- Paperback: 240 pages
- Publisher: Flamingo; New Ed edition (8 May 2001)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0006552366
- ISBN-13: 978-0006552369
- Product Dimensions: 19.2 x 13.4 x 1.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,042,070 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Temptation
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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
Dermot Bolger's Temptation is the kind of powerfully involving novel that comes along rarely and has as its central focus a family encountering an emotionally turbulent time on an annual holiday in a hotel on the beautiful Southeast coast of Ireland. Bolger's heroine, Alison Gill, is the mother of three children taking a much-anticipated annual family holiday at Fitzgeralds' Hotel, one of the most celebrated in Ireland. All is idyllic, but Alison is thrown into confused memories of the past when her husband is forced by a work crisis to return to Dublin and she encounters the attractive, disturbing Chris. He's a lover from 20 years ago, and soon Alison is forced to confront the choices she has made in her life. Is what she considered to be happiness really what she wanted? And if she gives in again to the sexual passion of her youth, will she find her real self--or destroy all that she has carefully built up?
The canny reader will soon spot the presence of one of the finest writers in the English language as an inspiration for Bolger's highly assured novel. The Irish setting; a middle aged woman dangerously attracted to a man who may be very bad news for her; the astonishingly sympathetic understanding of a female protagonist by a male writer: all of these are the hallmarks of the great William Trevor. But if the latter is an influence, Bolger is still very much his own man. This is an immensely understanding and perceptive novel, with all the characters richly and quirkily characterised. His pièce de résistance, though, is his heroine: Alison is that rarity in modern fiction: a woman about whom the reader is allowed to frequently change their opinion. We are alternately moved or irritated by her, but always we are firmly locked in her consciousness.
The writing, too, has an elegance that always ensures a rich experience for the reader, and reminds us that the author has edited The New Picador Book of Contemporary Irish Fiction:
She could never have understood back then how there might be other kinds of loneliness when living inside a family...now at times their lovemaking felt like a habit without need of speech, an instinctive curling into safe, comfortable positions, his arms routinely around her as they slipped towards shared sleep.--Barry Forshaw --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Amazon.co.uk Review
This is the kind of powerfully involving novel that comes along only rarely. Dermot Bolger's Temptation has as its central focus a family encountering an emotionally turbulent time on an annual holiday in a hotel on the beautiful Southeast coast of Ireland. Bolger's heroine, Alison Gill, is the mother of three children taking a much-anticipated annual family holiday at Fitzgeralds' Hotel, one of the most celebrated in Ireland. All seems idyllic until Alison is thrown into confused memories of the past when her husband is forced by a work crisis to return to Dublin and she encounters the attractive, disturbing Chris. He's a lover from 20 years ago, and soon Alison is forced to confront the choices she has made in her life. Is what she considered to be happiness really what she wanted? And if she gives in again to the sexual passion of her youth, will she find her real self--or destroy all that she has carefully built up? The canny reader will soon spot the presence of one of the finest writers in the English language as an inspiration for Bolger's highly assured novel. The Irish setting; a middle-aged woman dangerously attracted to a man who may be very bad news for her; the astonishingly sympathetic understanding of a female protagonist by a male writer: all of these are the hallmarks of the great William Trevor. But if the latter is an influence, Bolger is still very much his own man.
This is an immensely understanding and perceptive novel, with all the characters richly and quirkily characterised. His pièce de résistance, though, is his heroine: Alison is that rarity in modern fiction: a woman about whom the reader is allowed to frequently change their opinion. We are alternately moved or irritated by her, but always we are firmly locked in her consciousness. The writing, too, has an elegance that always ensures a rich experience for the reader and reminds us that the author has edited The New Picador Book of Contemporary Irish Fiction
: She could never have understood back then how there might be other kinds of loneliness when living inside a family ... now at times their lovemaking felt like a habit without need of speech, an instinctive curling into safe, comfortable positions, his arms routinely around her as they slipped towards shared sleep.--Barry Forshaw --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I read Father's Music as my first Bolger book and enjoyed it very much but Temptation far outstrips it in terms of enjoyment. What a fantastically tantalising read it is. You ached for each character in turn and felt so much part of the whole scene. You could smell the sea and feel the terror of Alison when her child was ill, the despair of her ex boy friend in his loss and loneliness, the concern of Peadar, the hurt of them all, the embarrassment, the confusion -I can't remember when I enjoyed a book more. Long live Bolger!
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
1 review
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Tough questions in a very good book!
4 July 2001
Format:Hardcover
Wow! This was a random pick. I didn't know anything about Bolger before, but now I want to keep on reading him. I was very impressed by the way he, a man, could portrait a woman so well.
The story is very good. Alison, a woman aged 38 and a mother of three, goes with her family for week's vacation to Fitzgerald's hotel, as they've done for years and years. But this year will be different. Her husband has to go back to deal with a job crisis, and Alison is left with the kids. One of the other guests at the hotel is a man who was very much in love with her twenty years ago, about the same time she met her husband. Now, the other man is a widower.
So while her husband is away, Alison spends time on her own (with three kids, well...) and evaluates her life and marriage, all the while bumping into the other man. Is her life good? Is she happy? How would it be different? What about her husband, is he cheating on her? Should she leave him?
I think Bolger raises very interesting questions about love and marriage and self-fulfilment - is it at all possible to achieve? Not easy questions, and very open answers.
I love this book! I picked it up and then had to keep reading til it was finished. Now I'm going to try more of Bolger's work.
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