Unquestionably one of the finest living novelists today presents a poignant love story and a timely meditation on the city of London which has seen destruction, loss, and quest over several centuries. 5 cassettes.
Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
In the title of Booker Prize winner Lively's ( Moon Tiger ) intelligent, elegantly expressed and deeply satisfying new novel, the city is London and the mind that of architect Matthew Halland, whose keen eye and sentient imagination bring him to muse about its inhabitants over the centuries. Recently divorced and missing the daily companionship of his young daughter, Halland attempts to fill the dry hole in his life with work--notably a building his firm is erecting in the newly restored Docklands area. The people with whom he comes in contact typify a range of urban behavior and moral conduct. After he turns down an offer from an obnoxious, evil developer, Halland is plagued by the man's ruthless harrassment. But a glass engraver (and Holocaust survivor) demonstrates the power of art to transcend mundane reality. And an editor of an art magazine, Sarah Bridges, to whom Halland tentatively reaches out, slowly restores his faith in love and human relationships. Interspersed throughout are flashes of the people who lived in the areas of London that Halland traverses: an Elizabethan arctic explorer, a Victorian paleontologist, a child of the teeming slums ironically named Rose and a WW II air-raid warden who faces unspeakable tragedy. The narrative becomes a meditation on time: historical time, time as perceived by children, as altered by crisis, or love, or memory. In chronicling Halland's passage from desolation to re-engagement, Lively affirms that our existences have meaning, even as we are succeeded by others in the dance of life.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Library Journal
Architect Matthew Halland is tuned into the physical world. London's night sky asks him unanswerable questions about time and space. The dilapidated old buildings and blackened brick walls resound with human experience. Everything Matthew knows of London pulls him out of its present and into its past, leaving him spellbound by the realization that some things will never change for its inhabitants. Matthew is surrounded by family and friends, rivals and colleagues, but none is as aware as he. Like countless Londoners before him, he is tested by the pressures of city life, and his knowledge of the past sustains him until a chance meeting with Sarah Bridges focuses his sights on the future. Lively's narrative is a tribute to late-20th-century London. Matthew, who shares the author's fascination with collective memory and time, seems more real than the typical inhabitant he represents. Highly recommended. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 6/15/91.
- Janet Wilson Reit, Univ. of Ver mont Lib., Burlington
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
- Janet Wilson Reit, Univ. of Ver mont Lib., Burlington
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A Travelogue Through the Streets of London,
By
This review is from: City of the Mind: A Novel (Paperback)
Matthew Holland is an architect in his beloved city of London.
Penelope Lively has written a travelogue through the streets of London. We meet Brick Lane and King's Cross and so many of the famous streets and places that regale us of London. Matthew is recently divorced, two years. He and his ex-wife, Susanhave a daughter, Jane. They love her tremendously, and both are worried how this divorce has affected her. They are trying to move on with their lives as difficult as it seems. Matthew is involving himself in his work and his new projects. He is busying his mind and his body. All the while he is also looking at the future. Around every corner of London he is searching for something, Is it himself or is it his life that he is searching for? Into this lively part of Matthew's life the London he loves, Penelope Lively inserts scenes from the past. As Matthew constructs his new buildings, Lively inserts layers of history with stories that reflect the past. This is, in part, disconcerting, to have the story flow and then a new short story inserted. But, as the book proceeds we get used to this. Matthew meets a young woman at a sandwich Shoppe. She is short of money, and he pays for the meal. He notices how pretty she is, but she moves out of his life. He thinks of her off and on, and the next time he goes into the shop he asks the shopkeeper who this girl is. He leaves his card, just in case she stops by. In the meanwhile he goes on with his life and his buildings and raising his daughter, Jane. He meets a rather unsavory character who buys land in whatever manner he can, and then builds whatever he wants. Matthew understands this is not the life he wants and this character has an unsettling effect on him. However, this man represents to Matthew the ugly side of London and he can move on. He and Sarah, the young woman in the sandwich shop do have a relationship. Will they fall in love, and will Matthew find the happiness he deserves? This was not the type of novel I usually enjoy, and it was fragmented in several instances. I have enjoyed others of Penelope Lovely's books more than this one. This was a book to be enjoyed, but the character storyline was missing. I do want to reiterate though, that the reader who hasn't discovered Penelope Lively is missing one of the best contemporary novelists of our time. prisrob
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Not Her Best Work,
By
This review is from: City of the Mind: A Novel (Paperback)
I have spent the last 10 months reading the Penelope Lively books and have found some delightful; others, good. This book is one that I started reading, then set aside because I simply could not get into it. I recently picked it up and began reading it again. It is quite boring and very disjointed. Time to throw in the towel and move on. I'm sure the next Lively novel on the list will reconnect me with the talented writer that she is. Just FYI, my favorite Lively novel so far is The Photograph.
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