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Personality (Hardcover)

by Andrew O'Hagan (Author) "Business was slack, so the pubs closed early and the ferry came in for the night ..." (more)
3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
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Product details

  • Hardcover: 327 pages
  • Publisher: Faber and Faber; First Edition edition (7 April 2003)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0571195016
  • ISBN-13: 978-0571195015
  • Product Dimensions: 22.6 x 15 x 3 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 987,037 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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    #13 in  Books > Fiction > Authors, A-Z > O > O'Hagan, Andrew

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Product Description

Amazon.co.uk Review

Loosely modelled on the tragic life of Scottish child star Lena Zavaroni, Personality, Andrew O'Hagan's second novel, scrutinises the more insidious aspects of fame and the family. Told through an array of different voices--including a fictionalised Hughie Green--it centres on the story of Maria Tambini, a teenager from Rothesay, on the Isle of Bute, who becomes an international singing sensation before falling victim to anorexia and the unwelcome attentions of a fan.

The novel opens at the height of the Silver Jubilee festivities. The Tambinis, whose individual stories also drive and augment the narrative, are Italian immigrants. Haunted by a few unresolved ghosts from the war, they struggle to make a living in Rothesay, a resort whose tourist trade has been decimated by "jet engines, Thomson holidays and Lloret de Mar". Rosa, Maria's neurotic mother, runs the chip shop; Uncle Alfredo is a hairdresser and Grandmother Lucia simply nurses memories of her long dead first child, Sofia, "a lovely singer". The weight of their dysfunctional aspirations, not unsurprisingly, fall on 13-year-old Maria. Spotted by a TV talent scout, she wins Opportunity Knocks. Leaving the family far behind, she moves to London and, briefly, takes the international world of light entertainment by storm. The speed with which she is estranged from her old life is neatly, if not completely believably, illustrated in her correspondence with a one-time best friend: while Kalpana chats about Gormenghast and the boys she fancies, Maria's increasingly brief and self-absorbed missives start to read like extracts from beauty manuals.

O'Hagan may indulge in what is best described as "product placement" period detail (references to Girl's World, Cola Cubes and McEwan's Export etc) but this is certainly not an exercise in 1970s and 80s nostalgia. In harking back to a slightly more innocent era, a period when both eating disorders and the downsides of fame were certainly less well publicised, if not well known, this impressive novel makes resonant points about our unwavering obsession with celebrity. "Nowadays", O'Hagan's Hughie Green grumbles, "the kids don't want to be good and they don't care about being the best: they want fame". Plus ça change. --Travis Elborough



Review

'A beautiful, elegiac work, full of piercing insights into Scotland's journey through the 20th Century... required reading for everyone.' Ian Rankin, Evening Standard 'Set against Irvine Welsh's Filth, it looks like a masterpiece.' Sean O'Brien, Times Literary Supplement
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Personality
68% buy the item featured on this page:
Personality 3.5 out of 5 stars (10)
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Customer Reviews

10 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
3.5 out of 5 stars (10 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars The best of British, 9 Jul 2004
By A Customer
This review is from: Personality (Paperback)
Andrew O'Hagan's 'Personality' is a fine, beautifully-written novel, which firmly cements the author's place among the best of young British writers. Among other things, it's a meditation on the meaning and nature of identities (national, local, sexual, personal) and celebrity, themes the author addresses through the biography of Maria Tambini, a Scots-Italian child star of the 1970s and 1980s clearly (and for me, a bit troublingly) modelled on the real-life Lena Zavaroni. O'Hagan convincingly evokes a variety of social and familial settings -- he must have done wonders for the Isle of Bute tourist trade -- and makes us care for his characters, some of whom (such as Hughie Green, Dean Martin, Princess Diana,Les Dawson)are taken from 'real' life. He has a great ear for Scottish vernacular speech, and he uses this ability to draw the reader into scenes of apparent sentimentality (a Scottish trait, to be sure), but where pain, violence (of one kind or another) and horror are never far away. At times, his depiction of the tribulations of the Tambini women is so painful, you have to put the book down and catch your breath. Otherwise, the book is unputdownable. The reviewer who found it boring would be better off, perhaps, sticking to Tom Clancy.
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Personality - couldn't put it down, 14 April 2004
By Sharon Brown (Worthing, West Sussex United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Personality (Paperback)
When I pickd up this book I had no idea how engrossing it would become.
The story of the main character Maria being spotted at a local talent show and being whisked off in to the world of showbiz was very realistic and an emotional ride. For a man to write so emphaticaly about a young girl struggling with anorexia was amazing and not at all maudlin.
There is no doubt that this story was based on the life of Lena Zavaroni in all but name and outcome which made it all the more compulsive.
A brilliant book.
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11 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars Distinct lack of personality, 25 Mar 2003
By A Customer
When Andrew O'Hagan steps up to collect his Booker prize for this novel later in the year, it will be more of a statement about the predictablility of the Booker than of the excellence of O'Hagan's novel. Cloyingly sentimental, with the same familiar O'Hagan glib working-class characatures (he must have really hated those guys he grew up with), this is a mercifully quick read, but also an entirely forgettable one. Chip-shops, quick-tempered fathers, dirty-knees, the distant chime of an ice-cream van - it's Her Benny with a soundtrack and a clapometer. You can almost hear Channel Four films or Stephen Frears rushing to pick up the script.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Slow Starter Then Completely Gripping
At first I found this novel difficult to focus on - the start simply didn't interest me. However, by the start of part two, I was hooked. Read more
Published on 12 Jun 2006 by Smith

2.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing and lifeless
Maria Tambini, the daughter of Italian immigrants on the tiny Scottish island of Bute, is destined to be a star. She has an amazing voice that captivates anyone who hears it. Read more
Published on 9 Aug 2004 by kimbofo

1.0 out of 5 stars Disapponting in the extreme
Turgid. I found it hard to turn from page to page, let alone stop turning. Picked it up it because I'd seen his name all over the place, mentioned favourably: bad move. Read more
Published on 15 Jun 2004

2.0 out of 5 stars Too writerly, not enough emotional punch
Can this book really be worthy of a Booker Prize? I don't think so. While O'Hagan obviously writes well --- and there passages that really engage and make us care about the poor... Read more
Published on 8 Sep 2003 by S. Selvino

5.0 out of 5 stars Interesting mix of fiction and fact
Having read 2 extracts from this book in Granta: 'You, the viewers at home.' and 'Gas Boys Gas' I was intrigued to find out how the 2 extracts belonged in the same book! Read more
Published on 30 May 2003 by Jeff Paffett

5.0 out of 5 stars Stunning
This is an extraordinary book. Much more accessible and more of a page-turner than O'Hagan's previous, Booker-listed Our Fathers, it tells the stories of three generations of... Read more
Published on 14 May 2003 by jane hillman

5.0 out of 5 stars Stunning
This book is extraordinary. On the surface it tells the story of a young girl, a child star not a million miles away from the late Lena Zavaroni, and I must confess this is why I... Read more
Published on 6 April 2003 by jane hillman

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