Painfully sad, beautifully read

Exquisite and beautifully observed.
A life traced backwards to the origin of the tragedy.
Extremely touching. How did we get ourselves into this mess?

Is this something of a time piece however?
The dominating, boorish arrogance of the Conrad Fleming – conceited, brutal chauvinism – seems so out of place now. Did a time ever exist when such behaviour was tolerated – and with deference?
Nowadays he would be seen as controlling & coercive…a true beast.
Is the heroine really so dim-witted and gullible as she at first appears? Why is she so crushed?
All becomes clear at the end.
Painfully sad.

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I love this writer but this is my least favourite

Very ‘of its time’
The irritation of the patriarchal Victorian masculine characters was just too frustrating to enable much pleasure. Language dated & reminiscent of the clipped tones of British 1930s cinema.

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Fascinating and superb story telling

An extremely penetrating examination of a marriage. The structure of the novel leaves you wanting to revisit it immediately. I was a big fan of EJH since coming across the Cazalet novels and although this is a slightly more bleak take it demonstrates her superb empathy with characters yet again.

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9 people found this helpful

Extraordinary novel masterfully deploys the genius conceit of a life told backwards.

This intricately plotted novel delivers twists and turns whilst excavating the inner life of its protagonist with a dexterity and seemingly effortless eloquence like I've never seen before. This novel will haunt you.

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Not up to usual standard

A bit disjointed. Hard to follow at times. Love her other books. Will still read

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2 people found this helpful

Masterfully structured and exquisitely written

EJH's early masterpiece. In any other world, one of the great books of the century. In ours, one for the cognescenti to relish. Exquisite.

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1 person found this helpful

Enjoyable, but needed perseverance

This is a long and very detailed account of the marriage of 2 people. It's a story of its time, which I found quite hard to relate to. The main female character is likeable and sensible, but she allowed men to make big and small decisions about her life. Men paid for meals and talked about "what women want" as if women were all the same. We were told that they were very much in love at the start of their relationship, but it wasn't obvious what they liked about each other and there didn't seem to be much sympathy between them. Somewhere in the middle, I felt that I really didn't care what happened to these characters and nearly gave up, but I am glad I continued to the end. And then I listened to the beginning again to hear it in the context of the whole.

Mary Wimbush's reading was excellent.

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4 people found this helpful

3 weird men

Exquisitely written but quite a difficult listen. To say Anonia had bad luck with men would be something of an understatement.

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A grower.

While I love EJH’s writing style, I disliked the main characters of the story until the middle of the book.
This is a very cleverly constructed story and I was glad I kept on listening.
The descriptive prose in the story is beautiful.

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Interesting methodology!

It's unusual to find a book written backwards but it soon grows on the reader (listener) to the extent of providing emotional insight which may not be evident the right way round. EJH has a gift for displaying the most raw emotions and does not let us down!

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5 people found this helpful