- Paperback: 160 pages
- Publisher: Flamingo (10 Sep 1987)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0006542360
- ISBN-13: 978-0006542360
- Product Dimensions: 19 x 11.9 x 1.3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,775,031 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Loving Roger
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Product Description
Product Description
Tight and disturbing, LOVING ROGER begins with a dead body and a chilling question. Why has nice, ordinary, affectionate Anna picked up her kitchen knife and murdered the man she insists she loves?
--This text refers to an alternate
Paperback
edition.
About the Author
Tim Parks is the author of six novels, including Tongues of Flame (winner of the Somerset Maugham and Betty Trask Awards), Family Planning and Goodness. He has lived in Italy since 1981, and his account of his first ten years there, Italian Neighbours, was published in 1992 to great acclaim. His new novel, Shear, is currently available in Heinemann hardback. Apart from his writing, Tim Parks also works as a teacher and translator. He is married with two children.
--This text refers to an alternate
Paperback
edition.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Loving Roger is an intriguiging and disturbing book which seeks to explore the difference between emotional and interllectual self knowledge and understanding.
Told initially through the words of Anna (a simple office girl from Acton), the book starts with her brutal murder of Roger Cruickshanks, (her Cambrigde educated lover),and then chronologically unwraps the events which led to this.
Anna's telling of the story uses a simplified vocabulary which at first seems frighteningly dislocated from the actions that have taken place. This is in some ways the case but it is also to set the tone of the main theme of the book, the difference in interllect between Anna and Roger and the difference in their self knowledge.
Roger spends the whole book trying to seach inwardly to find himself but trys only to do this thorough interllectual self analysis (and with a close friend Neville). What he is unable to do is to look at and understand his feelings, and his relatedness to Anna (and other people).
Anna's disturbing actions and all consuming love verging on obsession for Roger initialy lead the reader to side with Roger and his analysis of her as cloying and slightly mad. She does spend the book defining herself through (her love for) Roger.
The reader is also invited to psychoanalise / pathologise her relationship with Roger as a substitute for her perfect brother Brian who she would never be a as good as; in her own eyes and the eyes of her parents.
Slowly, through the simplicty and truthfulness in which she loves Roger, Tim Parks makes her an endearing and far more 'real' person than Roger. Someone with a lot of love to give who is driven beyond distraction by an uncaring, unfeeling, interlectual.
The book does have some loose ends which I was not totaly sure about, the need for or use of Neville to tell Roger's side. The sudden introduction of Roger's voice or words so far into the book I couldn't quite get. So I wasn't sure that the story and the devices used to tell it were totally intergrated. Not that I could ever hope to reach such levels!
It was however a really enjoyable read with some great imageary (Rogers fascination with big fast cars and guess what; you could feel it revving out of control!), and believable characters. The subject matter of course with Tim Parks is always the thing and this was another attempt to disect and come to a greater understanding of the inner pshyche. It is a really worthwhile book and I would reccommend it to anyone.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
1 review
One of the best reads ...
19 Mar 2000
Format:Hardcover
This was my first Tim Parks novel and still might be my favorite. Both clever and deep, dark and funny, Parks does a brilliant job telling a story of seduction and abandoment in the first person female voice of a working class girl who ultimately winds up on top. My only complaint is this story was told so economically it ended too fast. Bravo.
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