On a prose level, I didn’t enjoy this one as much as I enjoyed the first two, which were extremely clever and a bit raw. Here, with Patrick sober (for several years, it’s implied), he once again is one among many points of view, just as he was in the first book as a five year old, when his parents’ dinner guests held most of the narrative focus. Here the party is for some duke or other on his birthday, and the Princess Margaret is […]
“How could he think his way out of the problem when the problem was the way he thought . . .” #CBRBingo
“Everything was under control. No, he mustn’t think about it, or indeed about anything, and especially not about heroin, because heroin was the only thing that stopped him scampering around in a hamster’s wheel of unanswerable questions. Heroin was the cavalry. Heroin was the missing chair leg, made with such precision that matched every splinter of the break. Heroin landed purring at the base of his skull, and wrapped itself darkly around his nervous system, like a black cat curling up on its favorite cushion. […]
One day in the south of France, 1968. #CBRBingo
Project: Catch Up On Review Backlog, review #10 out of 16 Pretty much ever since I abandoned grad school before I completed my doctorate (English lit!), I have been allergic to lit-fic. There is just something about modern literary fiction that hits me the wrong way. Most of it feels to me like the author is trying to impress me, to say something PROFOUND, and a heck of a lot of it is just middle aged white guys having mid-life crises in exactly the same […]
Pain could be measured, whereas love often couldn’t even be located.
This book is part of the Hogarth Shakespeare series. I previously reviewed Chevalier’s New Boy from the series. It was a FANTASTIC take on Othello. A year or so ago, I read Atwood’s spin on the Tempest , Hag-Seed, but didn’t really care for it. Dunbar is St. Aubyn’s retelling of King Lear and I’m not sure exactly how I feel about it. My general reaction to most of it was… “What just happened?!” St. Aubyn focuses pretty much exclusively on the dysfunctional family theme here. Henry Dunbar is an 80-year-old billionaire business mogul who hasn’t exactly […]
Utter worthless shit
There are some novelists who, when you read them, you really feel like you get to know them. And you like them. My literary crush on Patrick Ness is well documented, but I’d also happily go for a pint with Stephen King, Sarah Waters, David Mitchell and so on. Purely based on how much I enjoy their books and how their voice comes across in it, you understand. Based on this so-called novel, I wouldn’t want to go anywhere near Edward St Aubyn. Not only […]
I’m so sad I’m done with this book
Last year, I read and reviewed the first four novels in The Patrick Melrose series, and it was, without a doubt, some of the most eye-opening books I read last year. At Last is the final book of the series, and finishing it makes me so sad. My friend who introduced these books to me once said, “I am so jealous that you are getting to read these for the first time,” and I understand now what she means because I feel so sad that […]