Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A love letter to London, 28 April 2008
I love London. The buildings, the tube, the bustle. A few years ago I finally went to South London and discovered a different London. One that doesn't come with map, that is louder, stranger, a mish-mash of cultures - sounds, smells and sights - squashed next to each other in shops less picture postcard and even more alluring for that.
`The Room of Lost things' is set in this area, which is painted in a loving yet real fashion, with no grotty archway or uncomfortable issue (race/sex/politics)glossed over in favour of making it seem desirable to outsiders, and the descriptions in this book are almost poetic at times.
Stories with too many characters can be confusing and distracting, but this, although heavily casted, is not like that. You can picture Stefan the commitment-phobe dancer; Akeel the terrified and conflicted father to be, Marilyn with her tight clothes and massive appetite, and of course, there's Robert, the protagonist - owner of the dry cleaners and many, many secrets.
His story had me going. I couldn't wait to find out more about him, but this wasn't because of any overly dramatic devices or cheesy revelations. Like the character his story was slow, steady and well-thought out.
I've been a fan of Duffy's since finding Immaculate Conceit in Manchester's Central Library many years ago, and her writing has matured, progressed and is even better, which as I love her other books, was a lovely surprise.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The Room of Lost Things, 26 Mar 2008
I was enchanted by this book. It reminded me of why I fell in love with London when I first moved here several decades ago. It is the protrait of a South London community over a year - a year in which the dry cleaner's business passes from the hands of ageing, white working-class Robert, who grew up in the shop, to Akeel, a young Asian East Londoner who dreams of a future business with many such shops. The author evokes the mixed community with snapshots from the lives of a range of individuals, their preoccupations, love-affairs, encounters with mortality, and their various strategies for coping with the hazards and beauties of London life. She describes with delicacy the growing relationship between Robert and Akeel, creating an elegy to the stoicism, humour and resilience of Londoners. She has created a vision of the role of the dry cleaner as the keeper of secrets, community historian, and father confessor which accentuates the everyday, understated herosim of the likes of Robert. The whole is grounded in an awareness of the plants, birds and animals that share the land with the humans, and always, in the background, the river Thames.
The vision is so convincing it took me a few days after reading the book to even wonder whether Loughborough Junction is the name of a real place after all, or whether it belongs with such believable creations as Platform 9 and 3/4 on Kings Cross station...
An unusual and original book which deserves the Orange Prize for which it has been longlisted.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Duffy's London magic, 28 April 2008
This is a book about London as its people know it - the London the tourists don't see, but the inhabitants live. The focus of the book is the story of a local dry cleaner who's spent his whole life there, cleaning people's clothes, keeping their secrets, observing their lives. Now he's passing on his business to another Londoner - young to his old; Muslim to his atheist; Asian to his white. The landscape, the river and vignettes of the people they encounter along the way are the background to their growing friendship, richly and skillfully drawn.
The Room of Lost Things is a gorgeous evocation of the spirit of South London; a compassionate portrait of its people and their changing lives, beautifully written, funny, clever and moving. I can't recommend it highly enough.
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