- Paperback: 160 pages
- Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd; New edition edition (30 July 1992)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0140154728
- ISBN-13: 978-0140154726
- Product Dimensions: 19.4 x 12.8 x 1.2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 372,737 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Product Description
This first novel explores the chain of events which, in the social circumstances and mores of Scotland of the forties and fifties, cause the bizarre death of a young girl. This novel won the RSL's Winifred Holtby Prize for the best regional novel of the year.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Gothic comedy and tragedy in 1950's Scotland,
By A Customer
This review is from: O Caledonia (Paperback)
This hauntingly beautiful novel gets under your skin from the moment you read the first line. Janet is a dysfunctional teenager. Her struggles with the encroaching world of womanhood make for searingly comic reading, despite a dark underlay of doom. Weird and wonderful.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Hugely enjoyable,
By Simon Smith and the Amazing Dancing Bear (Edinburgh) - See all my reviews
This review is from: O Caledonia (Hardcover)
Elspeth Barker's macabre tragicomedy is mesmerising, haunting and entertaining. She uses language with a poet's deftness and evokes the east of Scotland not only through description, but also through the vernacular of the narration. The heroine of the piece, Janet, is an awkward and sympathetic character beautifully and believably constructed with a cast of characters that are so dislikeable as to emphasise Janet's alienation. Motifs and themes run through this short book giving clues pointing towards the sharp, exacting and tragic end that is the perfect finale to a tale of such bleak and bitter humour.
Half way through the book, I read a line which made me realise I had heard a snippet of this story on Radio Four's Book at Bedtime some thirteen years ago. For a single line, heard out of context, to have stayed with me for that long to have finally been put in its place is both satisfying and testament to the strength of Barker's prose. I'd also like to add that it is a tragedy that this book is currently out of print.
5.0 out of 5 stars
One of my favourites,
By
This review is from: O Caledonia (Paperback)
I was introduced to this novel when a sample of it was used as a reading comprehension exercise in my English class at school. I really enjoyed the evocative writing, particularly the descriptions of spools of thread in a haberdashery and a small stuffed donkey, and the main character, Janet, came across very strongly. She is stubborn, imaginative (at times to the point of delusion), and apparently disliked by most of the other characters. The novel essentially tells her life story, starting off with Janet as a difficult young child dealing with the birth of two younger siblings, and continuing through to adolescence, with the family living in a remote castle where her parents run a boys' school.
I can understand to a certain extent why the other characters (including her parents) feel as they do about Janet, but on the whole she seems badly done by. She is, either way, a fascinating young girl, with a rich internal life, and makes for a delicious novel.
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