Customer Reviews

Photograph

5 star:		(26)
4 star:		(16)
3 star:		(14)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

The book begins simply. A husband searching through his old papers comes across a photograph of his wife holding hands with her brother-in-law and understands they must have been lovers. Through each chapter, as he angrily interviews friends and relatives for details of the love affair, a question begins to softly arise. Beneath the accusations, the denials and the love of those he questions, something begins to whisper not so much "What's the truth about what Kath did?" but "Who really was Kath?" Kath who died young, who was such a free spirit, not pulled down by life. But in the end what Kath did or did not do is secondary; it is the truth of who she was, and that all these people talking and fussing and denying and befriending, did not know her.

I have looked about me many times since reading "The Photograph" at people I know well, and wonder what they allow me to see. In the end of this remarkable novel, all the busy characters seem to fall away and the spirit of the illusive Kath remains alone gazing at the reader. We wonder how we can assume we know someone so well, and never perhaps even after many years know them at all.

I enjoyed Lively's recent CONSEQUENCES so much that I turned to this slightly earlier novel. It is equally absorbing, but I think the greater achievement. While dealing with similar concerns -- families, the power of memory -- it is more concentrated, darker in tone but richer in its observation of human nature, and ultimately the more satisfying book. Had Lively not already won the Booker Prize with MOON TIGER, it would be easy to see this novel as a strong contender.

The premise is simple. Glyn Peters, a sixtyish British archaeologist, comes upon a group photograph that includes his late wife, Kath. Details in the photo, and a brief note that he finds with it, suggest that there are aspects of Kath's married life that he didn't know. So, researcher that he is, he makes some enquiries. Consequences ripple outwards from there, affecting a tight group of people who had been connected with Kath. These include: Elaine, her older sister, a successful garden designer; Elaine's husband, Nick, a former publisher, now full of plans that seldom come to fruition; Oliver, Nick's former business partner, now running a desk-top publishing business of his own; and Nick and Elaine's daughter Polly, who had been very close to Kath growing up and is now a web designer. All of them remember Kath as a force of nature, stunningly beautiful, a magnetic presence in any room. Although there is little present-day action in the novel, Kath is very much alive in the memories of those who were close to her. Her incandescence comes through from the very beginning, but as we move through the heart of the novel into its poignant conclusion, we begin to glimpse the real woman behind the brilliant glow, and each of the characters finds something different in the Kath whom they thought they knew.

Consider again the various professions: archaeologist, landscape architect, publisher, web designer. As always with Lively, it seems, these are typical concerns for people of this class at this time. But there is more; they are all about manipulating and arranging given data to make a certain pleasing sense. Glyn's speciality is the history of landscape, reconstructing a lost way of life from the line of a hedge or the shape of a field; he is used to the way new discoveries can change old perceptions, and he approaches the study of his late wife in the same way. As a garden designer, Elaine also works with the natural features of a landscape, but builds on them, forming them into a new pattern to fulfill an aesthetic concept; this turns out to have been an acute analogy to her relationship with her younger sister. The other characters, as publishers or designers, are concerned with putting out words or pictures that will attract the eye, make apparent sense, and sell to the public. Lively seems to suggest that we treat our memories in much this way; by trying to wrestle them into patterns, putting them between glossy covers as it were, we may distort the natural shapes that point to more subtle meanings.

There is one other significant character in that photograph, Kath's friend Mary Packard. Mary is a potter, a profession that also involves the shaping of raw material into pleasing forms, but in a more basic and instinctive way. The raw material is not landscape but the dirt of which it is made, and the pot grows like a living thing in the potter's hands. It is not surprising that Mary understands things about Kath that even her family has missed. It is her appearance at the end of the story and her ability to listen (for all the others are talkers) that provides the final clues that make us see Kath in a new and gentler light.

Writing this review, I had the feeling of some other author hovering over Penelope Lively's novel. I now realize who it is: the Virginia Woolf of TO THE LIGHTHOUSE. Of course THE PHOTOGRAPH is by no means as difficult a book to get through, and it breaks little new formal ground. But it is similarly constructed out of a series of interior monologues, unbidden thoughts, and chance reflections. It is written with the assumption that the inner world is every bit as important as the outer one, only richer and more revealing. And Lively shares Woolf's power of making the reader look at his or her own life in ways which will never be quite the same again. A magnificent achievement!

This is a rather slow building novel. The central theme is changing perspective over a period of time seen through the viewing lens of an adulterous relationship. To complicate matters, the woman is involved with the husband of her sister. Or to put it symmetrically the other way, the man is involved with the sister of his wife. The author's use of revolving narrators is skillful, which gives the reader material to ponder.

Penelope Lively is one of that rare breed of writers who never disappoints. Her latest, "The Photograph", is an intriguing little novel about the elusive nature of identity in life and its amorphous quality when resurrected from the collective memory of family and friends in death. We know nothing directly of the dead Kath except from the impressions of Glyn, Elaine, Nick, Polly and others. Despite its intensely intimate quality, the story pans out as a mystery or a near whodunit with the promise of a tell-all at the end, and that unfortunately may be its weakest aspect because "the truth about Kath" as revealed by her friend Mary Packard in the last chapter is strangely predictable and less than earth shattering. Everyone seems to be in agreement that Kath is this artless beauty whose free spirited soul sets her apart from the rest who must deal with the ordinary mundane matters of life and career, so when the real Kath finally emerges, it turns out she isn't what we expect. Loneliness and the lack of genuine warmth and intimacy finally claims her life too. In their separate attempts to get to the bottom of circumstances surrounding the incriminating photograph, each of the others reveal more of their own ugly nature than of the ghostly Kath, eg Glyn's selfish conceit, Elaine's cold-bloodedness, Nick's weakness, Polly's lack of filial feelings, etc. Is it any wonder that we never caught the real likeness of Kath from the secret ruminations of the others. "The Photograph" is a beautifully written novel and an immensely enjoyable read. Don't miss it.

I looked forward with great anticipation to Penelope Lively's The Photograph. Not only was it chosen as a Today's Book Club selection, but most reviews have been very favorable. I must admit that I was a bit disappointed.

The Photograph opens with a landscape history professor and widower, Glyn Peters, searching through some old papers. He discovers a photograph of his late wife, Kath, holding hands with her brother-in-law. Kathy was an incredible beauty and a free spirit who seemed to have it all. But this picture shows Glyn that there is a Kath that he doesn't know at all, and it rocks his world. All of a sudden, he's confronted with a host of baffling questions. Was Kath really happy? Was her affair with brother-in-law Nick full blown? Were there other men? Who else knew about this affair? And especially, how does this change Glyn's perception of his marriage? He becomes obsessed with trying to find the answers to these questions, and the book reads a bit like a mystery. Each person Glyn questions (family, friends and acquaintances) is forced to revisit the Kath they knew and the relationship they had with her. And they each learn that this happy-go-lucky free spirit had a very dark side nobody took the time to discover.

The concept that one photograph can change the lives of so many people is a tantalizing one. Each chapter is written from the viewpoint of one of the main characters, and Lively has a knack for making her characters very real (although most of them weren't very likable). But on the negative side, I found the plot to be very plodding and deliberate in many spots. With only 40 pages left to read, it took me three nights to finish as fatigue got the better of me before my curiosity did. It also had way too much description in parts, and I got tired of reading about gardens, ponds, flowers, trees, walls and pergolas.

But just when I was feeling very let down, Lively gives us a grand ending that made this book worthwhile. And maybe this little voyage in search of Kath has made each of the characters a little more sympathetic.

This is a novel about characters well along in, and even winding down their lives, who are confronted by the thought that one of their most intimate relationships was not precisely what they imagined it was.

Glyn, a historian, finds a photo showing his former wife, Kath, surreptitiously, and apparently romantically, holding hands with her sister Elaine's husband. He's thunderstruck and determined to find out whether Elaine knew about this, whether Kath had made a habit of infidelity (which he seems surprisingly inclined to believe), and who Kath really was.

This reader was rather astonished at the rage and determination of Glyn's response, but later, as Kath's fate is revealed, the intensity of his response makes a bit more sense. In the beginning, though, he is profoundly unsympathetic, though haunted by vivid memories of Kath.

Kath's sister, Elaine, is one of those confident, self-reliant people for whom no one else can ever quite measure up, but she is also haunted by vivid memories. She is a very prominent landscape gardener/author--sort of a lower key Martha Stewart. Certain she's gotten where she is by her own hard work alone, she's rather scornful of those unable to succeed or who lack her work ethic. In the past, this included her sister, who appeared to be a supremely flighty person. In the present, this includes her husband, Nick, whose major business venture, a publishing house, failed some years ago, and who has been professionally floundering since.

Other characters, including Elaine and Nick's daughter, and Nick's former business partner, also enter the story and convey different impressions of the absent Kath, who none of them felt they really understood. They remember her as a highly attractive almost sprite-like presence, appearing and disappearing without warning.

The thought that she might have a deeper, interior life never occurred to any of them, and when she exited their lives permanently, they had no means of understanding it.

The suspense of the novel increases as you learn more about Kath. Repeatedly you find out that things were not as they seemed. When you finally learn what happened to her, even if you guessed earlier, it is still a tremendous release. (I cried and cried.)

Through the course of the novel, the characters come to terms with who Kath really was, and what their relationship to her was, and, finally, they are able to really grieve instead of just being haunted by her absence.

This book was beautifully done and well worth reading. Penelope Lively is one of those writers who never disappoints.

This is my second journey through this wonderfully moving novel. I had read it a few years ago at the recommendation of a novelist friend and enjoyed it immensly. Unfortunately, I lent out my copy to someone who did not return it. I wanted to re-read it recently so I went out and bought another copy. I love it even more now than I did the first time I read it.
This novel is a moving journey through the intimate lives of several people. The protagonist discovers a photograph (as the title implies) of his late wife in an embrace with another man; this discovery sends him on a quest to discover what other secrets his wife had hidden from him. In the process, skeltons are exposed from the closets of various characters, including the protagonist.
This book has forever changed the way I see people. It gives credence to the question of how well we really know someone, regardless of how close we are to the person. This is my second time reading it and I am quite positive there will be a third, a fourth, and a fifth after that. It is sobering and very revealing; a work of intelligent, moving fiction.

"The Photograph" is a brilliant puzzle of deftly created characters. Ms. Lively takes a simple premise of a discovered photograph and then proceeds to carve it apart into the individual people who are depicted plus the husband who finds it and learns of his wife's affair with her sister's husband. The great success of this book is the crisp and clear representation of each person, their thoughts, and their relationships to the others. Though this is a modestly sized book, it is resplendant with large meanings. Beautifully written and wise.

This is the story of Kath, told by those who knew her, or didn't, as it turned out in some cases. Kath is vibrant, beautiful, and fun. Everyone loves being around her, it seems. Kath is revealed slowly as the book progresses. The revelation begins when her husband finds a photograph that was supposed to be destroyed. It shakes his world so completely that he in turn shakes the world of others who were living benignly unaware.

I noticed, as I was reading, that in the beginning I did not care about the characters. The author slowly built and developed the characters of Kath, her husband, Glyn, her sister, Elaine, and her brother-in-law, Nick. Each of them became more than I first thought. I wished that they could go back and see Kath for who she really was or wanted to be. This was a great book. I highly recommend it.

This is quite an extraordinary gallery of interlinked portraits. There's Glyn Peters, British landscape historian and television-academic, a man who has to know, in all cases, exactly what happened and why. There's his deceased wife, Kath, a woman of unnatural beauty to whom almost everyone was attracted and who lived her own life exactly as she wanted to, never planning ahead (and never had to), never working at a steady job, and who was the despair of her much older sister, Elaine. Because Elaine is a hyper-organized and very successful garden designer, the sort of person whose life is defined by her work and who has no understanding of, nor sympathy for, people -- like her sister, Kath, like her husband, Nick -- who *don't* approach life that way. There's Polly, daughter of Elaine and Nick, a very "here and now" young woman working as a web designer who rather takes after her mother but who also doted on her radiant, fun-loving aunt. And there's Oliver, Nick's ex-partner in their failed specialty publishing firm. It was Oliver who innocently took the photo that showed Nick and his sister-in-law secretly holding hands, which he forwarded to Nick, which Nick sent on to Kath -- assuming she would destroy it. But Kath thoughtlessly tucked it away to be found by Glyn years later. And Glyn now has a new project: Assembling all the data he can ferret out on his late wife's life while he was away attending conferences and doing research. Were there other men in her life besides Nick? It doesn't matter that it all happened fifteen years ago: He must know. And the repercussions of his investigation on all involved are considerable. But it appears that no one who knew Kath *really* knew her. Lively's exquisite, highly readable style is guaranteed to keep you glued to the page and thinking about her characters and their stories while you're supposed to be doing something else.