Day
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Review
"An imaginative tour de force that succeeds on every level, from its sparkling language to its narrative ingenuity to its devastating portrayal of wartime Europe."
--"San Diego Union-Tribune"
"Kennedy faultlessly captures the brusque camaraderie of the bomber crew, men from vastly different backgrounds knitted together by a love so profound it can never be put in words."
--"The Washington Post"
"[Kennedy] follows the examples of several of her contemporaries, including William Boyd and Sebastian Faulks, in writing about World War II, and in doing so makes that fertile territory very much her own. . . . Brilliant."
--"The Boston Globe"
"Remarkable. . . . Day" "is a novel of extraordinary complexity."
--"The New York Review of Books"
--"San Diego Union-Tribune"
"Kennedy faultlessly captures the brusque camaraderie of the bomber crew, men from vastly different backgrounds knitted together by a love so profound it can never be put in words."
--"The Washington Post"
"[Kennedy] follows the examples of several of her contemporaries, including William Boyd and Sebastian Faulks, in writing about World War II, and in doing so makes that fertile territory very much her own. . . . Brilliant."
--"The Boston Globe"
"Remarkable. . . . Day" "is a novel of extraordinary complexity."
--"The New York Review of Books"
Glamour
`... be amazed by the emotional punch of this moving portrayal of the brutality of war'
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
18 of 19 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
A L Kennedy's brilliance and creative use of language are not in doubt; but for once, they fall a little short for me this time. The story of Alfie Day, his relationships with the rest of his bomber crew and with others such as his lover, apear in fragments to be pieced together, as they come to his mind. Much of the narrative is almost stream-of-consciousness in style, and we learn only as Alfie comes to it in his own time, that he is a darker character than we suspect at first. There is murder, there is war, there is a tortured love affair; and yet somehow the book left me feeling that nothing had really happened at the end of it.
18 of 20 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
She has written a book, a novel of a book, a story of war and a man, a story of madness and war, of men and war, of a man and his mother and war. Some of her sentances are almost incomprehensible, too complex, as the reader reads, the reader, that person, gets to the end and thinks; 'what did I just read', did I? I did read, yes I did. They go back, read again and realise they didn't understand, it didn't work, it was just words.
The words, oh the words! They just go on and on and mean not much by the end......
Avoid.
The words, oh the words! They just go on and on and mean not much by the end......
Avoid.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
It is easy to see why views differ so widely. This book takes on big issues - morality, the human condition, trauma, love, friendship - seen through the eyes of a fallible character. Although the second world war setting is strictly naturalistic (and well-researched) there are elements of symbolism and the narrative structure is, as others have pointed out, complex, involving multiple layers of flashback. But the novel repays in full the effort it demands of the reader. A L Kennedy's ability to imagine the life of an airman and PoW in a war which ended 20 years before she was born is astonishing. Her treatment of the moral aspects of war is questioning but largely avoids anachronistic standpoints. The positive ending, holding out at least the possibility of redemption, was unexpected, at least for this reader, but on reflection put the bleakness of what had gone before in perspective.
Not an easy read, either literally or metaphorically. Kennedy makes few concessions to the reader unfamiliar with the period or the paraphenalia of warfare. There is much vulgarity and some horror. But both the principal character and the ideas gradually gripped me and I was eagerly turning the pages by the end, sorry not to be able to follow Alfred Day's story further. There are some parallels with William Golding's 'Pincher Martin', another novel set during the second world war and narrated through many flashbacks. Both are about the human potential for good and evil and the difficulty in defining those concepts in some circumstances. I found 'Day' a convincing and satisfying work on several levels.
Not an easy read, either literally or metaphorically. Kennedy makes few concessions to the reader unfamiliar with the period or the paraphenalia of warfare. There is much vulgarity and some horror. But both the principal character and the ideas gradually gripped me and I was eagerly turning the pages by the end, sorry not to be able to follow Alfred Day's story further. There are some parallels with William Golding's 'Pincher Martin', another novel set during the second world war and narrated through many flashbacks. Both are about the human potential for good and evil and the difficulty in defining those concepts in some circumstances. I found 'Day' a convincing and satisfying work on several levels.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Intelligent writing, well researched.
Day is an attempt to tell one man's experience of World War Two told through a series of flashbacks from the vantage point of 1949. Read more
Published 6 months ago by FlyingAspidistra
Inside the mind of a rear-gunner
This accomplished novel - almost stream of consciousness, explores the life of Albert Day, 19 year old rear gunner on a Lancaster bomber during World War II. Read more
Published 10 months ago by Clive A. H. Still
Kindle edition has less content than paperback.
Book clubbers beware - if you're hoping to compare notes with fellow readers, you're completely out of luck. Read more
Published 14 months ago by Sean Sollé
dont know why theres negative reviews
i dont know why there are so many bad reviews on this book.yes i understand that the narrative at the begining can throw you a little but al kennedys way of conveying the chracter... Read more
Published 17 months ago by Ms. Salma Ali
Insipid war story that doesn't quite work
This story has the potential to be a tear jerker, with its subject matter, but it doesn't quite meet the mark. Read more
Published on 1 Mar 2010 by BookWorm
Can't get into this book at all
I have tried twice to read this book. Due to the publicity it received when it won the Costa prize, there has been lots of interviews with the author and she seems a really... Read more
Published on 10 Jan 2010 by Janie U
Wonderfully Clever
Kennedy uses Mrs. Dalloway stream of consciousness in this novel about Alfie Day, a man who was a gunner in the RAF in WWII trying to pick up the pieces of his fragmented life... Read more
Published on 17 July 2009 by Mrs. K. A. Wheatley
Hugely disappointing!
I thought I would love this as I am fascinated by the whole subject of Bomber Command - my dad was a navigator in a Halifax bomber in WW2. Read more
Published on 28 Jun 2009 by The Linguaphile
That was hard work.......
I really wanted to like this book, theoretically it should have been just the sort of story to appeal to me. Read more
Published on 21 April 2009 by W. Benton
Could Not Finish This Confusing Book
Unfortunately, I just couldn't finish it. I found the writing difficult to understand and confusing. I got to about page 20 and I really didn't want to carry on. Read more
Published on 2 April 2009 by Mrs. C. Colbert
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