Much of what one expects from Faulks was certainly there. A nice, easy writing style that meant the book flowed without too much trouble (and thus, for some, a highly welcome relief after we’d ploughed through ‘A Little Life’ and ‘History of Seven Killings’ in recent months). There were the usual highly perceptive observations about life, relationships, the world and so on - almost everyone came armed with quotes they wished to share with others (some with too many quotes). Yet, despite this, opinion within the group split in three as to what the resultant book provided:
- The predominant view was that it was a bit of a lazy book. By returning to previous themes around psychiatry and the first world war, Faulks almost gave the impression that he had a book to deliver and was doing it without having to do too much additional background research. It was a book all this sub-section of people relatively enjoyed, but felt it was (in the words of Steve) "formulaic Faulks"
- For a minority of others, it did deliver. Chris W. felt it managed to create in 300 pages all the content and story that ‘A Little Life’ had failed to do in nearly three times that amount of words. Mark T (whilst having yet to finish) was thoroughly enjoying it - and seeing parallels with his favourite ‘Magus’.
- Meanwhile Richard had a much more negative view - being "very disappointed and totally failing to be engaged by either the characters or the story".
One element of this discussion was whether, as the opening sentence to this summary implies, we were perhaps being too hard on Faulks. As Chris W said "People are judging him to too high a standard because of what he’s done in the past" - with the suggestion that a book of this quality from another writer would have been receiving greater praise.
So, having said that, the book generated more discussion and conversation than many and, as conversation progressed, there was a noticeable warming towards it. Points/issues covered included:
- There was some really good raw material - the Italian war scenes, the setting on the island (though one or two doubted the reality of that. Really. Which 50/60 somethings amongst us haven’t been invited to an idyllic island only to have a young woman take her clothes off and seduce us?) and the relationship with the father (Neil feeling the letter at the end had much potential for further narrative and could/should have appeared earlier on). The feeling persisted though that it didn’t quite all add up as it might have done.
- The core storyline of unrequited love naturally generated much conversation with differing takes on it. Some (Mark W. and Richard) thought the response when the couple came together after nearly 40 years was completely unrealistic given the stated impact on Robert’s life. Others (Rob, Mark T. and Neil) felt it was highly plausible, in that it is possible for a person to have that impact on someone’s life whilst also recognising it was a relationship of its time that could not be claimed back. Others (Chris B) felt Robert was just a bit pathetic for allowing his life to be so damaged by an early love affair. Richard just wanted to know why, if it mattered that much to him, he hadn’t sought out and found her years previously (obviously forgetting the difficulty in communication and tracing people in pre-internet days).
- There were differing views on the central character. Some, like Steve, liked the frailty and fallibility of the character, whilst others such as Chris W. got engaged with him and really wanted it to all turn out OK in the end.
- There was a view (Neil, Rob and others) that Faulks had once again been able to create a belief in the settings and the atmosphere so that the reader could really feel they were present in the story.
There also followed a side discussion about why the two 20th century wars have been such a focus on content/setting in the books we have read over the years. They are clearly a major influence on society even now - having dominated the agenda for much of the 20th century. As we noted in discussion, the wars were a central influence on lives of all of our parents (and thus of some of the authors and/or the authors parents) and they really were not that long ago - the gap between the end of the second world war and the birth of all bar young Neil was less than the period of time that the Bath Blokes Book Club has been meeting.
So, a decent book, really enjoyable in parts, but ultimately (for most) not what it might have been. An overall score of 6.51 (with a probably higher score from Mark T still to come) - which is exactly the average score of all books since we re-calibrated the scoring in late 2014.
