Perhaps the best novel yet about the collapse of the Berlin Wall, 'at once cinematic, intimate and epic' (The Times) -- from Granta Best of British novelist Philip Hensher, author of the bestselling The Mulberry Empire. 'Pleasured begins on New Year's Eve, 1988, when a car breaks down on a road connecting West Germany and West Berlin. Inside the car are an unlikely trio -- Peter Picker, an Englishman, and the two strangers to whom he is giving a lift, a student who calls herself Daphne and Friedrich Kaiser. The novel tracks their intertwined fates in the year that follows. It is, of course, no ordinary year, and it is not only the Berlin Wall which has collapsed by its end...Distinctive and consistently appealing, Philip Hensher's novels are full of mysteries to be uncovered, lies to collapse, and secrets to be dramatically revealed. ' Guardian
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Editorial Reviews
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'What starts out as a Pinteresque thriller turns out to be a rather touching love story... so good it gives you goosebumps.' Time Out'Hensher's most ambitious novel to date, it is also his most satisfying' Alex Clarke, Guardian'Highly original and accomplished... An engrossing read.' Barry Unsworth, Daily Telegraph'A sublimely structured and sophisticated novel' Independent on Sunday
About the Author
Philip Hensher's novels include Kitchen Venom, which won the Somerset Maugham Award, Other Lulus and The Mulberry Empire, which was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, shortlisted for the WH Smith 'People's Choice' Award and highlighted by no fewer than twelve reviewers as their 'book of the year'. Chosen by Granta to appear on their prestigious, once-a-decade list of the twenty best young British novelists, Philip Hensher is also a columnist for the Independent and chief book reviewer for the Spectator. He lives in south London.
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2.0 out of 5 stars
Not much of a pleasure,
This review is from: Pleasured (Paperback)
I wanted to like this novel, but Hensher's inability, at least here, to create believable characters prohibited me from feeling much of anything about it, except an apathy rivaling that of his character Friedrich. Friedrich, Peter Picker, Daphne, and Mario are all made out of cardboard, and engage in baffling, contradictory behavior that does not ring true, which is a problem because this novel relies heavily on its characters as sites of historical expression. These lifeless characters in turn inhabit a largely lifeless story, in which one of the most momentous historical events of the last half-century is the unfortunate recipient of Hensher's pseudo-lyrical swirling musings on life which, I'm sorry to say, by the third chapter I was skimming through. Perhaps part of the problem is that Hensher is British -- Friedrich's apathetic blankness may be a reflection of Hensher's blankness when it comes to gaining insight into the mind of a German, and the mind of a German in pre-89 West Berlin. (But then again, Peter Picker is not much more vivid, and he's British.) Perhaps the old truism to write about what you know was honed on missteps like this one.
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