Can't find any notes of group deliberations. Neil supplied these thoughts:
Well, I have to say this was a very pleasant surprise. I have only read one Pater Carey book before, the Kelly Gang story that won the Booker Prize, and I can't say I was that taken with that particular novel. I found the story rather one-dimensional and the laboured interpretation of how Kelly might have told his own story rather monotonous. So I didn't come to this book with high expectations and my first impressions weren't helped much by the opening sections from either of the narrators. Both seemed very dark and foreboding and didn't hint to me at all of the rather comic tale that would unfold quite amusingly afterwards.
It is perhaps a bit of a stretch to liken this to a 19th century Jeeves and Wooster novel, but the underlying humour seems to be there in the re-telling of the master servant relationship, especially as this relationship is so unconventional. I liked the way we alternated between narrators to get their different takes on the situations and the relationship and I found their characters to be well drawn.
I also found the backdrop to the book interesting. It made me realise how little I know about the French Revolution and more particularly the July Revolution and it has made me go on to read up some more about both to try and better understand the background to Olivier's position. It also threw up some interesting questions for me, amongst which was the question of whether there had been any famous female painters pre the 20th century, something which again I have looked in to and find remarkable that there were so few female painters of any note around this time.
Another aspect I enjoyed was the way Carey used hindsight to draw parallels between modern America and this older version, with sideways nods to the potential for ignorant men to become President for example and their early obsession with wealth and property which Carey seemed very clearly to me to be comparing to the open avarice that poisons the country today.
But most of all I enjoyed Carey's poetic writing style and I loved the way he effortlessly constructed sentences which would take most of us hours if not days to come up with if we could ever at all. Take this sentence for example where Olivier describes a wine he is drinking: "In a year it would be a dowager with a faded corsage, but as it entered my mouth it was vigorous and manly, completely composed, its orchestra all present and correct" - take that Jilly Goolden!
