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Product Description
From Amazon
From the author of Waterland and Ever After, Last Orders is a quiet but dazzling novel about a group of men, friends since the Second World War, whose lives revolve around work, family, the racetrack, and their favorite pub. When one of them dies, the survivors drive his ashes from London to a seaside town where they will be scattered, compelling them to take stock in who they are today, who they were before, and the shifting relationships in between. Both funny and moving, this won the Booker Prize in 1996.
--This text refers to an alternate
Paperback
edition.
From Publishers Weekly
On a bleak spring day, four men meet in their favorite pub in a working-class London neighborhood. They are about to begin a pilgrimage to scatter the ashes of a fifth man, Jack Dodds, friend since WWII of three of them, adoptive father to the fourth. By the time they reach the seaside town where Jack's "last orders" have sent them, the tangled relationship among the men, their wives and their children has obliquely been revealed. Swift's lean, suspenseful and ultimately quite moving narrative is propelled by vernacular dialogue and elliptical internal monologues. Through the men's richly differentiated voices, the reader gradually understands the bonds of friendship, loyalty and love, and the undercurrents of greed, adulterous betrayal, parental guilt, anger and resentment that run through their intertwined lives. Each of them, it turns out, has a guilty secret, and the ironies compound as the quiet dramas of their lives are revealed. Amy, Jack's widow, does not accompany the men; she chooses instead to visit her and Jack's profoundly handicapped daughter in an institution, as she has done twice a week for 50 years. Swift plumbs the existentialist questions of identity and the meaning of existence while remaining true to the vocabulary, social circumstances and point of view of his proletarian characters. Written with impeccable honesty and paced with unflagging momentum, the novel ends with a scene of transcendent understanding.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
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Most helpful customer reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Masterfully Written Booker Prize Winner,
By "botatoe" (Albany, NY) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Last Orders (Paperback)
Ray, an aging punter whose wife left him years ago, sits at the bar of the Coach and Horses pub in Bermondsey. "It aint like your regular sort of day . . . That's why I'm here, five minutes after opening, for a little silent pow-wow with a pint glass."Ray is joined by his long-time friend, Lenny, and then by Vic, who arrives carrying a box. "He twists the box round so we can see there's a white card sellotaped to one side. There's a date and a number and name: Jack Arthur Dodds." These three friends are soon joined by another, Vince, to scatter the remains of a man they have known since World War II. Thus begins "Last Orders," Graham Swift's masterfully written Booker Prize winning novel about the day that four old friends carry out the final wish of Jack Dodds, scattering his remains into the surging ocean at the Margate pier. Along the way, driving from Bermondsey to Margate in a big old Mercury, with stops at a naval memorial in Chatham, the Canterbury Cathedral, and a few more pubs, we learn the intimate history of their lives, their friendships and their unfulfilled dreams. "Last Orders" is written in language that brilliantly captures the thoughts, the feelings and the unfulfilled yearnings of its characters, that vividly paints a picture of the subtle, yet profound, ways in which ordinary lives become intertwined and meaningful. It is a novel marked by humor, but also by a subdued, bittersweet melancholy. While written in the first person, the voices are ever-shifting as the narrative moves from character to character, place to place, backward and forward in time. It is a remarkable narrative achievement, but also one that demands the reader's utmost attention.
4.0 out of 5 stars
Highly recommend this audio book,
By
This review is from: Last Orders (Paperback)
Jack Dodds passed away shortly after closing his family butcher shop. Today is the day appointed for dispersing his ashes, and his son and friends have gathered. If they had awaken this morning thinking that it would be an easy task, just open the jar and pour, then they were mistaken.While his son Vince, and his friends Ray, Lenny and Vic are on their way to the seaside, his wife Amy is visiting their daughter June to break the news to her. This day, meant to honour Jack, turns out to be one of deep reflection and soul searching for each of the people involved. Over the years their lives had become so entwined that a simple good-bye wasn't enough. it had to be more, much more. At first I was a bit confused of who all these people were, but as I continued listening it became clear. They were clearly grieving, not only for Jack's death, but also for events past and for events that could have been. I particularly liked Ray's story. During the course of the War, he and Jack has saved each others lives and become like brothers. That bond had never been broken even if they didn't wear it on their sleeves every day. This Highbridge audio book features a full cast of characters/voices. I found that this really enhanced the story telling.
4.0 out of 5 stars
a glancing gut punch,
By Paul Agostinelli (Boulder, CO United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Last Orders (Paperback)
I am shocked by the failure of mainstream critics to address the indebtedness of Last Orders to Faulkner's As I Lay Dying, a debt thankfully pointed out by several reviewers on this site. That said, Swift is a stunningly accomplished writer (Waterland is a masterpiece) and this work is an affecting tour de force. A whiff of sentimentality occasionally hovers about the characters here, but it always seems to ramify into something edgier and more complex, like a good scotch. Highly recommended.
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