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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Discomforting yet intoxicating read, February 19, 2008
The one and only negative thing I can write about "Day" is that it took me over 30 pages to get fully "oriented"; and while perhaps this device was likely deployed purposefully by the author to communicate the very-same disorientation on the part of the lead character (for him too, time and space have blurred), it was overdone and prevented me from getting pulled in more quickly. Yet, once I knew where I was in time and space, the book was impossible to put down. I have nothing in common with the leading man, a WWII veteran and RAF gunner. Yet I felt I got into his head; no, more to the point, he got into mine. The result was a combination of discomfort and exhilaration. The story is not one that's easy to swallow and some of the elements are disturbing and visually (for those like me who visualize the story) gory yet appropriate for the war and the period. The Economist in its review, noted no one would ever tell the author is a woman. I agree. What makes this spell binding is that the man through whose eyes we see the war and understand its emotional aftermath (and largely futile nature) is both insane and aware of his insanity, he examines the loss of his humanity yet is still very human, in love and angry. The writing touched me like very few books have, and I read voraciously so I can speak with some confidence on this. Anyone with a faint interest in the WWII period, or the human psyche, would want to read this book.
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11 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
What's it all about, Alfie?, January 15, 2008
Let me state first of all that I admired Alison Kennedy enormously, and that I have been reading her avidly since "Original Bliss" (which still shakes me up when I reread it and teach it). I was full of hopes for "Day", which at the time of writing has only just been published in the US. I was fortunate enough to get a copy from my UK friends for Christmas. I was sorely disappointed. I think that such an intimate view of a central protagonist - especially one that becomes "you" hence "us" given the constant slipping into the second person mode of telling - really relies on us being interested in that person, or by finding them singular. As soon as we start to resist the direction given to "you" as a reader, it makes the writer's task doubly difficult. Frankly, Alfie Day as a personality or character didn't carry any interest for me. Instead, I became distracted by the research that Kennedy had clearly carried out into the era, and I found myself ticking off things that she had discovered and placed into the narrative to add authenticity. It is hard to get research into this kind of novel so that it seems organic and part of the work, and not a collection of interesting found materials. If the centre of the novel is Alfie, why this world to set him in? It seems an odd choice for "Day" to be set in WWII - not because the events of that time have lost relevance or importance, but because Alfie might have meant more to us had be been in Iraq, Afghanistan, or even the Falklands. Kennedy's prose sparkles as usual, but for me it alone can't carry the novel, because the characters and narrative it serves for once don't match it.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
"Day" Is Beyond Masterful, October 15, 2009
This review is from: Day (Vintage Contemporaries) (Paperback)
I am an airplane nut. This might be the most evocative paragraph I have read regarding the magic and mystery that only airplane nuts feel. "Circling in from the north-west came a single Lanc, big-chinned, blunt as a whale and open armed and singing. When you heard them like that, far off, you could think they were trying to speak, words hidden underneath the roar, and if you could only work the out, you would understand everything, ou would be saved. " Day Day (Vintage Contemporaries) is a love story. The love of a WWII Lancaster crewman for his captain and crew; his love of a woman; his love of combat. Day is the story of hate. His hatred for an abusive father. Hatred of those who bring tyranny over the innocent. Author A.L. Kennedy brings us Alfred Day the character. His tale dances across time, interweaving an authentic captivity with a staged reinactment offering Day a second chance to untangle the cords of his war. Read this book. Please.
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