Not my sort of book, so if you are into post apocalyptic zombie thrillers, please ignore my review for The Girl With All The Gifts by M R Carey. If I had known what it was about, I would never have bought it. But it was in the paperback charts for a long time, and the introduction looked quite smart. Indeed, I enjoyed the first hundred pages that are full of promise. But then the story turns into something more predictable. As a thriller, it is probably quite a superior example and deserves more stars than mine. It is certainly a page turner. I'm not sure if I rushed through just to finish it, or that I had to known what happens next. I will have to think about that.
Julian Barnes' first novel Metroland has to be semi biographical. His account of male adolescence in 1963 resonated with my own experience only a year earlier than the narrator's (and the author's) own time. With one exception. Christopher and his friend Toni are exceedingly bright and attend a much more demanding school than mine ever was. In fact, these two boys are far too intelligent by half. Not only do they appreciate classical music but they listen with blindfolds on and describe and write down what they feel: "('Clear water; Hampton Court Maze?; shoulders wanting to swing; chirpiness - bit as if you've had a blood transfusion. Stuttgart CO. Munch-inger') Bach". And this happens fairly regularly, as does the French they use on a daily basis. So it is no surprise when the book then moves on to Paris in 1968 and finishes back in Metroland in 1977. Our narrator (and author) has grown up and grown away from Toni, and we learn how different they are now. This is wonderful book, not long but it is so well written that I can't wait to read it again.
What could have been a great novel spanning three generations from 1875 to 1949 Stone Cradle turned out to be only so so. The theme seemed to be the relationship between a Romany life and that of a poor Fenland family. When Rose marries the gypsy Elijah, her mother in law tells her she will always be sorry she did. So this was never going to be an uplifting tale. However, the differences between the two women make for an interesting contrast of the two ways of life. There are also some wonderful examples of her best writing. "There are some people who are like threads in a knitted jumper - pull them out, and the whole garment starts to unravel, and you realise too late that you've pulled out the one bit of thread what was holding the whole thing together. Strange, when it looked like all the other bits of thread." The main reason I picked this book was because it starts in the village of Werrington outside Peterborough, and it was here I lived for six years from 1972 to 1978. Obviously much has changed in the last hundred years. There were passages where the story flowed and others where I found it hard going. This is the third book from Louise Doughty that I have read and, for me, her latest two are much better.
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