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The Millstone (Paperback)

by Margaret Drabble (Author) "My career has always been marked by a strange mixture of confidence and cowardice: almost, one might say, made by it ..." (more)
4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
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Customers buy this book with Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self by Claire Tomalin

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Product details

  • Paperback: 176 pages
  • Publisher: Penguin; New edition (24 Nov 2005)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0140028420
  • ISBN-13: 978-0140028423
  • Product Dimensions: 19.4 x 13 x 1 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 292,244 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in this category:

    #19 in  Books > Fiction > Authors, A-Z > D > Drabble, Margaret

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Product Description

Product Description

It is the Swinging Sixties, and Rosamund Stacey is young and inexperienced at a time when sexual liberation is well on its way. She conceals her ignorance beneath a show of independence, and becomes pregnant as a result of a one night stand. Although single parenthood is still not socially acceptable, she chooses to have the baby rather than to seek an illegal abortion, and finds her life transformed by motherhood. The Millstone is a celebration of the drama and intensity of the mother-child relationship.


About the Author

Margaret Drabble was born in Sheffield in 1939 and educated at Cambridge. She was awarded a CBE in 1980. Her many novels include The Radiant Way (1987), A Natural Curiosity (1989), The Gales of Victory (1991), The Peppered Moth (2000); The Seven Sisters (2002) and The Red Queen (2004) all of which are published by Penguin. Margaret Drabble is married to the biographer Michael Holroyd and lives in London W10.
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My career has always been marked by a strange mixture of confidence and cowardice: almost, one might say, made by it. Read the first page
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5 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
4.4 out of 5 stars (5 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Intellectual girl facing reality of life, 13 Aug 2000
By Hyowon Lee (Dublin, Ireland) - See all my reviews
This is a touching story, one snapshot of an unusual woman's life written nicely, wittingly and intellectually. Facing the unpleasantry of reailty since having the baby (such as having to ask somebody something not because of herself but because of her baby), she seems to be learning a lot of things. I don't particularly like the fact that she's so ill-prepared for having a baby, but still she's all right and has the consious, loving personality. The whole naration from beginning to the end really fascinated me. Drabble's later books seem to become richier with more characters and more incidents (I guess that's what most writers head for as they become better writers), but I like The Millstone for its simplicity and narrow setting.
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Readable, if dated, 16 Oct 2001
By A Customer
This is very much a book of the place and times (England, mid 60s). An intellectual, rather naive young woman gets pregnant at a time when unmarried mothers were very much frowned upon, and keeps the baby. (Hence the title.) Nevertheless the book is an insight into the times, is very well written, never drags, and captures all the characters just perfectly.
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2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Lucky in work, unlucky in love, 4 Jan 2006
By Luc REYNAERT (Beernem, Belgium) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   
This moving short novel portraits the rude awakening of a young woman, who after making love with a 'silly bugger' becomes an unmarried mother.

The dreams of youth, 'I used to be so good-natured. I used to see the best in every-one', becomes 'my growing selfishness, this was probably maturity.' 'Life would never be a simple question of self-denial again.'

There is also the chasm between the education's view of mankind and the facts of real life.
Education was the cause of 'my inability to see anything in human terms of like and dislike, love and hate, but only in terms of justice, guilt and innocence', and 'the endurance of privation is a virtue.'
However as an adult, she is confronted with 'resentments breed so near the craddle, that people should have it from birth'; 'facts of inequality, of the heart-breaking uneven hardship of the human lot. These things were as nothing compared with the bond that bind parent and child'.
As another woman in the novel says: 'I haven't the energy to go worrying about other people's children. I only have enough time to worry about myself. If I didn't put myself and mine first, they wouldn't survive.'

And finally, there is the unbearable burden of Victorian religion: 'the thought of sex freightened the life out of me.' 'If Octavia were to die, this would be a vengeance upon my sin.'

In naturally flowing prose, Margaret Drabble paints a most human portrait of innocence and struggle for (emotional) survival, youth and adulthood and the mighty marks of religion (guilt) and 'unselfish' education.

A masterly written short novel.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars A first person account of being
Rosamund Stacey is the first person narrator of her own story in the Millstone by Margaret Drabble. Rosamund is a single mother - nothing strange about that, perhaps, at least in... Read more
Published 20 months ago by Philip Spires

4.0 out of 5 stars A review: Margaret Drabble's 'Millstone'
Drabble's 'Millstone' is very well written and thoughtful yet a fairlyeasy read. Evocative of the London literary milieu of the 1960s, itfocuses on the discovery of identity and... Read more
Published on 25 April 2004

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