The Post-Birthday World review
Sep. 1st, 2008 10:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alobearOne of my impulsive Oxford book buys the other weekend was The Post-Birthday World by Lionel Shriver. It sounded so incredibly different from We Need To Talk About Kevin that I was intrigued, but unsurprisingly I found myself engrossed in it for the same reason. And engrossed is entirely the right word. My usual reading stints are about 40 minutes - the train ride into and home from work, lunchtime if I'm lucky, and before bed if I retire early enough. I just finished The Post-Birthday World in a three-hour non-stop stint, something I also did yesterday.
In a nutshell, the plot is basically the same as Sliding Doors - a pivotal moment in the protagonist's life leads her down two differing paths, which are interwoven throughout the rest of the story. But the plot was dreary and none of the characters likeable.
It was the writing that kept me engrossed - dense, masterful prose, full of wonderful metaphors, insightful characterisation and an extremely clever mirroring of phrases and scenes across the two timelines. Normally, I'd need a character to relate to, or a plot hook to grab me, but it was the sheer skill of the words that caught me with this one, and transformed what would otherwise be an incredibly tedious tale of an idiotic woman incapable of being happy with what she had into a gloriously satisfying literary feast.
Her themes may be by turns horrific or mundane, but boy, can Lionel Shriver write!
In a nutshell, the plot is basically the same as Sliding Doors - a pivotal moment in the protagonist's life leads her down two differing paths, which are interwoven throughout the rest of the story. But the plot was dreary and none of the characters likeable.
It was the writing that kept me engrossed - dense, masterful prose, full of wonderful metaphors, insightful characterisation and an extremely clever mirroring of phrases and scenes across the two timelines. Normally, I'd need a character to relate to, or a plot hook to grab me, but it was the sheer skill of the words that caught me with this one, and transformed what would otherwise be an incredibly tedious tale of an idiotic woman incapable of being happy with what she had into a gloriously satisfying literary feast.
Her themes may be by turns horrific or mundane, but boy, can Lionel Shriver write!
