Customer Reviews

So Many Ways to Begin: A Novel

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The author invites readers to observe closely as a life unfolds, each recollection triggered with reference to a found object. The story moves backward and forward in time, from World War II until the present, to tell a story at once curious and remarkably prosaic. The pace is slow but the writing is beautifully evocative in its simplicity. One feels present to the objects described and the events marking their significance to the narrative. I hesitate to say too much about either the characters or events since it is the unfolding of events and deepening appreciation of the characters that is the stuff of this book. I would say that there is nothing dramatic here, and yet I found myself deeply touched by the humanness of all the characters. Happily ever after has no place in this book, and yet I was certainly not depressed by the "reality" of these characters' lives. If I'm perfectly honest, I saw my own strength, fragility, heroism, cowardess, courage and fear in these men and women. There are no heroes here, only ordinary folks making the best of what life brings them. Through it all I was mesmerized.

David Carter - Curator of a local museum; obsessive collector and archivist of his own life

........until a senile relative reveals a long-buried family secret. Then David's life slips out of orbit. So begins his own personal Reconstruction..and his coming to terms with the fact that his life has not been what it seemed....that he isn't who he thought he was. so begins his search for "self".

Add to this a wife with bipolar disorder and its attendant strains...troubles in the workplace both personal and professional.....a daughter turned rebellious...and David's own batch of demons and weaknesses..and you have a heartbreaker of a story.

The author has an engaging style that moves the story along without undue sentimentality or "drama"...The ending could have been "tighter", but that's a minor quibble..and seems perfectly correct, in hindsight. The book has a definite British feel to it...."brave stoicism" with hysteria and rage lying just below the surface.

I liked the way McGregor portrayed David's situation as his life spiraled downwards- the confusion, frustration and anger so well-contained....only bursting forth at intervals..then receding quietly..until the next time. McGregor also writes about sex between married people in a healthily realistic fashion- no "throbbing" or "heaving" here...just "the way it is" in all its glory...the blessed "routine" of it all.

I recommend this to anyone who enjoys intelligent Soap Opera......who enjoys a good story, well told, without a patent "happy ending"...who is still "searching for self" (though maybe not this thoroughly)......I say give this one a try...

4 Stars (****) ( )

I think this was such a beautifully written book. It took me a few pages to get into the writing style. There are no quotation marks in the character's dialogue. I think the Sunday Times described the author as a brilliant prose stylist. (and I would have to agree!)
The story is about David Carter who is a collector and curator at a local museum. When a senile relative lets slip a long buried family secret, David is forced to consider that his whole life may have been constructed around a lie. The story takes us from WWII to the early 2000's.
It is also a story of a marriage. These are just ordinary characters. However, the author has such a way with words, it is an absolute pleasure to read.
David is also an avid collector and the beginning of each chapter had a headline of a certain ticket, note, letters or object that he had collected and that chapter was related in some small way to the collected item. The item mentioned was used as a way for the character to remember points of his life. Loved it!!
I think some readers may find the story slow or without much of a plot, but it is the author's ability to find the extraordinary in everyday life and create a beautiful story that makes this a wonderful read. I enjoyed every bit of the story. It can at times feel a bit depressing and sad, but the characters were fascinating. McGregor has a way with making his characters extremely believable and readable

This novel is the story of the life of David Carter, told from David's perspective and organized around the important objects of his life. Each chapter begins with a description of a particular object and a date (e.g., "b/w photograph, Albert Carter, defaced, c. 1943," "small fragment of metal, unidentified, 1983"). In this way, the chapters act like snapshots in time, and the chronology of the novel jumps around dramatically. Over the course of David's life, he grapples with mental illness and depression in his close friends and family, and he learns an unsettling secret about his own past.

As a museum curator, David places particular emphasis on everyday objects, so the structure of the novel feels like a natural extension of David's way of approaching his life. Unfortunately, the jumpy chronology is difficult to follow at times. The constantly shifting timeframe also made it difficult for me to get too emotionally involved in any one storyline. On the positive side, McGregor's writing is elegant and understated, and I appreciated the realism of the novel's open-ended conclusion (though I suspect some readers will find it to be unsatisfying).

David Carter wants you to know about his life. The way the writer threads the story is through the use of David's keepsakes. As a boy, he clung to all types of mementos and has grown up loving museums, collections and archaeology. As an adult he's fulfilled his dreams and become a museum curator. Each chapter he writes is headed with a description of one of his life mementos. A pair of gloves, theater tickets, snapshots, a job application, university prospectuses; each has significance in the chapter and you can imagine David telling you this story, bringing out each one and shyly offering it to you. It's an excellent device and very believable. Not only does it give you tangible detail, but is almost more revealing of David's character than what he says.

Although there are no big secrets in this book, there are many little ones. Small things are revealed subtly and tension builds if you recognize them for what they are. Eleanor's agoraphobia for example was obliquely referred to in the very beginning, but took time to manifest itself in real time. Same with the actual reason for David's hospitalization; as soon as it was hinted that it wasn't for the reason given to Kate, I knew he had to have run afoul of Chris and could only turn the pages helplessly as it came to pass.

Mental illness is a major theme in this book, but it's never made pathetic or something to be ashamed of. David is patient and loving in the face of it and even though it makes his life difficult at times, he's never ready to walk out on the women he loves. The ending is a bit hard to take after so much yearning, but it is a fitting one. I think both David and Mary healed in small ways and rather than being frustrated, both seem satisfied.

Many years ago I saw a play called "Philadelphia, Here I Come!" that I loved. In many ways, that play reminds me of this quiet book, filled with longing, unanswered questions and reaching, always reaching, for things that will never be.
I picked up "So Many Ways To Begin" and I could not put it down. I even woke up in the middle of the night to read it.
MacGregor's writing is like music it's so beautiful. And it reads so brilliantly true. I believed everything about these characters'lives, and MacGregor's extraordinary talent is that he makes us care so deeply about these seemingly ordinary people.
"So Many Ways To Begin" is first a story about one man, but also about his family, and then his extended family, all of whom, like most of us, seem to be trying very hard, but often stumbling. There was only one wretched character here who I just couldn't stand; I was rooting, at every turn, for the rest.
I was quite surprised by the ending, which I also liked.
Highly recommended.

McGregor excels at literary psychological suspense, similar to what Ian McEwan does so well. When reading So Many Ways to Begin, one feels slightly off-balance, as though the world is comfortable but not quite right. As the pages turn, the reader becomes edgy, each increasing word or scene appears to set the story up for disaster. And disaster, one learns, is not necessarily a bomb or an earthquake so much as it is a glance, a word, an opening or closing door, a stare.

The basic premise of McGregor's tale is a simple one that has been presented in many ways in many books: a family secret from the past comes into the present to haunt and change present-day lives. What McGregor has done that is different is allow his work to take on a more interior feel which allows readers to twist in discomfort at the thoughts and actions of the everyday characters in the book. There is no tight plot; there is mystery but no methodical approach to it. Fans of plot-centric fiction will be disappointed in McGregor's work. His words and pages are pure literature.

There are times when one wishes the book would move faster, the action seems to linger too long in the characters' minds or their very slow actions. There are times one yearns for a bit more twists and turns, more secrets revealed and tossed aside, more progress toward the goal, the learning of the secret. But one must be patient to read So Many Ways to Begin and realize that although it is about a mystery, it is about more than that. It is about families and childhoods and memories. It is about what has meaning and what doesn't. It is about what we take with us when we move on, and about how we move through. Through life, through dreams, through shock and tragedy.

There is a great deal of love and affection in So Many Ways to Begin. It comes forth in odd ways at strange times and sometimes lingers on and on in the pages to the point where the reader questions it, dislikes it, wants it to be gone. There are other times when it is easy to want more: more detail, more connection, more acknowledgement. When it doesn't happen, the frustration of the reader feels so true to life, and this seems to be what McGregor is striving for, these incremental moments of living that are captured or not, take on meaning or don't, give us happiness or take it away.

McGregor's writing might not be for everyone, and he will be compared to Ian McEwan, but he is really his own writer. He knows what he wants to write about and how to do it. He's innovative, introspective, insightful. He's very, very real in his work, and So Many Ways to Begin must be commended for it is a special book that speaks to all of us in some way. It is not just a book about family relationships, about adoption and a quest for roots. It is not just about marriage, mental illness, crime and punishment. It is about the minutes that tick away in all of our lives every day. McGregor's work is going on between the ticks of the seconds, in the little dips of silence between the clicks on the clock. McGregor is in there, in everyone's silence, and he's very, very good at it.

Jon McGregor's debut novel 'If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things' made a huge impact on me, transforming the way I saw prose poems, and giving me a keener sense the sound and feel of words and sentences. The work had a beauty that was simple, amplifying the often ordinary and unremarkable. It was quiet and yet it resonated.


With such a strong first novel, it only made for a tough act to follow. McGregor's second novel, 'So Many Ways to Begin', draws from everyday objects and keepsakes as starting points for each chapter, weaving together threads of the protagonist David's life. As the title suggests, David is made aware of alternative beginnings when a close family friend unwittingly makes a disclosure.

The narrative is always tender: from the treatment of his young romance with Eleanor, even as she succumbs to depression when they marry, his relationship with his mother, and the estrangement of Eleanor with her own mother.

The writing is still as sharp, and the characters portrayed sensitively, albeit with a tinge of melancholy. However, it was not as engaging perhaps because of the writer's reticence. Too many things are implied or merely hinted at; e.g. Eleanor's estrangement with her family was not very convincingly played out without a pivotal event.

One only hopes for a young writer like McGregor, that he had not peaked too early in his career.

I hate it because I still haven't received it.
So that makes it difficult to review in the first place.