Notes on a Scandal
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Amazon.co.uk Review
Zoe Heller juggles journalism and novel-writing successfully in Notes on a Scandal and manages to say something interesting and complex about moral panics and the people who get caught up in them.
Pottery teacher Sheba lets herself be talked into an affair with 15-year-old pupil Connolly; part of what is admirable about this novel is that there is no real attempt to extenuate this--it's wrong and she knows this from the start, enough to lie to herself and others about it. It's an abuse of her very limited power--he is one of the few of her pupils interested in art, not interested in perpetually disrupting her lessons.
Sheba is not alone in abusing power, though, and Heller forces us to confront this unpleasant truth about the moralising, managerial headmaster, the husband freed by Sheba's action to seduce his own very slightly older students, and the relatives who never liked her much and can now disown her. Above all, she devotes most of the novel to Barbara, the older colleague who becomes Sheba's confidante and slowly manipulates the situation to make Sheba entirely dependent on her. This is a brilliantly gloomy study in obsession--and the obsession in question is not actually Sheba's with her underage lover. --Roz Kaveney --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Product Description
When the new teacher first arrives, Barbara immediately senses that this woman will be different from the rest of her staff-room colleagues. But Barbara is not the only one to feel that Sheba is special, and before too long Sheba is involved in an illicit affair with a pupil. Barbara finds the relationship abhorrent, of course, but she is the only adult in whom Sheba can properly confide. So when the liaison is found out and Sheba's life falls apart, Barbara is there...
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First Sentence
The first time I ever saw Sheba was on a Monday morning, early in the winter term of 1996. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
The first time I ever saw Sheba was on a Monday morning, early in the winter term of 1996. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
I'm a bloke and I liked it,
By
This review is from: Notes on a Scandal (Paperback)
A tale about two very different female high-school teachers, one old and frumpy, the other young and attractive. The frumpy one becomes obsessed with her observations of the new young teacher, who gets involved in a scandal that could ruin her career.
I ordered and read this book back in 2004 on the basis of its MAN Booker award nomination, having no idea of its subject matter. It won't be everyone's cup of tea, and it might not be for those who, like me, usually buy murder mysteries or crime thrillers - but I liked it from the very beginning and by the end, I loved it. Zoe Heller has a real talent for character development, and manages to portray the self-denied loneliness of a sixty-something spinster/schoolteacher in a sensitive and non-condescending manner in combination with a good deal of tragic humour as well. I must have completed two-thirds of the book before I realised that it wasn't the woman at the heart of the scandal who was the central character, but her note-maker and grateful friend who tells the story itself. The personalities of both women are artfully and painstakingly developed, along with their working colleagues and families, and for this reason I strongly recommend Notes on a Scandal as an education for other writers on how to tell a story with characters who readers can totally believe in. An astute observation on the trials and tribulations of the lonely, this book deserves its prize nomination and gets my strong recommendation. In 2007 the story was released as a film, which I have seen twice. It's hard to imagine anyone other than Judi Dench in the role of the elderly spinster and notemaker - she was just perfect. For once, this was a film that managed to pretty much equal the high standards of the novel on which it was based.
31 of 32 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
sinister storytelling,
By A Customer
This review is from: What Was She Thinking?: Notes on a Scandal (Hardcover)
Zoe Heller's novel about a slightly absent-minded teacher having an affair with her young pupil takes a sinister tone from the start. Told through her 'ever so devoted' best friend we discover a woman who has become the obsession of her doting carer. Heller flawlessly reveals Barbara's obsession through dark and very observational humour. This is a literary Single White Female with the narrator as a lonely old bitter, jealous and sinister woman living vicariously through her friend, taking advantage of her situation with chilling overtones that makes you really believe that she is sitting at night rocking and wearing her friend's clothes. Excellently written, very funny, dark with twinges of scary. Highly recommended as a very believable account of an obsessive woman and her strange life!
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Deliciously scandalous !,
This review is from: Notes on a Scandal (Paperback)
I thoroughly enjoyed this book - it is gripping and easy to read. Pick it up and you won't put it down until you've finished it - it's that engaging.
Zoe Heller has drawn two very interesting, complex protagonists in her character-driven drama, with its issues of loneliness, family and sexuality driving the prose. Heller is interested in the psychology of those issues, and she has considered their implications to great effect through her characters. My only real gripe would be that occasionally it felt like the author prioritised brevity at the expense of backround and detail in order to make this a very tight, well-paced read. Perhaps this was down to her journalistic backround editing her a little over-zealously. But really this is a compliment because I could have happliy continued had there been another 200 pages ! Highly recommended.
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