La fotografia

My second experience of Penelope Lively and though I quite liked aspects of this book it was also a confirmation that she's never going to be one of my favourite authors. The novel has an interesting hook - a husband stumbles upon a group photo in which his dead wife is covertly holding hands with h Leggi tutto

After his wife’s death Glyn finds a photograph of her covertly holding the hand of her sister’s husband. What follows is a narrative investigating how fundamentally unknowable everyone is. Glyn confronts his wife’s sister with the photograph and all of a sudden various people who thought they had pe Leggi tutto

So, it was immediately after I had written the update - "don't like this very much" that this book turned a corner and improved! Having completed the book I can now see our author's structure - and as in my previous Lively reads Ha Ha - I found myself sharing the same response, indeed the same value Leggi tutto

While the premise was totally interesting, the implementation of it was NOT. Plot was meandering (not in a good way), characters were almost all unsympathetic, and it was just sort of boring overall. I did read it and finish it, but only because I was on a 13-hour flight and had nothing better to do Leggi tutto

Thank you, thank you, Penelope Lively. At a time when I really needed a good writer to tell a good story about real grown-ups dealing with real situations, this novel came along. At the outset, landscape historian Glyn is rummaging around for a paper he needs and finds an old photograph kept by his w Leggi tutto

“Bloody Hell! What a mess. After all this time. Just because of a wretched photograph.” I can't say much about this novel without giving away the plot. Only that the discovery of an old photograph shakes up the live of quite a few people. Except at the beginning, not much happens in this story, but Leggi tutto

*** THIS REVIEW IS FULL OF SPOILERS *** The Photograph was one of those books that initially it may appear to be somewhat dull and boring, but what a great read it turned out to be. Penelope does a great character study of Kath and the impact that those around her had on her life. In the process she Leggi tutto