- Paperback: 352 pages
- Publisher: Viking (31 Aug 2006)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0670914630
- ISBN-13: 978-0670914630
- Product Dimensions: 23.2 x 14.8 x 2.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 332,607 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Saving Caravaggio
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle .
Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Plus, get an extra £5 Gift Certificate when you trade in books worth £10 or more before June 30, 2012. Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. |
Product details |
More About the Author
Product Description
Time Out
`The gritty realism that has made Le Carré's spy novels so
intriguing to those who don't read genre fiction'
intriguing to those who don't read genre fiction'
Time Out
`The gritty realism that has made Le Carré's spy novels so
intriguing to those who don't read genre fiction'
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
intriguing to those who don't read genre fiction'
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
18 of 19 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is a special book. A great story, full of elegant prose. Whilst I couldn't put it down, I also wanted to savour it. How often does that happen? Again, Griffiths is brilliant with character, with setting, with atmosphere. Set in Florence, Naples, Calabria, this is the great Italian road book, without anything pretty or saccharine to obscure the dark side of country, the shadow side of the Italian character. Few novels have so many layers, few novelists build these layers so effortlessly. On its surface it is a novel about art crime, but really it's novel about the love of art, a novel about relationships - forming, breaking, desperate - and finally it is a novel about obsession, what drives us to our obsessions. I recommend you buy this book because you will be recommending it to your friends, and they to their friends, and there is nothing better than feeling you've discovered something special and passed it on.
15 of 16 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This novel, it seems to me, contains everything you want: a strong story, completely realised characters (like Tolstoy), it discusses important issues (love, marriage, art, ambition, betrayal) without letting them get in the way. And it is fabulously atmospheric. I read it because it was shortlisted for the Costa (nee Whitbread). I thought it was the best of the four. It was certainly the most grown-up. And you don't get much of that these days. Griffiths seems to write as though every word counts. If you like novels that aren't interested in what is fashionable, but instead in what is important, and you like them set outside fashionable cities (london, new york, paris), try this. Finally, I don't know when I was last shocked by an ending, and then left to savour its rightness. This novel stayed with me for days. A little grimly in some ways. But I knew I'd read a novel that will count long after all the zeitgeist novels have been forgotten.
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This was chosen for our book club. Those who wanted and expected a thriller were disappointed. Those who were prepared to read a richer more complex novel were rewarded. This is a character-based piece; there is plot, but it's there to reveal how people negotiate a difficult emotional world. The writer is particularly good on the emotional world of women in their thirties, especially those who've perhaps made wrong decisions, or can't stop making them. It has a very honest ending.
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Was this review helpful?
Let us know
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Disappointing
This book has some merit. I enjoyed its description of physical things: countryside and cities, paintings and food, people and rooms. However, much of the writing is pretentious. Read more
Published on 1 Feb 2010 by asphaltjungle
Could have been a good thriller, but ends up tedious and pointless
The cover image is probably the best part of this book - actually, the introduction isn't too bad either. But after that, the rest of the book just gets a bit tedious, really. Read more
Published on 20 July 2009 by T. Lewis
Rather unsatisfactory
I just couldn't get into this book despite an encouraging start. By the end I found I didn't care one way or the other what happened.
Published on 3 July 2009 by Geoff Naylor
Rough guide to the Italian underworld
Dark, tense, imaginative and seductive, Griffiths exposes fine art and greed as natural bedfellows. If you know Florence, the Uffizi, little back-street cafes and restaurants that... Read more
Published on 12 Dec 2008 by Mick Read
Saving Roget
Dreary, gloomy, depressing - Neil Griffiths' style is as contagious as his viewpoint is dour. As an insight into the ambivalent ways of the world of art theft, Saving Caravaggio... Read more
Published on 13 Nov 2008 by G. M. Sinstadt
A thriller with intellectual depth
This blew me away. A thriller with real depth about obsession and negotiation. But its overall timbre is mostly of shadow, chiaroscuro to use the artists' metaphor. Read more
Published on 10 April 2008 by Annabel Gaskell
Graham Greene meets Jean-Paul Sartre
This is one of the great books of the last ten years. Ostensibly a thriller, the hero's dark, futile struggle becomes an existential metaphor. Read more
Published on 8 Feb 2008 by J. Poyser
psyched out
This is a real psychological thriller. And what that means it's all about character - what drives them. This is a dark book. When asked to describe it, I called it a tragedy. Read more
Published on 1 Feb 2008 by MF
Great read.
Griffiths has written a great read with 'Saving Caravaggio.' It's smart, atmospheric, has one of the most honest and relevant sex scenes in any novel I've read and, daringly,... Read more
Published on 30 Jan 2008 by A. Thatcher
Francesca's curly locks and turning on the burners
This book is overly repetitive - it feels like the author is being paid by the word. Both myself and my wife had identical feelings about the same tired descriptions occuring again... Read more
Published on 28 Jan 2008 by Jim
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
|
|
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
