Post by Deleted on Jun 1, 2018 21:28:12 GMT
Read this as it had a bit of hype after being longlisted for the booker prize and it's set in my neck of the woods.
I thought the book was perfectly readable but that's the least I expect from a woman who has a degree in English from Cambridge. But beyond that, it all felt a little too convenient and unrealistic. As someone who grew up in the world she's describing, it felt nothing like the world I knew. Which brings me to my own personal irritation regarding the book in these PC days. It seemed clear to me that the writer knew nothing of working class northern life at all and wrote about an almost mythical land that didn't really exist except in the mind of an educated southern middle class girl. What bothered me about this was the fact that had she written about being a small black boy growing up in Detroit, I suspect the people praising her novel would have had a lot of negative things to say about that. But writing about working class white people apparently means you can happily know nothing of the subject matter and no-one will give a crap.
I found a lot of the writing overly flowery and would-be-poetic especially given that we're supposed to believe this is coming from the perspective of a small boy -- though it's later revealed he's 15 which took me by surprise. Why the fuck does he keep calling his father 'daddy'? I know the flash forwards suggests an older Daniel narrating about his younger life but that just makes constant references to daddy even more bizarre. And the fact that Daniel grows up to be a generic homosexual felt utterly pointless and purely done to keep the Guardian reviewers happy.
As for her use of words like wandt etc to express the Yorkshire dialect, this made no sense to me either. The 'd' isn't pronounced so what's it doing there? It should be pronounced 'want (wasn't), dint (doesn't), wunt (wouldn't) etc etc so again, I'm not sure why the author is being praised for that.
Overall, the book was reasonably enjoyable though ultimately uneven and forgettable.
I fear the Booker prize nomination may have done her no favours though.
I thought the book was perfectly readable but that's the least I expect from a woman who has a degree in English from Cambridge. But beyond that, it all felt a little too convenient and unrealistic. As someone who grew up in the world she's describing, it felt nothing like the world I knew. Which brings me to my own personal irritation regarding the book in these PC days. It seemed clear to me that the writer knew nothing of working class northern life at all and wrote about an almost mythical land that didn't really exist except in the mind of an educated southern middle class girl. What bothered me about this was the fact that had she written about being a small black boy growing up in Detroit, I suspect the people praising her novel would have had a lot of negative things to say about that. But writing about working class white people apparently means you can happily know nothing of the subject matter and no-one will give a crap.
I found a lot of the writing overly flowery and would-be-poetic especially given that we're supposed to believe this is coming from the perspective of a small boy -- though it's later revealed he's 15 which took me by surprise. Why the fuck does he keep calling his father 'daddy'? I know the flash forwards suggests an older Daniel narrating about his younger life but that just makes constant references to daddy even more bizarre. And the fact that Daniel grows up to be a generic homosexual felt utterly pointless and purely done to keep the Guardian reviewers happy.
As for her use of words like wandt etc to express the Yorkshire dialect, this made no sense to me either. The 'd' isn't pronounced so what's it doing there? It should be pronounced 'want (wasn't), dint (doesn't), wunt (wouldn't) etc etc so again, I'm not sure why the author is being praised for that.
Overall, the book was reasonably enjoyable though ultimately uneven and forgettable.
I fear the Booker prize nomination may have done her no favours though.