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5.0étoiles sur 5
Return of an old favorite, Juil 7 2004
It's always good to see an old favorite returned to print after many years. This always helps a new generation of readers to enjoy some writing that interested their previous generation. This book is touted as a very funny work, but I didn't think that it was all that humorous, at least to my mind. That isn't to say that I didn't enjoy the book, because I did, very much. The characters were well-drawn, and the travelogue portion of the work was first-rate. I thought of the book as more of a meditation on religion and its meaning to various people in the story, and I just loved the word pictures that the author painted on almost every page! Humor is in the mind of the beholder, and some of the book was indeed humorous; not in a laugh out loud vein, but rather in a quiet chuckling way. The work shows its age a bit, being almost 50 years old, but that doesn't make any diference in the story line. This is a good book to read, whatever your reason, and I highly recommend it.
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5.0étoiles sur 5
So glad this is back in print, Avril 4 2004
A deceptive novel which has a lot more to say than appears on the surface. The opening sentence is a pure joy and sets the tone for the arch and very wry humour:" Take my camel, dear," said my aunt Dot, as she climbed down from this animal on her return from High Mass." Often dubbed a "classic", it made me wonder what is the definition of a classic? For me it is something which continues to hold truths even beyond the context of its specific setting and time. Jane Austen and Shakespeare, for example continue to astound because you can't help wondering "How did they know THAT when something seems particularly apt to the 21st century human condition. There is a lot in this book that fits that definition. Many of the observations contained within stand true some 50 years later. The idea of people writing their "Turkey books" is amusing and the humour droll. One need only think of the recent "running away to southern France / Spain / Tuscany" genre. The musings on the place of spirituality in various manifestations, and the intersection between pragmatism and organised religion is interesting. I am taken by the fact that we never know the narrator's gender. The name "Laurie" can be either male or female, particularly in the English context (eg author Laurie Lee was male; ).The "illicit" relationship could almost equally be a homosexual relationship. The behaviour of the narrator provides certain clues, such as riding the camel and offering lifts to Turkish country men. I doubt whether that would have been at all possible for a lone travelling female. On the other hand, the narrator talks at one point about a non-possible future with his/her lover (definitely a male) and "their children". Of course the lover has children within his marriage, and the narrator may have expected to marry and have children. Male homosexuals commonly did (and still do) just that. In other passages, the narrator drinks alone with another male companion in a bar, not something which could even necessarily be accommodated in 1950s Turkey for male and female acquaintances. Not everyone is going to like this book or engage with the themes, but if you enjoy well-written descriptions, musings on the human condition which are effused with wry irony, then give it a go!
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5.0étoiles sur 5
One of my favorites!, Mars 18 2004
An important book: this is Macaulay's last novel and one in which she reveals more of her own life, usually kept very private and guarded. Like the narrator, Macaulay carried on an affair with a married man for many years. At the time she wrote this book, she had returned to the Church of England; she herself, like Laurie (the narrator) in the novel, is inclined to the Catholic expression of that tradition. This book is a wonder: part travelogue, part comedy, it is also, remarkably, a serious commentary on faith and doubt. It deals with the difficulties, both moral and intellectual, entailed in being a Christian in today's modern world, with both church and society being what they are. This book, then, will both entertain you and make you think. For students of the English theologian Austin Farrer, I'd say that Laurie's situation in this book is an effective representation of what Farrer means by "initial faith": attracted but still divided, not ready to give full commitment to what the church stands for.
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de Henning Mankell
