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Amazon.co.uk Review
Tim Park's protagonist is a fifty-something, disillusioned political journalist who is trying to write a book on Italian national character in order to predict the behaviour of the inhabitants of his adopted country, especially his wife's. "You cannot marry a woman in one language and think in another", he muses, convinced that what he once found vehement and exciting about her, and indeed Italy, has been revealed as shallow and distasteful. If he can discover how national character determines choice, then he will be able to act differently and leave. Mistaken for German in Italy and American in England, the Englishman articulates beautifully the dilemma of living in another tongue, seeing it as a "faulty contact" which inhibits true understanding. "The language is national destiny", he decides and so he and his wife are destined to confound one another.
Destiny is a highly astute study of the inappropriate behaviour that accompanies grief as well as a blistering account of a marriage of peers, of the failings of commitment and monogamy and of the endless loss and retrieval of love. The fractured, claustrophobic narration perfectly suits the narrator's ugly confusion and sublime lucidity as he evades then shoulders responsibility for his mistakes. An intelligent, enthralling novel about the meaning of identity and our maddeningly conflicted motivations. -- Cherry Smyth
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The furious contents of one head beautifully displayed.,
By donald.preddle@lineone.net (Coventry , U.K.) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Destiny (Paperback)
Although the narrator, a man viewing the wreckage of his marriage and the suicide of his son, is not especially sympathetic - few characters are - and little effort is made by the author to make his obsessions and concerns chime with those the reader may be supposed to share, the writing - very short on relief and long on paragraphs - seems so close to the act of thinking, or the way that thoughts present themselves unbidden to us, that I found the experience of reading this enormously pleasurable. Entering so fully into the mind of someone like the narrator, whose helpless pleasure lies more in pinning down past events with words inside his head than in ever effectively acting upon the present, makes for a very absorbing, intense sort of reading. It may perhaps require a reader with similar tendencies towards indecision and endless internal monologue to fully warm to the book - but for those who delight in this sort of thing, this is definately the sort of book they will delight in.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
One of the Best Novels of 1999,
By A Customer
This review is from: Destiny (Hardcover)
How this virtuoso performance by Tim Parks could have been passed up by the Booker judges is beyond this reader. Parks writes what is arguably the finest novel of this year. Chris Burton, the protagonist, represents a character study that is one of the finest in contemporary fiction. A reader has to go back to the 1950s and Michel Butor's "A Change of Heart" to find anything similarly accomplished. Highly recommended!
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Yes, Melbourne...try it again,
By
This review is from: Destiny (Hardcover)
This is definitely not a book for sunny beach reading. It demands a block of time to get used to its rhythms and themes. Not to be read on a subway or commuter bus either, since in order to get the full benefit, the reader needs to concentrate. It is defnitely worth any effort expended.
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