Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
Easily the best book I have ever read, 31 Oct 2001
By A Customer
The Child Garden is one of the few books I have read that has really moved me, and one of even fewer that I would instantly cite as the best book I have read in my life (and I've read quite a few!). The future it describes could be a dystopian commentary of our own society, but instead it's a story about people, who are ultimately the most important components of any society. It's a future where people are still flawed and petty, and life is not easy of perfect, and that there are always some people who will stand out and make their mark on history. Milena is one such person, a heroine who grows up during the course of the book, and painted so well by Ryman that your perception of her changes as she does. For any London dweller the description the city with a coral reef and rice paddies, sub tropical temperatures and the night lit by oil lamps is one that will strike into the heart and awake the imagination. You cannot help but be touched by its depth, and a little haunted by the future that we could all inherit. Read it, you won't be sorry.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
Intriguing and thought provoking, 5 Jun 1999
By A Customer
In a future version of London (which still carries many curious echoes of our own age) global warming has produced a subtropical climate. Plant DNA introduced into human beings gives them the ability to photosynthesise (and an unnatural purple cast to their skins). People are educated by virus so that they literally catch learning (and propaganda) like a disease and the whole of society is governed by the Consensus - a kind of collective vegetable mind made up of democratic 'Readings' of peoples thoughts. Child Gardens are orphanages but they are symbolic of the whole society because life expectancy has been dramatically reduced so that in a sense everyone is a relative child. The death of childhood seems to be one of the underlying themes of the novel. Milena is an actress (amongst many other things) who has escaped her 'Reading' and is immune to the viruses. The book is the story of her life as she struggles with love (of an unusual kind) becomes the most significant artist of her day and finally has to confront the Consensus.But enough of the plot. It's the colloquial dialogue and the matter of fact (almost banal) pieces of the novel which give it so much power. They offset the strange and grotesque elements until it all seems perfectly reasonable. Its kind of like East Enders wandering into a stage set from one of the better Dr. Who episodes and then just rolling up their sleeves and getting on with the same old soap opera (but the ending is far from banal). This novel could only have been written by a British author and for this British reader at least it is refreshing now and again to read science fiction that isn't centred on America.
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3 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
Forget it!, 29 April 2003
By A Customer
If you have read the elegant and clever book 253 and are expecting more of the same, you'll be disappointed. In this long, rambling story, I lost all symapthy with main character and couldn't care less what happened to her. Getting to the end was an orderal. I got my copy from a second hand book stall and that's where its going back to!
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
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(6 customer reviews)
