- Paperback: 224 pages
- Publisher: WW Norton (Mar 23 2000)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0393319938
- ISBN-13: 978-0393319934
- Product Dimensions: 2.1 x 1.4 x 0.2 cm
- Shipping Weight: 227 g
- Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
Life has not always been harmonious at 12, Wagner Rise. But for the past seven years, philosopher extraordinaire Oliver Gold has caused an entire extended family to stop quarreling among themselves and turned their huge North London home into a cozy, if odd, ménage. How has this seemingly asexual individual accomplished this feat? By using the best tactic on tap--making them all fall in love with him, from the aging matriarch to a pair of lesbian lovers to a 10-year-old girl named Bobs. Alas, things go entirely out of whack when Oliver reveals--or has young Bobs announce--his engagement, and to a rather mousy American named Camilla of all people!
Dream Children would seem on a par with Iris Murdoch's searching and satirical dissections of the socially and intellectually gifted. But A.N. Wilson opens his novel with a more contemporary (and more American) spectacle: a recovered-memory trial in which a middle-aged woman claims she was raped at 6. "It was one of those cases which divided the nation. Those of the conservative disposition felt that the plaintiff was hysterical, probably deluded, certainly, which amounted to something pretty similar, female." And pedophilia, it turns out, is at the heart of Wilson's 17th fiction. Oliver Gold's purity of thought and word are in no way matched by his deeds and desires.
Owing to his own early encounters, our antihero has decided he can only be happy with a child, "a little dream lover." And until Bobs he has lived inside his head, with a little help from Lewis Carroll et al. But 12, Wagner Rise turns out to be the ideal love nest: "What began to unfold was the most delicious danger, the most heart-rending miracle. Now, looking back, he did not choose to put dates on the affair or ask himself when it had all begun. It was the central fact of his life, the knowledge that he and Bobs were made for each other." Oliver may be able to rationalize himself through--and others into--almost anything, but his fellow homesteaders are equally (though not so antisocially) self-deluded. The author has the right, light touch with his emotionally injured and injuring man of intellect, and the ironies reverberate throughout his disturbingly delightful book (one reason Dream Children is unlikely to be an Oprah pick). Oliver's fiancée, for instance, tells her visiting, and appalled, mother, "If that man didn't want a kid of his own, I don't know who does!" Some readers may consider A.N. Wilson's approach far too clever, and cold, for his hot-button subject, but he doesn't need to hammer his moral point home. His intricate narrative and chilling conclusion do so with artistic aplomb. --Kerry Fried --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
The highly intelligent and often very funny author of a series of brainy British comic novels, including Gentlemen in England and The Vicar of Sorrows, has turned his hand to something extremely tricky here. He has imagined, quite sympathetically, a love affair (which indeed has its carnal aspects) between a brilliant middle-aged scholar, Oliver Gold, and 10-year-old Bobs, precocious daughter of the house of women where Oliver lodges in northern London. It is not only the theme that makes the reader a little anxious: Wilson's portraits of Bobs's mother, Michal, her lesbian lover Cuffe, Bobs's grandmother, Margot, and the hysteric Austrian housekeeper Lotte?all of whom have yearnings of one kind or another for Gold?are smartly satirical, whereas Gold's passion for Bobs is treated as the stuff of melodrama. Perhaps Wilson realized he couldn't joke about such things, but this odd imbalance sets the book awry. It has many funny scenes, some trenchantly observed moments and a wonderfully mordant ending, but it lacks the brilliant consistency of vision of Lolita, with which it is likely to be compared (and already has been, by its publisher).
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
It was Bobs who broke the news to the three of them, to her mother, her grandmother, and to Catharine Cuffe: to the quorum, one might say. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
It was Bobs who broke the news to the three of them, to her mother, her grandmother, and to Catharine Cuffe: to the quorum, one might say. Read the first page
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Concordance
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Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
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Most helpful customer reviews
1.0 out of 5 stars
Pity there is not a zero stars rate,
By Big Bend (US, Houston) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Dream Children (Hardcover)
This is an awful book. I am an avid reader and I often read controversial books but this one is as close to pornography form the far side of the spectrum. As a bout the literary style, the best I can say is that it is written in correct EnglishI personally returned the book and asked for a refund
1.0 out of 5 stars
Vile Book,
By Judith Poch Armata (Atlanta, Georgia) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Dream Children (Hardcover)
I am not sure what is wrong with the other people who read this book who seem to think it is exceptionally good writing. At the end of the day the story is of a grown man who destroys a child's innocence, leads a former lesbian wife to suicide and adopts two additional children to molest later in life. It is sickening. For all the grand words used to describe the book, it is nothing but a new twist on pedophelia. By explaining it through the eyes of man consumed by it, the author tries to perhaps makes him more human and makes the subject more palatable. Rubbish. I threw the book in the trash in the Orlando airport and poured my drink on top of it. That was the only time I had any delight related to this book! It does not even deserve one star
1.0 out of 5 stars
Relevant Information,
By A Customer
This review is from: Dream Children (Hardcover)
I was about to read this novel, when I noticed a piece in the New York Times Week in Review reporting that the author, A.N. Wilson, had "'reluctantly' concluded that Israel no longer had a right to exist." The article discusses Wilson's support of a fellow writer who had referred to Israeli soldiers as "the Zionist SS" and who described American Jews who have settled on the West Bank as Nazis who should be shot. "'Many in this country and throughout the world would echo [these] views on the tragic events in the Middle East,'" the Times quoted Wilson as saying. I felt that A.N. Wilson's political opinions were important information for readers to be aware of. I am glad Mr. Wilson was so open about his views; I immediately discarded his book unread on learning of them.
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