The Wonder
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More About the Author
Product Description
Review
`...Evans's...novel investigates...life and art as it traces the history of a man with talent to burn and demons to bury.' -- The Independent
Book Description
From the acclaimed author of 26a, and winner of the inaugural Orange Award for New Writers, comes a dazzling new novel about the fight to achieve one's dream, and an unsolved disappearance at the heart of a family.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
A powerful and elegaic novel about dance, identity, absence and mental health. It was wondrous to read and moved very comfortable between decades and continents. Although it's about a dance troupe that flourished briefly at the end of the 1960s, that doesn't really do it justice. It's much more about, to borrow tht title of a very different novel, the inheritance of loss. Men don't come out of this too well - they are fecklees, talented but brittle and flawed. Yet the male charcaters are the more memorable. I liked above all the very strong sense of place - of Jamaica, and more so of Portobello Road, Ladbroke Grove and the Grand Union Canal. AW
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Vine™ Review
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The Wonder tells the story of Lucas, who is stuck living on a houseboat with his sister, and not going anywhere fast, both literally and figuratively. He's drifting through life without much purpose until he decides to find out more about his parents - his mother Carla who died when he was a baby and his father Antoney, the Jamaican dancer who seems to have vanished. Lucas starts digging into the past and finds out more about the Midnight Ballet, a dance collective his parents were part of, and gradually their stories unfold, along with an eclectic cast of dancers and musicians and tales of fame, love, betrayal and mental illness.
I loved 26a and was really looking forward to reading The Wonder, the second novel by Diana Evans. The cover is great, the reviews seem to have been fantastic, and her descriptive writing is lyrical and beautiful, so I thought I would be in for a huge treat. Unfortunately, this novel didn't quite do it for me - I found the plot was slow-moving, I didn't particularly like or care about any of the characters and the ending felt very rushed. There are some lovely colourful dance scenes, particularly when Antoney joins the Midnight Ballet, but overall, this was for me a frustrating read.
I loved 26a and was really looking forward to reading The Wonder, the second novel by Diana Evans. The cover is great, the reviews seem to have been fantastic, and her descriptive writing is lyrical and beautiful, so I thought I would be in for a huge treat. Unfortunately, this novel didn't quite do it for me - I found the plot was slow-moving, I didn't particularly like or care about any of the characters and the ending felt very rushed. There are some lovely colourful dance scenes, particularly when Antoney joins the Midnight Ballet, but overall, this was for me a frustrating read.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Evans' second novel follows two distinct (but linked) narratives, which are sparked by the experiences of immigrants to England (or, more specifically, London) who find themselves united, for a time at least, by a love of dancing. In the first, a young man who never knew his father searches for anything that can connect them and so tracks down any surviving witnesses to the Midnight Ballet that his father led. In the second strand we see his father as he takes over the group, leads it to fame and then the consequences of his striving for greatness.
Don't let the word `ballet' put you off - this is a novel about ordinary people using art to express themselves. Evans' deceptively easy-going prose wears its themes lightly at times, but when things fall apart she is not afraid to show the consequences, or to follow those themes through. It's a novel that questions the right of the artist to be consumed with their art at the price of their relationships with their partners and children, and also the effect living with such focus has on the artist themself.
But equally, this is not a depressing novel. Evans is skilled at picking out small moments of absurdity in real life and at creating vivid characters who are as eccentric as only real people can be (but never sending them up).
'26a' was an accomplished first novel. 'The Wonder' proves its success was no fluke.
Don't let the word `ballet' put you off - this is a novel about ordinary people using art to express themselves. Evans' deceptively easy-going prose wears its themes lightly at times, but when things fall apart she is not afraid to show the consequences, or to follow those themes through. It's a novel that questions the right of the artist to be consumed with their art at the price of their relationships with their partners and children, and also the effect living with such focus has on the artist themself.
But equally, this is not a depressing novel. Evans is skilled at picking out small moments of absurdity in real life and at creating vivid characters who are as eccentric as only real people can be (but never sending them up).
'26a' was an accomplished first novel. 'The Wonder' proves its success was no fluke.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Difficult to get into
I find this book difficult to rate. I didn't enjoy Diana Evans's first book, 26a, but this sounded like a really interesting read and so I thought I would give her another go. Read more
Published 20 months ago by Nicola
an uninspiring tale of dance
I find this a difficult review to write as I only completed reading the book on my second attempt. It is a tale of dance. Read more
Published 21 months ago by Mrs. A. Wright
Captivating, picturesque, page-turning...
I raced through this wondrous book on a flight (normally a space so difficult to concentrate in), and was captivated by it. Read more
Published 22 months ago by MadamJMo
The Wonder (Hardback)
I found The Wonder to be an intriguing read; the two parallel stories of son's in search of their fathers are beautifully wrought in arabesque intertwining between each other and... Read more
Published 23 months ago by ME
poetic page turner
This book is beautifully written - its like a prose poem at times, there are sentences that I had to stop and think over, they were so haunting. Read more
Published 23 months ago by Marfa Shaw
Captivating
Language, it leaps and soars like dance itself in Evans' hands. She can fly from Notting Hill in the Sixties to the place of today of coffee shops and shoe stores. Read more
Published 23 months ago by Jennifer Kabat
Captivating classic
A beautiful evocative tale set in the world of dance, that resonates long after you've finished reading. Read more
Published 23 months ago by B. Ogun
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