- Hardcover: 185 pages
- Publisher: Grove Pr (Oct 1991)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0802113907
- ISBN-13: 978-0802113900
- Product Dimensions: 21.1 x 13.7 x 2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
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Product Description
Product Description
George Crawley has finally got his life running along satisfyingly straight lines. Having made a success of his career and saved his faltering marriage, he is secure in the belief that he is master of his own destiny. Then comes the tragic blow - fate presents him with an apparently insoluble problem. Except that the word 'insoluble' just isn't part of the man's vocabulary. George will stop at nothing, nothing, to get his life back on the rails again.
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First Sentence
After my father's death we came back to England to live with my widowed grandfather and spinster aunt in an ill-conceived semi-detached in Park Royal, about mid way between the Middlesex Hospital and where they later built the A40. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
After my father's death we came back to England to live with my widowed grandfather and spinster aunt in an ill-conceived semi-detached in Park Royal, about mid way between the Middlesex Hospital and where they later built the A40. Read the first page
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Some books are a good read and keep you turning the pages. Some books you consciously feel are trying to improve you, or are making you a 'better/cleverer person'. Others, like this one, strip the reality of human thoughts and motivations bare, and in doing so send a chill through you but waken you up to what actually matters - people.
At first George comes across as unlikeable, cold. But as the layers of his thoughts are uncovered, it becomes apparent that in a way he is Everyman - which one of us, if other people could see our thoughts, wouldn't appal others? Tim Parks writes from inside the heads of his protagonist with such truth, such a disdain for artifice and gloss, that we know him utterly, and that is why the book is so utterly compelling. Some passages of this writing are heart-breaking in their honesty - the awful thoughts that go through our minds in moments of crisis but that never articulate are articulated here. This is a brave and a beautiful book which, by making you face the truth about human flaws, and come to accept them, is (ultimately) reassuring.
At first George comes across as unlikeable, cold. But as the layers of his thoughts are uncovered, it becomes apparent that in a way he is Everyman - which one of us, if other people could see our thoughts, wouldn't appal others? Tim Parks writes from inside the heads of his protagonist with such truth, such a disdain for artifice and gloss, that we know him utterly, and that is why the book is so utterly compelling. Some passages of this writing are heart-breaking in their honesty - the awful thoughts that go through our minds in moments of crisis but that never articulate are articulated here. This is a brave and a beautiful book which, by making you face the truth about human flaws, and come to accept them, is (ultimately) reassuring.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Tim Parks has here created a stunning piece of art, as well as an absorbing read. George is the main character - a systems man who is a product of the Thatcher generation. He tries hard to make himself, his mother and his wife happy. The results are tragic and realistic. This is the only novel I have ever read that contains a flow-diagram. As always, Parks' use of language is mesmeric; and the beauty of this novel lies in the way you end up hating George and yet identifying with him as a fellow, fallible human being. Buy it!
Format:Paperback
This little book packs a solid punch. After a slow and disappointing start that seemed strangely anchorless the narrative soon finds an intriguing centre in George, the A-line, problem-solving whizz-man. He is the very exemplar of the male rational approach to life; of seeing all difficulties as just another puzzle to solve, to get over and get back on the main road.
Then comes along a catastrophe, an unforseeable event for which there is no planning, no contingencies or ways out. The limitations of his mind-set are then truly exposed with murderous consequencies...
George, though conventionally very bright is a closed person; he excels in the safe environment of his job for a software company but is often blind to the emotional needs of those close to him and even of himself. The only clue we have to his inner life are his vivid dreams which are giving him a clear message but which he fails to see.
For me'Goodness' is about the inadequacy of the logical approach to life in the face of calamity. And how the intuitive female approach is sometimes the only way to make any sense of the world - of seeing tragedy as an experience to be lived through rather than just a big problem to be solved.
The novel builds slowly to an intense and highly symbolic finale, where elements of farce, fear, hope and dread meld. This book is a little gem.
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