Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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124 of 131 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A classy piece of writing, 20 Aug 2007
What Was Lost starts with a very bold move - a narrative told by a small girl who works as a private detective, helped by her cuddly monkey Mickey. It is a brave writer indeed who starts with such a ridiculous premise. But Catherine O'Flynn pulls it off and as the first section develops, it becomes clear that the girl - Kate Meaney - has a troubled homelife and a burning desire to escape it. She duly spends time engaged in surveillance at Green Oaks, the newly built shopping centre.
Then, in a sudden jump of twenty years, the narrative focuses on Lisa, the duty manager at a record store in Green Oaks. It becomes clear that Kate disappeared all those years ago, and whilst she has been largely forgotten, she has started to haunt the memories of those few people to have noticed her in her last days. Self evidently, the narrative eventually reveals Kate's fate.
The star of the show, though, is Green Oaks itself. Shopping centres are brilliant places (like airports). Shiny and colourful on the public side, but with a hidden belly of service corridors, stockrooms, offices, security systems and such like. They have a ready made cast, both of people working there or people passing through: customers, thieves, drifters, lunatics... Some chapters end with rather brilliant - and irrelevant - monologues from some of those who spend time in and around the shopping centre. A particular gem is the mystery shopper. Then there are also the dialogues between staff and challenging customers - for example, the chap who has had a classical music cassette on order for 23 months and has been strung along by the store assistant just for fun. This element of the novel plays like a Magnus Mills work - utterly deadpan in the absurdity of the situation. For all the characters in What Was Lost, the shopping centre is more than a place to shop - it has seized their lives.
The plot and character development play second fiddle to the daily soap opera of Green Oaks. The character development in particular is not as strong in the present day narrative than in the 1984 element. Kate Meaney, Adrian and Teresa come through with precision and clarity, even though they are largely confined to the first 60 or so pages. Lisa, Kurt, Gavin et al don't seem to have such strong characterization. Perhaps the action got in the way. And purists could, doubtless, complain that there is too much reliance on coincidence. But that would be curmudgeonly.
Overall, though, this is a hugely enjoyable, satirical look at the life of a shopping centre, with a good dose of creepy mystery thrown in. It is well written and beautifully timed. What was lost is a classy piece of writing that deserves the prize nominations it has received.
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34 of 36 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Simply beautiful...too good to be that easy, 23 May 2007
I just finished reading this book today and I almost cried. Corny, I know but it's indicative of a great book when the reader is reluctant to let the characters 'go' at the end. 'What was lost' is about how various characters are drawn together by the disappearance of a little girl. It's really about the misery of human existence when you let resignation and indifference set in. Great characterisation, which is something I adore in fiction and good TV/Film. It reminds me of 'Purple Hibiscus' in the sense that it can articulate in such a beautiful way the banalities of everyday life but not make them sound mundane and inconsequential. I guess it's these things that kill the soul slowly if we're not careful.
As has already been pointed out there is a good dose of acerbic wit. From underhanded subtle quips about 'Daily Mail' readers, observations of sadistic primary school teachers to the careful descriptions of customers in all their idiosyncratic glory.
I think the denouement of the book came together beautifully. Despite the macabre twist there are little hints of hope for the future of some of the more tormented characters.
There are many readable novels out there. Still it takes a book like this, executed in such a simple but effective way, seemingly effortless, to remind you there are some writers who belong in a class of their own. I hope Ms O'Flynn's future offerings live up to the promise.
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28 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
This place chose me..I heard all the whispers, I knew all the secrets., 15 April 2008
This is an excellently written book, which grasps the reader and doesn't let go, even after the end.
It is very well constructed and from the first page, one is enthralled.
The little girl Kate is a delight. Cleverly, Catherine O'Flynn doesn't reveal the age of the girl when you meet her so it is only after a while that you begin to realise that you have become friends with someone of her age - and you DO become friends with her in your mind, because of her delightful personality.
She wonders if any of the passengers on the bus would take out advertising space on the bus, and what they would say : 'I will talk to anyone about anything. I also eat biscuits.'
or
'I smell strange, but not unpleasantly.'
The humour in her internal monologue contrasts with our other impression of her, that she is a very lonely, orphan child whose grandmother finds her rather a nuisance. She has two friends, Adrian and Teresa, but most of the time, Kate and her toy monkey, Mickey, spend their time in surveillance work at the large shopping mall, Green Oaks.
'She thought that she was a ghost, haunting the lanes and escalators.'
After Kate's disappearance, Kurt, a security guard sees a little girl on his surveillance monitor and Lisa, who works in the music shop at Green Oaks, finds a toy monkey with some grey paint on his back.
But it is nearly twenty years since Kate Meaney disappeared...
'Most people think that it's a rare and difficult thing for a person to vanish completely...But Lisa had seen it happen twice in her life, first Kate Meaney and then, not long after, her own brother.'
The mall provides us with the thoughts and dreams of its visitors and the stories of the lives of the people who work there, and finally one day, it gives up its secrets and we learn what happened to Kate, and to Lisa's brother and all the missing threads are tied together.
It is difficult to forget the lovely, vital little girl who disappeared and we are left with a feeling of grief which is the hallmark of a good writer, that her book is felt and remembered long after we have finished reading it.
The humour in the book provides the counterpoint to the ephemeral sadness which hangs over the story and at times we laugh at the absurdity of life.
Excellent book, do buy it, it will haunt you as Kate haunted Green Oaks.
Val De Beer.
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