woodys-uk
Price: £77.86
In stock
34 used & new from £0.01
See All Buying Options
Have one to sell? Sell yours here
 
 
Busconductor Hines
 
See larger image 
Share your own customer images
Publisher: learn how customers can search inside this book.

Busconductor Hines (Paperback)

by James Kelman (Author)
4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)

Available from these sellers.


8 new from £2.01 26 used from £0.01
Other Editions: RRP: Our Price: Other Offers:
Hardcover 3 used & new from £36.00
Paperback £7.99 £7.19 17 used & new from £3.12

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

How Late it Was, How Late

How Late it Was, How Late

by James Kelman
4.2 out of 5 stars (12)  £6.97
Not Not While the Giro

Not Not While the Giro

by James Kelman
5.0 out of 5 stars (2)  £5.78
Lanark: A Life in Four Books (Canongate Classics)

Lanark: A Life in Four Books (Canongate Classics)

by Alasdair Gray
4.2 out of 5 stars (5)  £6.52
An Old Pub Near the Angel

An Old Pub Near the Angel

by James Kelman
£6.99
A Disaffection (Vintage Classics)

A Disaffection (Vintage Classics)

by James Kelman
3.5 out of 5 stars (4)  £6.48
› Explore similar items

Product details

  • Paperback: 320 pages
  • Publisher: Phoenix; New edition edition (20 Oct 1994)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 1857990358
  • ISBN-13: 978-1857990355
  • Product Dimensions: 19.3 x 13 x 1.5 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 40,455 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in this category:

    #2 in  Books > Fiction > Authors, A-Z > K > Kelman, James

    •  Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?

Product Description

Product Description

Living in a no-bedroomed tenement flat, coping with the cold and boredom of busconducting and the bloody-mindedness of Head Office, knowing that emigrating to Australia is only an impossible dream, Robert Hines finds life to be 'a very perplexing kettle of coconuts'. The compensations are a wife and child, and a gloriously anarchic imagination. The Busconductor Hines is a brilliantly executed, uncompromising slice of the Glasgow scene, a portrait of working-class life which is unheroic but humane.

Suggested Tags from Similar Products

 (What's this?)
Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
 
(2)
(2)
(2)
(1)
(1)
(1)
(1)
(1)
(1)
(1)
(1)

Your tags: Add your first tag
 
See most popular tags

What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

Busconductor Hines
79% buy the item featured on this page:
Busconductor Hines 4.0 out of 5 stars (2)
How Late it Was, How Late
10% buy
How Late it Was, How Late 4.2 out of 5 stars (12)
£6.97
Kieron Smith, Boy
5% buy
Kieron Smith, Boy 5.0 out of 5 stars (3)
£6.29
An Old Pub Near the Angel
4% buy
An Old Pub Near the Angel
£6.99
Explore similar items
 

Customer Reviews

2 Reviews
5 star:    (0)
4 star:
 (2)
3 star:    (0)
2 star:    (0)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.0 out of 5 stars (2 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Universal with a Glaswegian flavour, 11 Jun 2004
James Kelman's novel takes us into the cathartic mind of Rab Hines, bus conductor and social philosopher. Hines is complex, misunderstood and wonderful, but not extraordinary. Infact, I think many readers will identify with Hines' frustration and the erratic wanderings of his mind, which he won't let bus conducting and the rat race in general wear down. Although essentially a working class novel set in 1980's Glasgow, the novel does transcend its setting and Kelman's writing can be compared with Dostoyevsky and Hamsun and read as a flux of consciousness novel that embraces the universal themes of love, hope and despair but all through the individual mind of a Glaswegian bus conductor.

The novel evoked in me a strange mixture of emotions. Sometimes I empathised with Rab and his frustrations at the system. I found the love scenes between Rab and his wife and their mutual understanding of each other, combined with their mutual despair and frustration with life and each other, incredibly moving but never hyperbolic, always in perfect measure. However, although I consider myself something of a socialist there were points in the book where I just wanted to grab Rab and tell him to get on with it. It's this type of characterisation that makes the book so real and so touching. Hines is a true anti-hero, he is self-depreciating, stubborn, able, unable, loving and immense: "a perplexing kettle of coconuts" indeed.
Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)



 
16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars 'On The Buses' in Kelman's Glasgow, 15 Jul 2001
This is the novel James Kelman should have won the Booker Prize for, his powerful evocation of the 'daily grind' in 1980's Glasgow is haunting and darkly moving. Adhering to the Joycean ethic of making the 'ordinary man' on an 'ordinary day' the hero of the text, Kelman's modernist techniques take this to powerful extremes. This is socialist fiction in a dislocated and marginalised Britain where the character 'Hines' finds himself on the edge of sanity with no promise of the usual 'working class' escapes. There are no Glasgow street fights, drug excesses or football matches here, instead we are drawn into the interior monologue of an everyman, sensitive, intelligent, trapped and falling to pieces. Sounds a misreable read and when Kelman gets criticism it's usually because this is high brow lit which offers no 'plan of action' or 'dramatic entertainment'. But what Kelman does unequivicably is give the under dog a voice, and the everyday a place in art. This is an important book about the 'sectioning' of individual realities in modern Britain. Although this is about Thatcher's Britain, it's just as relevant today as it was when evryone ignored it back in the 80's
Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)


Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
 
 
 
Only search this product's reviews


Customer Discussions

This product's forum
Discussion Replies Latest Post
No discussions yet

Ask questions, Share opinions, Gain insight
Start a new discussion
Topic:
First post:
Prompts for sign-in
 


Active discussions in related forums
   
Related forums

Listmania!

Create a Listmania! list

Look for similar items by category

Look for similar items by subject









i.e., each product must be in subject 1 AND subject 2 AND ...

Feedback

Ad

Your Recent History

 (What's this?)

After viewing product detail pages or search results, look here to find an easy way to navigate back to pages you are interested in.