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Bezig met laden... The New Confessions (1987)door William Boyd
Books Read in 2017 (3,558) Bezig met laden...
Meld je aan bij LibraryThing om erachter te komen of je dit boek goed zult vinden. Op dit moment geen Discussie gesprekken over dit boek. Boyd is a wonderful writer. This story spans decades and two world wars and finally touches on an awful period in our history. The ending was too philosophical for me; would have preferred a more literal end. ( ) This is my 8th Boyd novel and while good, it’s not my favorite and I’m glad I didn’t read this early on as it may have kept me from reading others. In terms of pacing it was pretty even, although the parts where JJ waxes on and on and on about his Confessions filming does get a bit much. I resorted to skimming. JJ himself isn’t such a winning character; like many of Boyd’s others he makes a lot of bad decisions, but on top of that he’s a bit too sorry for himself. He has the insight to see that he’s the common denominator of all the trouble in his life, but he is powerless to change or feels that he is. Either way he never bothers to try and that makes his whining trying to read about. He also dislikes a lot of people on sight and that doesn’t help. Each trouble and tragedy is delivered to the reader with a thud of finality. Baldly stated it hits you in your brain to good effect. Like many of Boyd’s other novels featuring male protagonists, the women in the book only serve to forward his actions, they never have lives in their own right or have stories that don’t prop up his. Doon might be an exception here, but she isn’t since JJ is so hung up on her that she becomes a source of self-pity. And as usual, sex is a common preoccupation for JJ. Right to the end he’s a lecherous old bugger. I like the drollness of the anti-heroic narrator in this one. "A little reflection and the so-called pattern of your life soon appears as little more than an aggregate of hazard and chance." There's an off-beat, very understated quality unique to Boyd. This is the third book of his that I have read. Had to give up at the start of his WW1, first time around. I thought, maybe if I d read J J R's original this traipse through time would be more compelling. Then, while writing on Rousseau May 2014 the parallels offered by Boyd rang loud and clear and I could hardly put it down. Picaresque like Don Quixote. Weird end. The whole really adds up to nothing much but it seems as if that's the way Boyd wants to show life. A big collection of could have beens by a has-been. The protagonist is not attractive, but still, he is human and as confessional and apparently honest as Rousseau the original was. Life without a point, without God under the sun. geen besprekingen | voeg een bespreking toe
Erelijsten
The New Confessions is the outrageous, extraordinary, hilarious and heartbreaking autobiography of John James Todd, a Scotsman born in 1899 and one of the great self-appointed (and failed) geniuses of the twentieth century. 'An often magnificent feat of story-telling and panoramic reconstruction . . . John James Todd's reminiscences carry us through the ups and downs of a long and lively career that begins in genteel Edinburgh, devastatingly detours out to the Western Front, forks off, after a period of cosy family life in London, to the electric excitements of the Berlin film-world of the Twenties, then moves on to Hollywood . . . to ordeal by McCarthyism and eventual escape to Europe' - Peter Kemp in the Observer. 'Simply the best realistic story-teller of his generation' - Sebastian Faulks in the Independent Geen bibliotheekbeschrijvingen gevonden. |
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Google Books — Bezig met laden... GenresDewey Decimale Classificatie (DDC)823.914Literature English & Old English literatures English fiction Modern Period 1901-1999 1945-1999LC-classificatieWaarderingGemiddelde:
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