Customer Reviews

Another World: A Novel

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

As a big fan of Pat Barker's Regeneration trilogy, I couldn't wait to finally sit down and read her latest. I was disappointed. Granted, this is a very different sort of book from the previous three - set in contemporary time, dealing with more contemporary (though certainly universal) issues. It just didn't resonate with me. The central story -- one man dealing with his grandfather's illness and the ghosts that haunt his grandfather's past -- is quite compelling,and their final scenes together are very poignant. But what do we make of the history of the Fanshawe family ... and the rather alarming painting that is discovered while the current residents of the Fanshawe house are stripping paint in the living room? It seems the Fanshawe's are supposed to parallel the lives of the novel's central protagonists. But then the issue is dropped and doesn't pop up again until the novel's final page.

Barker is a master of nuance and of getting into the heads of her characters and making them real to her readers. On this level, she does not disappoint. But the book as a whole is a rather minor affair and doesn't pack much of an impact.

Certainly not bad, but not great either.

I look forward to her next...

Violence crosses time and space to trouble the lives of both a centenarian and his pre-teen great grandson. The focus of the story is the dying of Geordie, who fought in the First War and now, having lived long beyond his time, is slowly dying. Other generations and other days are woven through the novel, reminding the reader of the common thread of humanity that runs through all time. I particularly commend Barker for her description of Geordie's dying and moments of actual death . . . she has obviously been there with more than one dying person. The portrayal was both respectful and, from my experience, accurate. I'm working my way through Barker's entire opus, and this is a worthwhile contribution to her fine reputation.

Barker might have entitled this novel Still Another World, so many overlapping worlds does she present here. On the surface it is the story of Nick and the complex life he now shares with his second wife and new son, his ex-wife and daughter, and his strange stepson. It is the story, too, of the Fanshawe family, a much earlier, and also troubled, family that once inhabited the house Nick is now restoring.

But it is especially the story of Geordie, Nick's 101-year-old grandfather and the worlds he has known, including the world of war. Although Nick learned as a child that "You had to be two people, one in each world [of family and of school]," he has always believed that his grandfather "never changed; belonged to only one world." Now that Geordie is dying, however, Nick learns of Geordie's other worlds: his family life, his difficulties after World War I, his marriage, his war nightmares, the haunting death of his brother in battle, and his mother's comment that the wrong son died. And we see the tyranny of memory as Geordie relives his brother Harry's dying moments. Geordie himself says, "I know that what I remember seeing is false. It can't have been like that, and so the one thing I need to remember clearly, I can't ....It's as clear as this hand...only it's wrong."

These vividly depicted battles, real and symbolic, all raise questions of responsibility and blame as each character assesses the accuracy of his own memory. Even the supernatural is evoked, peripherally, as characters consider whether they have really seen what they think they have seen. As Nick gains knowledge through his time spent with Geordie, he recalls their visit to the "ageless graves" of Thiepval, which keep perpetually alive the traumas of a terrible war, and he recognizes the contrast to the graves of the tiny churchyard in which Geordie will lie, with names hidden by moss, old mourners dead and forgotten, and gently decaying stones. And he and the reader recognize that "there's wisdom too in this."

Barker's tightly constructed plots and themes, her vividly drawn characters, her evocation of atmosphere, her deft use of settings to enhance the drama, and her ability to communicate new visions, all testify to the brilliance of this novel, one which may, itself, escape the erosions of time and its "obliterating grass."

Years ago I came across Vera Brittain's memoir of growing up in England from 1900 -1925 (Testament of Youth), and had my eyes forever opened as to the horrors of WWI and its impact on the everyday citizen at home. Pat Barker's fiction echoed the horrors of the battlefield in her trilogy (and Sebastian Faulk does the same in Birdsong) Barker's latest novel skillfully runs two parallel courses --a dying old man's all-too-vivid memories of the Somme, frozen in time, and his middle-aged grandson's battles with the viciousness and complexity of modern life. As the old man nears death, the younger man slowly comes to understand the silence which has surrounded his grandfather's war experiences. True, Barker tells several stories here - not all with resolutions--but I don't think this lessens the impact of her work. Life is often filled with dangling ends, and some readers prefer to imagine what hasn't been written. Not as powerful as her Regeneration trilogy, but a worthy addition to her list of novels.

This is one of those novels that is as flawed as it is beautiful - a real torment for a reader - you can't stop thinking about it, but there's no resolution, no way to put the pieces together. The narrator, Nick, is struggling with the impending death of his grandfather, while at the same time trying to keep an uneasy peace with his pregnant wife and their three children. What the reader struggles with is the disconnect between the Nick who is so lovingly, physically present as witness and caretaker to his grandfather's last days, and the Nick who is infuriatingly, selfishly, and dangerously neglectful of his own family. Particularly harrowing are the portrayals of the two young-adolescent children, Gareth (Nick's stepson) and Miranda (his daughter by his first wife). Gareth is a budding sociopath who can only relate to violent computer games, while Miranda is so swallowed by her own silent rage and absence of selfhood that she "moonlights" as the ghost that haunts the family's home (a subplot of the novel that is never fully developed or resolved). Worse, these children are essentially unparented - in fact, their relegation to other family members at the end of the novel appears to be a positive decision, a way Nick and his wife Fran can hope to resolve some of the stresses in their own life. The essential flaw in this novel is that these two "sides" of Nick - the devoted grandson and the negligent father - just don't mesh. The contradiction doesn't ring true emotionally. Meanwhile, Pat Barker has unleashed these two terrifying youngsters onto the world, and I can't stop thinking about them, especially because they present a chillingly accurate portrait of adolescence in contemporary culture.

This book was my introduction to Pat Barker. I picked it up at in a bookshop, attracted by the fact that she was a Booker Prize winner. I wasn't disappointed.

Barker wields realism to portray Nick's modern, dysfunctional family struggling to keep their heads above the swamp of hopelessness that threatens to engulf them. Then she teasingly weaves gothic threads through the story. Are we encountering the supernatural or are we witnessing the interior workings of the overwrought family members? Violence broods like an approaching storm, especially in the frightening boy-next-door malevolence of the young step-son Gareth.

Almost a story within a story, the final days of Geordie, Nick's 100 year old grandfather, is beautifully portrayed. This World War I veteran is either a survivor plagued with guilt, or a man that committed a horrible crime. Nick and the reader are drawn into Geordie's story, but in the back of your mind you can't stop wondering if Nick's attention to his grandfather will be the trigger that finally unleashes the destruction of his family.

Overall I feel that 2 disconnected stories have been pulled together, and I wish they had remained separate. While the story of Geordie is gentle and told with great sensitivity; that of Nick's domestic life is unresolved. He seems to grow in his understanding of age and death - but then celebrates his belated realisation of his grandfather's love for Helen by going to bed with her. For why? To consumate Geordie's love or to give him an excuse to leave another family? Surely he could have taken his insight to existing relationships. The children, with their isolation, pain and problems are very real, but also totally unresolved. Touched only by the ghost? Maybe, observing both Gareth's behaviour and her greatgrandfather's funeral will give Miranda the ability to cope with her mother's mental illness. I wished she could have met Helen; the only other person with the potential for personal strength and integrity. I would love to see the author write Fran and Gareth's story in full. Maybe the move to York will miraculously turn Gareth into a confident child with no antisocial tendencies. Maybe I've missed the point; maybe the book is intended as a study of isolation and stress within families leading to unsolvable problems.

Pat Barker is yet another tremendous discovery for this reader. Added to my introduction to Penelope Fitzgerald several months ago, 2000 has been a great year.

The accolades she has earned include, The Guardian Fiction Prize, and the highest award in Great Britain, The Booker Prize, for the final installment of her trilogy, "The Ghost Road". I have begun the first book of the three, "Regeneration", and I look forward to finding the words to express how remarkable a work it is.

"Another World" is a tremendous piece of writing containing complex characters, multiple plot lines that are distinct but not independent, and primary players that are uniformly disliked with ease. Secondary players don't quite rise above dysfunctional, save perhaps the very youngest in this tale.

The initial stage of the book seems a bit slow, however it still communicates the misery that will underlie the book. And when the writer introduces, or perhaps allows the cover to be taken from past terror, the pace indeed was never slow. Ms. Parker just lulls the reader into a false sense of security. Comfort may be a better word, for it is a rare book that truly disturbs a reader, I suggest this is just such a book.

The truth of what happened in this story is never completely clear. Reasonable conclusions can be drawn, and careful attention to detail makes all the difference. However much of the time A truth, as opposed to The truth, is what we are offered.

A 101-year-old man, a veteran of World War I and all the horror that entails complains of a scar and the pain it inflicts. The problem is he chooses the scar that is 80 years old, and not the days old incision that physically is the site that should cause the pain. A Grandson who tends to this man, who wants to know what personal horror tortures the old man, the horror that pains him more than his failing health. Eventually some information is shared, but I don't believe it is The information.

The Grandson has his own Family, most charitably called eclectic, as each parent has brought children from a first marriage, and a life they have created is en route. When the cover I mentioned earlier invades this family, they face an obscene result, a visual dementia, which immediately threatens them. And this initial shock is only the beginning.

An act of violence from the past that can be argued as humane is followed by the most nightmarish atrocity. The past does not repeat, or has the outcome just been delayed? I had written of another novel "she did not hand this one to you". I feel the comment here is equally valid. The Writer does bring closure to some issues, she leaves at least on event suspended, not ambiguous, but specifically left in abeyance. I don't know what her intent is, but this issue, combined with one other that can easily be missed by the reader, and perhaps the key players in the book, would make for a great continuation if Ms. Barker chose.

I really look forward to the balance of this lady's work. Her work is sophisticated, clever, and the major events that shock, hide much deeper, and darker issues. I may be wrong, if I am, then the book is probably better than I believe it to be.

Pat Baker explores new ground and revisits old territory in this strangely engaging novel. A new theme is the supernatural, while she continues to draw on her established skill in depicting the horrors of WWI. Two simultaneous stories unfold linked by the main character Nick. Nick's grandfather Gordie is dying and as he navigates the final stages of his mortal passage he is haunted by a terrible war memory that he has never revealed to his family. The other story revolves around Nick's thoroughly modern, blended family which has recently moved into a haunted,old Victorian home. The twin hauntings suggest the title, ANOTHER WORLD. It is a world co-mingled by spirits and undying memories. Without giving away too much, both hauntings involve the possibility of murder. The book alternates between this reality and the tangent other world as the stories unfold with tantilizing suspense.

This is a funny book, not that it is funny though! But reading it I was wondering - What kind of book is this? There is a ghost in it, so I thought maybe it is ghost story? But not really. Then there is also a story about a boy, Gareth, who is jealous upon the smaller boy in the family, Jasper, which is the shared child of his mothers new husband, Gareth's own father has broken the connection. So Gareth feels left out of the family and exerts pretty serious violent actions upon Jasper, so I thought then is then a psycho drama? But not really either. Then there is an old 1WW veteran who are dying Geordie. The book takes place in the 1990. What strikes me about the book is that the author is not afraid of decribing some of the tabuised areas of physical life. Things like the gentials, excrement and she even describes an intercourse with a highly pregnant woman.