place in one room, with the time traveller unable to move made for a refreshing take on the genre. It was very contemplative, rather than action-oriented, though I thought the depth of description didn't really gel with her distraught frame of mind. There was a hinted mystery about the past of the character she jumped into, which was incredibly obvious from the start, but I'm not sure it was actually meant to be that much of a mystery, just adding layers to the experience rather than providing a surprising revelation. The end was left ambiguous - did she really travel in time? If so, did she get home, or did she die? An odd and quite unsettling little story, but very well written and very different to anything else I've read.
At Freddie's by Penelope Fitzgerald:
Nothing much to this one - a light and entertaining story about a 60s stage school, providing a portrait of thespian temperaments and the difficulties of teaching. The characters were well drawn enough that the lack of actual plot didn't really matter, and it was very funny in places. A sense of impending doom suddenly turned up towards the end, making the last few pages quite tense, as various characters indulged in lengthy conversations to resolve their plot strands, but the potential tragedy came to nothing - a relief but also an anti-climax.
