Human Croquet

Product Information

No, it’s more involved than that: for example, Nora’s sister turns up in Effie’s tale before Effie even knows who she is; elements of magical realism and all that. Also, Effie is taking a Creative Writing course, where her assignment is a detective novel featuring a “Madam Astarti”, and elements of that story are intertwined too. Ironically, the Astarti story is stilted and full of clichés, just as you’d expect a novice might write.’

I’m just giving you a flavour of the dialogue; trying to have the sort of fun that Atkinson must have had writing it. And which I didn’t really get reading it.’ The hallucinatory aspects of ''Human Croquet'' begin to overwhelm the sensibilities of the narrative toward the end, when Isobel's omniscience ranges disturbingly (and perhaps unnecessarily) into the future. Not every reader will mother and onetime chambermaid from Edinburgh. (Never mind her degree in English literature.) One of the Whitbread judges even had the temerity to suggest that Atkinson had written a post-modern novel but might not know it.later ''with a different wife altogether.'' Small children at the time, Isobel and her older brother, Charles, were left with Gordon's sour old mother, a k a the Widow, now deceased; her death was another traumatic

What would have cleared it was if Ms. Atikinson had told us the truth. If she had mentioned that our protagonist has hit by a falling tree, everything from there on out would have been okay with me. I wouldn't need to be told that the protagonist was unconcious. I would have been okay with any of the strange happenings, I only needed to be told that something happened. As the New York Times Review Notable Book of the Year reported, it is a part fairy tale, part mystery and part coming-of-age novel about Isobel Fairfax in the 1960's British suburb of Lythe, once the heart of an Elizabethan feudal estate and home to a young English tutor, William Shakespeare. As young Isobel becomes more and more taken in and fascinated by all of the history of the Fairfax estate, the people, and her family history, she sometimes becomes involved in Shakespearian time warps. This was one of Atkinson's earlier novels, but a wonderful addition to her literary accomplishments. Human Croquet by one of my favorite British authors, Kate Atkinson, did not disappoint. Ms. Atkinson's writing is marked not only by beautiful and haunting prose but her sharp writing can only be described as audacious. Spending time with Kate Atkinson is always magical.To be honest there was a section in the middle where I would have given up if I'd been the sort of person who gives up on books, this only happens when they are very,very dire. This certainly wasn't that, the writing was proficient and it was well edited and so on, but it was so gloomy and a bit depressing to be honest. I alternated between admiring this book - and getting quite cross with it. I thought it was a mess. But a brilliant one. On one level I admire the author's ambition. The book tries to be everything. It's a romance, a historical novel, a medidation on time and nature, a work of magic realism, a homage to Shakespearean comedy, and an inspired set of variations and improvisations. With hindsight, I wouldn't have done so many interviews," she says. "I wouldn't have indulged them - most of them were bitches." Considering that she was described in one banner headline as the writer who "rejects marriage and the family, and believes we should live in tribes ruled by women", this response might be viewed as mild. It was an eye-opener for Nellie. She couldn’t fail to notice that many of the men went home at the end of the night with a dance hostess who had been a complete stranger to them a handful of hours earlier. ‘The young ladies get very good tips for that,’ Jaeger said phlegmatically. ‘Can’t blame ’em, can you?’ It's not long after The Great War. Nellie Coker, the proprietress of several of London's most popular clubs, has just been released from prison after serving a few months for minor crimes. We also meet Nellie's 6 adult children, who have been running the clubs while she was out. Nellie's imprisonment seems a potential sign of worse to come and they all worry her empire is under threat. There's a Chief Inspector who sees Nellie as a moral danger and is determined to bring her down. There's a teenage girl who's left home seeking fame on the stage. And there's a country-librarian-turned-war-nurse who has come to London to look for her friend's absconded teenage sister, who finds herself agreeing to go undercover for the Chief Inspector.