Customer Reviews

Sadler's Birthday

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Already a fan of Rose Tremain, I came to this novel at the suggestion of a novelist friend. I was already in the process of reading a classical novel, featuring a protagonist I was developing no feelings for whatsoever. Within the first three pages of Sadler's Birthday, I immediately set aside that other book and embarked on the journey through Sadler's life.

Unlike a previous reviewever, I felt drawn into the life of this lonely man. I could immediately sympathize with his feeling that life, and everyone in it whom he ever loved, had simply past him by. The author, by her use of flashbacks, makes us see the sadness that has comprised Sadler's life. I also thought it very appropriate that the housekeeper should leave at the end, like so many before her.

Although the pedophilia in this novel is obvious and greatly disturbing, somehow I was not terribly disturbed by it. I thought of it as more a sad commentary about Sadler's life. From what we gather, Tom was the only person in Sadler's life whom he ever loved in a romantic sense. Yet, Tom, too, leaves him.

This book is haunting; all the more brilliant when one considers that it is Tremain's first book. One leaves this novel with a little piece of Sadler inside oneself. Sadler is someone we can greatly pity. More than that, the Sadler we meet when the novel opens is the person we most fear; the person we ourselves may one day become.

I started this book with such high hopes which accelerated with each chapter. It reads like a cross between "Upstairs, Downstairs" and "Howards End, with all the nuances between employers and employees..them and us, and the fascinating details about domestic life in grand houses in the early days of the century. Three quarters of the way through, the bombshell came with the hero displaying pedophiliac behaviour to an 11 year old boy whom he loved desperately. This conduct continued until the boy left the house when 16 years old. I'm not expressing any views about homosexuality but cannot countenance pedophilia in any form. I felt that it was such a pity that what promised to be a wonderful read, made me feel so let down and unsympathetic to a sad, lonely man.

this book was about this old guy named sadler and his life as a servant and all around nice but poor guy, and the very few people that actually came into his life. i gave it a chance because i loved Rose Tremain's Sacred COuntry, but this book was soooo different. it just kind of trudged on through, and i pitied the old guy but at the same time, i hated having to read about it. i felt like not a lot happened, and since i never cared about the characters to begin with, i didn't care about the story as a whole. i finished it because i'm one of those people who has to finish a story once it's started, but it was pretty dreary throughout the read.