Customer Reviews

Lara

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4 star:		(1)
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I found the cover alone of the book to be a work of art.Lara is about a woman who is going through self-discovery with her multi-racial background. In the book you see the Irish discriminating the English, the English discriminating the black. Inspite of this discrimination Lara's parents loved each other.

Now reading this book is not simple.It is not Chaucer, or Shakespeare but the book has been written in poetry form.There is also a family tree diagram so that the reader could comprehend Lara's background.

There are Laras and Taiwos and Ellens and Ediths everywhere. Young girls who hate their hair because it's not fashionable, old ladies who serve tea in fine China while their guests chatter and sip respectably, middle aged men who are torn between a home faraway and the land of their perceived dreams, young women cut off from their family for marrying the wrong skin. What makes this book so enjoyable is that inasmuch as the characters in the book are carefully crafted to live their own lives in their own worlds, they seem to resonate elsewhere and one feels one has bumped into them several times before. The lyrical, humourous and most accessible style makes it a book you want to return to - the voices become rhythms of feeling that penetrate through the skin to tickle and tease, and the thoughts dig into the flesh to provoke and prod - sometimes a giggle and sometimes a lurking tear.

Bernardine Evaristo's Lara is a lyrical articulation of a grand millenial vision. Patiently crafted from shimmering shards of memory, it's a sweeping mosaic that refracts the histories of Nigeria, Britain and Brazil in a way that will forever color the way in which we understand the ways in which the past both illuminates and foreshadows the future.

A friend gave me Lara for Christmas and at first I wasn't sure what to expect as it is a verse novel and I've never read one before. I was more than pleasantly surprised. Lara is a most astonishing book, full of surprises and inventiveness, and although I found it easy to read I also wanted to slow down and savour the writing. The characterisation is amazing, sometimes summing up the essence of a character in a few wonderfully poetic words. The beauty of the writing is breathtaking and it felt like I was in a dream being taken across centuries and continents. The story had depth and clarity, passion and wisdom and by the time I had finished it I wanted to go back and read it again, to savour every word again and experience the joy of reading it again. In fact I am now on to my third reading. The story also says much about the mixed-race experience and about mixed marriages. In fact miscegenation is at the core of the book - how a Nigerian and a white British woman marry and fare in a racially hostile London in the 50s, 60s and 70s and how one of their children Lara, comes to terms with her dual heritage. But the book has much to say to everyone and transcends boundaries of race and nationality. There are no stereotyped baddies or goodies, more, why people do the things they do, is explored Their are passages of description which are so vivid I was there, I could see it, smell it, touch it. There are moments in the book which are hysterically funny and I had to laugh out loud, and their are moments where the pain turned my stomach. I think this has to be one of the most significant books produced this century. The writer has the depth, clarity and vision expected of one of the century's great writers and I am sure we will be hearing a lot more about her.