I finished this book at the end of half term on a trip to Italy for a dear friend’s vow renewal ceremony. I was tavelling alone, without the family, and it was wonderful to be able to read the last quarter of the book in long sessions, which I think was a good way to approach it. Time alone also gave me the opportunity to reflect on the book’s content. And to take a breather after the emotional battering I felt it dealt me!
It is a tremendous book. A stunning achievement. It deserves every plaudit it has received and I cannot believe this did not win the Man Booker in 2015, or the Baileys Prize this Spring. I’ve yet to read the winners of both those competitions, but if they are better than this then I’m in for a treat.
The last time I enjoyed a book of this length this much was over 20 years ago when I read Vikram Seth’s A Suitable Boy over 2 days during a lonely Christmas! At 720 pages it’s daunting, but it’s a book that rewards you handsomely for your patience. It’s a similar size to War and Peace, but it’s not an epic; it’s about a single individual and the effect he has on the people who love him.
It’s set in New York and the central character is Jude St Francis. We first meet him with his three close friends Willem, Malcolm, and JB, having one of their regular get-togethers. The four friends first met in college and have remained close. When we first meet them they are all quite young and at the start of their careers, all but one of them living in economically straitened circumstances, but they are all destined to be (very!) high achievers in their chosen fields – Willem becomes an A-list screen star, JB an acclaimed artist, Malcolm a highly successful architect and Jude a successful corporate lawyer. The fact that they are all so successful and wealthy doesn’t stop you empathising with the characters, and this fact is important to the story in other ways. Themes of success, failure, expectation and disappointment are threads running through the entire novel.
(Not exactly spoilers, but some background info in the remaining paragraphs!)
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