The Forgotten Waltz
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle .
Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
 Trade In this Item for up to £1.95
Get an extra £5 when you trade in books worth £10 or more until June 30, 2012. Trade in The Forgotten Waltz for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £1.95, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Review
'Then along comes a novel such as The Forgotten Waltz that blows the whole game right open again. Anne Enright picks up those bright, real-life splinters and blinds you with them. The Forgotten Waltz is an achingly brilliant piece of writing on passion and delusion. Comparisons to Madame Bovary are not overblown, not because it is a wry, clever, philosophical take on adultery - although it is - but because it makes you re-evaluate everything a novel can be. If anything more real is published this year, I will happily submit to a bungled club-foot operation...the garrulous narratorial voice is a joy: funny, companionable...this book is enough to restore your faith in the power of fiction' --The Independent, Viv Groskop, May 2011
`Where the novel compels is in the attendant disquisitions on memory and its rearrangements, both willed and unwilled; the blurring of boundaries, physical and temporal; the vivid presentation of all characters, major and minor; and its funny and forgiving commentary on middle-class aspirational family life in Ireland today'
--Literary Review, Elspeth Barker, May 2011
`This beautifully written, lyrical novel is a portrait of family tensions and the listless half-light in which a mistress must live.' --Sunday Express
'A beautifully observed novel'
--Psychologies
`This beautifully written, lyrical novel is a portrait of family tensions and the listless half-light in which a mistress must live.' --Sunday Express
'A beautifully observed novel' --Psychologies
`a simple tale of adultery, beautifully told...A shrewd and humorous writer...Dancing between humour and pethos, Enright glories in winkling out the truth of a situation and facing reality full on...Humming with naughtiness and warmth, Enrights novel should find a place in every woman's hand-luggage this summer break.'
--The Lady
`Enright has taken a simple plot and produced a touching novel that examines the cost - and the compensations - of love. The heroine is both plausible and sympathetic, while the supporting cast is marshalled with skill, tenderness and humour'
--Mail on Sunday
`Where the novel compels is in the attendant disquisitions on memory and its rearrangements, both willed and unwilled; the blurring of boundaries, physical and temporal; the vivid presentation of all characters, major and minor; and its funny and forgiving commentary on middle-class aspirational family life in Ireland today'
--Literary Review, Elspeth Barker, May 2011
`This beautifully written, lyrical novel is a portrait of family tensions and the listless half-light in which a mistress must live.' --Sunday Express
'A beautifully observed novel'
--Psychologies
`This beautifully written, lyrical novel is a portrait of family tensions and the listless half-light in which a mistress must live.' --Sunday Express
'A beautifully observed novel' --Psychologies
`a simple tale of adultery, beautifully told...A shrewd and humorous writer...Dancing between humour and pethos, Enright glories in winkling out the truth of a situation and facing reality full on...Humming with naughtiness and warmth, Enrights novel should find a place in every woman's hand-luggage this summer break.'
--The Lady
`Enright has taken a simple plot and produced a touching novel that examines the cost - and the compensations - of love. The heroine is both plausible and sympathetic, while the supporting cast is marshalled with skill, tenderness and humour'
--Mail on Sunday
Book Description
A powerful, moving book of secrets, longing and loss, from the Man Booker Prize-winning author of The Gathering
--This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
I dont know what all the fuss is about this book . I could not engage with the characters.I found myself not caring about any of the protagonists. Gina the narrator seems to be looking for our support but she had an affair with Sean , a serial womaniser. Sean's wife comes across as neurotic but the 'other woman' is unlikely to paint the woman she has wronged in any kind of favourable light. Sean's daughter Evie and her epilepsey seems thrown in to add another aspect to the story but i could not find myself feeling any sympathy for this spoilt child caught up in the middle of her parents marital breakdown. Much is made of the end of the celtic tiger but i just found it oddly convenient that one can leave your husband and marital home , inherit your deceased mother's house so that your lover has a door to turn up at. I could not see any reason why Gina had an affair with Sean other than she could , and damn the consequences. I can see why people say Anne enright is a great writer, plenty of evidence of that but just no evidence that i should want to read her books.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
A minority view I know, but I just don't get Anne Enright. This was my second attempt at one of her novels and I found this as depressing as the last. Fair enough, she has a good turn of phrase and handles language well, but there is no plot to be bothered with here, and I found the characters unsympathetic and/or unbelievable. But more than that, she paints a picture of a grubby, charmless world devoid of anything to provide a bright counterpoint to her sad and unattractive characters. In some ways Enright's world reminds me of Ian McEwan's works - Cement Garden etc, (though without his added twist of psycho). I suppose I found Gina and Sean's affair so hard to care about because they didn't seem to care about each other. They certainly don't love each other and he's hardly attractive - even seen through Gina's eyes. He's a paunchy, gauche, middle-aged salesman. And as for the fat and precocious child Evie, she struck me as something rather slimy and horrid. The relationship between Gina and her sister starts to warm up, but dies away just as quickly when Gina's affair is discovered and her sister takes the moral high ground. The one and only character I thought seemed sympathetic in any way was Gina's jilted husband Conor. Basically, this seems to be the story of a girl who's a bit of an idiot, surrounds herself with horrible people and lives a very lonely life.
26 of 31 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Set in modern day Dublin, Gina recalls the events that led to an affair that wrecks two marriages. Anne Enright's 2007 Booker prize winning "The Gathering" addressed the gloomy subjects of the three D's; death, depression and dysfunctional families. Her latest book, "The Forgotten Waltz", set in Dublin in 2009, sees her turning her attentions to a love affair. A more uplifting subject you might think. Well only up to a point. The affair in question you see is that of her narrator, Gina, who is already married to the generally good, if undynamic, Connor, while on the other end, the subject of the affair is the older, Seán, also married and neighbour of Gina's sister. In case your moral compass isn't stretched quite enough by this, Seán and his wife Aileen, also have a young daughter who suffers from epilepsy.
What Enright does so well is identify the little gestures. The story is told by Gina as a recollection of what happened and the narrator acknowledges that this memory is not always infallible. There's a very self-aware sense to Gina's voice and there's also plenty of wry humour about family and about what we might call the middle age crisis. Gina, we sense, knows she's in the wrong in both thought and deed, but her justification of her actions are endearing and it's hard not to sympathise with her, not least as we only get her view of things. But while Gina has her flaws, she acknowledges at least most of them and recognizes when she's being unfair or unreasonable, which makes it a more enjoyable read.
Another nice touch is that each relatively short chapter has a "love song" title, ranging from "Paper Roses" and "In These Shoes?" to "Money (That's What I Want)". Fittingly the final chapter is entitled "The Things We Do for Love".
Enright has a clear writing style and the book gallops along at a brisk pace. Although hints of the outcome are apparent from the start, you still want to find out how the relationship between Gina and Seán develops. Will they get caught? If so, what will be the reaction of friends, family and work colleagues? It's not a long book and for at least two thirds of the book, this is the main focus of events. Seán's daughter, Evie, who ages from about four to twelve during the story, is largely a side issue.
Illness and death again feature in this book. At the start it is clear that Gina's mother is unwell, and her father died when Gina was a teenager. Once the relationship between Gina and Seán reaches a certain point (he said trying not to give anything away!) the pace of the narration slows down and specifically there is a chapter devoted largely to Gina's recollection of her father. Then in the final part, Evie starts to play more of a role as Gina tries to explain Seán's character and actions. Although I liked the ending very much, the final third of the book seemed to change tack slightly too much for me. I was, by then, caught up in the relationship developing but once it reached its destination, the story too seemed to lose its punch.
The characters are all nicely sketched rather than being deeply explored, but all are recognizable and have a realistic mix of flaws and strengths. Ultimately, no matter who each sees as the villains of the piece, all are victims in these situations. It's an enjoyable read. Then again, maybe I just like gossip!
What Enright does so well is identify the little gestures. The story is told by Gina as a recollection of what happened and the narrator acknowledges that this memory is not always infallible. There's a very self-aware sense to Gina's voice and there's also plenty of wry humour about family and about what we might call the middle age crisis. Gina, we sense, knows she's in the wrong in both thought and deed, but her justification of her actions are endearing and it's hard not to sympathise with her, not least as we only get her view of things. But while Gina has her flaws, she acknowledges at least most of them and recognizes when she's being unfair or unreasonable, which makes it a more enjoyable read.
Another nice touch is that each relatively short chapter has a "love song" title, ranging from "Paper Roses" and "In These Shoes?" to "Money (That's What I Want)". Fittingly the final chapter is entitled "The Things We Do for Love".
Enright has a clear writing style and the book gallops along at a brisk pace. Although hints of the outcome are apparent from the start, you still want to find out how the relationship between Gina and Seán develops. Will they get caught? If so, what will be the reaction of friends, family and work colleagues? It's not a long book and for at least two thirds of the book, this is the main focus of events. Seán's daughter, Evie, who ages from about four to twelve during the story, is largely a side issue.
Illness and death again feature in this book. At the start it is clear that Gina's mother is unwell, and her father died when Gina was a teenager. Once the relationship between Gina and Seán reaches a certain point (he said trying not to give anything away!) the pace of the narration slows down and specifically there is a chapter devoted largely to Gina's recollection of her father. Then in the final part, Evie starts to play more of a role as Gina tries to explain Seán's character and actions. Although I liked the ending very much, the final third of the book seemed to change tack slightly too much for me. I was, by then, caught up in the relationship developing but once it reached its destination, the story too seemed to lose its punch.
The characters are all nicely sketched rather than being deeply explored, but all are recognizable and have a realistic mix of flaws and strengths. Ultimately, no matter who each sees as the villains of the piece, all are victims in these situations. It's an enjoyable read. Then again, maybe I just like gossip!
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Most Recent Customer Reviews
beautifully written with strong narrative voice from unlikeable...
Gina is an airhead who manages to blunder through life without noticing the disastrous effect she has on others - her husband, her mother, her sister, her lover's wife and daughter... Read more
Published 1 minute ago by Female Reader
Sociopathic Gina!!
I found the protagonist in this novel so morally bankrupt that she became dispicable to me. I don't have to empathise with a character or even particularly like them to enjoy a... Read more
Published 4 hours ago by Tiana
Great book about not so great people
I loved this book. A less harrowing read than The Gathering, which I felt rather traumatised by! Gina is not an easy or lovable character, but she is coolly witty and self aware,... Read more
Published 12 days ago by wordfan
An Accomplished Novel
Anne Enright's latest novel 'The Forgotten Waltz' is set in Dublin and is, seemingly, a story on the familiar theme of marital infidelity; however I say seemingly familiar, because... Read more
Published 1 month ago by Susie B
well written chick-lit
Basically the story of an extra marital affair between the narrator and the curiously unlikeable Sean. Read more
Published 2 months ago by sally tarbox
The End of the Affair
'If it hadn't been for the child then none of this might have happened, but the fact that a child was involved made everything that much harder to forgive. Read more
Published 8 months ago by purpleheart
Fails to connect
This is written by a well known Irish author,so the writing is good.Spare and always slightly ironic. Read more
Published 8 months ago by Lorna Bevan
Hard to rate but well-written
It's very difficult to decide on a rating for this book. Ultimately I chose to give it four stars because I think it is, when it comes down to it, a good book. Read more
Published 8 months ago by noc
She writes so well, but what was the point?
The start of the book was amazing. I love her dialogue, imagery, atmosphere. But, the characters are all so irritating and the story pretty pointless. Read more
Published 8 months ago by Howard Change
Disappointing, aloof...
This book is very disappointing. As argued by another reviewer, I also found it difficult to feel sympathy for any of the characters. None of them seem to have feelings, emotions. Read more
Published 9 months ago by Sarah Parlane
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.
|
