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The Realms of Gold
English archaeologist Frances Wingate, divorced mother of four, and distinguished scholar Karel Schmidt, selfless and marriage-imprisoned, stay-at-home, come inexorably together once more after years of on-again, off-again romance
375 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published October 1, 1975
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About the author
Margaret Drabble
160 books508 followersDame Margaret Drabble was born in Sheffield in 1939 and was educated at Newnham College, Cambridge. She is the author of eighteen novels including A Summer Bird-Cage, The Millstone, The Peppered Moth, The Red Queen, The Sea Lady and most recently, the highly acclaimed The Pure Gold Baby. She has also written biographies, screenplays and was the editor of the Oxford Companion to English Literature. She was appointed CBE in 1980, and made DBE in the 2008 Honours list. She was also awarded the 2011 Golden PEN Award for a Lifetime's Distinguished Service to Literature. She is married to the biographer Michael Holroyd.
Drabble famously has a long-running feud with her novelist sister, A.S. Byatt. The pair seldom see each other, and each does not read the books of the other.
Drabble famously has a long-running feud with her novelist sister, A.S. Byatt. The pair seldom see each other, and each does not read the books of the other.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 55 reviews
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May 7, 2018from The Children's book to the Realms of Gold one moves from Byatt to Drabble, one sister to another, forwards and backwards in time to the early 1970s. The title is a quote from Keats - On First Looking into Chapman's Homer so we are primed with the idea of discovery and travel, this reinforced by the introduction of our main character Frances Wingate - a woman archaeologist in Italy on a lecture tour, she is divorced, wealthy, with a handful of children in London and is separated from the man she loves, who naturally, is married unhappily to someone else. Archaeology suggests that in the novel we will be scrapping away at the past to uncover..something, this reinforced by the introduction of Frances' cousin - who is a geologist, so we are well primed to dig and uncover hidden or obscure truths, or gold or oil, given all this, perhaps it is unsurprising that the novel doesn't render unto to us a literary Pompeii, rather as though if Sherlock Holmes and Miss Marple met in a novel they would probably fail to solve the murder and instead argue over method (or take too many drugs and then do some wild knitting). It is though with its electricity cuts, rural housing sprawl a nice period piece, though the desirable love interest beating up his wife - this apparently acceptable, even necessary beating in the context of the novel is I suppose the now less acceptable face of the 1970s.
I rather liked Wingate's theory on the role of landscape on character, followed by a nice chapter in which she revisits her grandparents cottage in south Lincolnshire or Huntingdonshire - somewhere there-abouts anyhow, the flat reclaimed land where they grow more cabbage than even I could humanly eat even with butter, lemon and bacon. Again with three cousins in the story there is a possibility of seeing - I think of my own cousins as made from the same stuff as myself, but fired differently and as a result better glazed ,and indeed there is a taste of this but ultimately the well bore is dry, the test trench empty, ok depression runs in the family, but the precise link to the flat landscape is not established even with a tantalising whiff of poor John Clare, as a case of much have I travelled in the realms of old paperbacks where many interesting ideas amount to nought. Perhaps it depends on how you relate to flat - ultra-human made landscapes, I tend to like them myself, since it reminds me of my grandparents - who lived in such a landscape, of course when it is that flat and well drained you could be virtually walking about in your own consciousness and that might be too much for some. Some interesting play on the original ancestral cottage as a garden of Eden - with later attempts at domesticity, contrasted with the origins of family squabbles and the heavy bread of the ancestors, the vegetables cultivated by the sweat of the brow. The final set piece is the burial of a great aunt abandoned to starve to death because she was an old witch, my paternal great grandmother was an old witch, which in the days before the '44 government and the introduction of universal health care was a good line of work to be in. She has left me rather uninterested in witchiness, though in pleasing archaeological detail - old shoes are found stowed away in a hidden cupboard in that character's cottage after her death - this being a known protection against witchyness of all sorts. A nice period piece of unhappy 70s marriages, with less incest than you might imagine in a novel featuring three cousins unknown to each other , but ends on no Pacific coast - instead maybe a glimpse of the Serpentine.
Lasting message: people feel impelled socially to marry but very few people are able to thrive in such a state ,it is curious how this message describes all the marriages we are shown in the book, despite it ostensibly not being a 'marriage problem' novel, divorce at least is a possibility here for most protagonists - despite the time difference this is writing that Thomas Hardy would recognise - both on account of the roles of landscape and kinship as well as power imbalances in sexual relationships. I didn't feel though that The Realms of Gold was a hidden treasure, it can rest quietly in the soil I think for a while yet.
I rather liked Wingate's theory on the role of landscape on character, followed by a nice chapter in which she revisits her grandparents cottage in south Lincolnshire or Huntingdonshire - somewhere there-abouts anyhow, the flat reclaimed land where they grow more cabbage than even I could humanly eat even with butter, lemon and bacon. Again with three cousins in the story there is a possibility of seeing - I think of my own cousins as made from the same stuff as myself, but fired differently and as a result better glazed ,and indeed there is a taste of this but ultimately the well bore is dry, the test trench empty, ok depression runs in the family, but the precise link to the flat landscape is not established even with a tantalising whiff of poor John Clare, as a case of much have I travelled in the realms of old paperbacks where many interesting ideas amount to nought. Perhaps it depends on how you relate to flat - ultra-human made landscapes, I tend to like them myself, since it reminds me of my grandparents - who lived in such a landscape, of course when it is that flat and well drained you could be virtually walking about in your own consciousness and that might be too much for some. Some interesting play on the original ancestral cottage as a garden of Eden - with later attempts at domesticity, contrasted with the origins of family squabbles and the heavy bread of the ancestors, the vegetables cultivated by the sweat of the brow. The final set piece is the burial of a great aunt abandoned to starve to death because she was an old witch, my paternal great grandmother was an old witch, which in the days before the '44 government and the introduction of universal health care was a good line of work to be in. She has left me rather uninterested in witchiness, though in pleasing archaeological detail - old shoes are found stowed away in a hidden cupboard in that character's cottage after her death - this being a known protection against witchyness of all sorts. A nice period piece of unhappy 70s marriages, with less incest than you might imagine in a novel featuring three cousins unknown to each other , but ends on no Pacific coast - instead maybe a glimpse of the Serpentine.
Lasting message: people feel impelled socially to marry but very few people are able to thrive in such a state ,it is curious how this message describes all the marriages we are shown in the book, despite it ostensibly not being a 'marriage problem' novel, divorce at least is a possibility here for most protagonists - despite the time difference this is writing that Thomas Hardy would recognise - both on account of the roles of landscape and kinship as well as power imbalances in sexual relationships. I didn't feel though that The Realms of Gold was a hidden treasure, it can rest quietly in the soil I think for a while yet.
July 13, 2007
I've always liked Margaret Drabble's work more than that of her (more successful?) sister, A.S. Byatt. This may be just a residual consequence of having "met" her while I was in college. She had been invited to lecture by someone in the English department, and at the time I used to hang out with some of the women in English lit, so we ended up after the lecture having tea and biscuits in Josephine's flat with the eminent speaker, who was totally charming.
I think the reason I enjoy her fiction is that she so often writes about the lives of strong, intelligent women. Her protagonists are interesting people, whose problems and issues I tend to understand and identify with. Sometimes they are academics, but she manages to avoid the parochialism that mars much writing about academia, and because of that her work has a broader appeal, IMO.
Not sure why, but I like her middle novels the best - her recent novels have not engaged me that much, though she does write well, and interestingly, on relations between people of my generation and our parents. But even those of her novels that I've not enjoyed quite as much have stimulated me to think, and they are always well-written.
She remains an author whose new work I am always likely to try.
I think the reason I enjoy her fiction is that she so often writes about the lives of strong, intelligent women. Her protagonists are interesting people, whose problems and issues I tend to understand and identify with. Sometimes they are academics, but she manages to avoid the parochialism that mars much writing about academia, and because of that her work has a broader appeal, IMO.
Not sure why, but I like her middle novels the best - her recent novels have not engaged me that much, though she does write well, and interestingly, on relations between people of my generation and our parents. But even those of her novels that I've not enjoyed quite as much have stimulated me to think, and they are always well-written.
She remains an author whose new work I am always likely to try.
February 1, 2009
The beginning of my love affair with Margaret Drabble's work, and precedes her other opus: The Radiant Way. Realms of Gold is the kind of book that will always evoke the memory of where you were and what you were doing when you first read it. Intelligent writing and an intelligent but flawed heroine whose thoughts and corresponding narrative weave through her relationships and the British class/economic system of the later 20th century. This is not chick lit., it is Women's Literature!
August 30, 2023
I’m not sure when I first read and fell in love with The Realms of Gold, it may have been in college, but it was one of my top favorites in my late twenties/early thirties, and I haven’t re-read it in a very long time. Delighted to report that, all these many, many years later, I still love it, although it’s hard to analyze and articulate why. I just do, okay?
The main character, well-known archaeologist Frances Wingate, has an assured, self-confident approach to the world, her work, family, personal history, and beliefs about the world. She’s recently broken off a long-term affair with her married lover, an agricultural historian, but why (outside of the obvious practical and moral reasons) seems a mystery to us and to her as well, because she obviously loves him deeply and sincerely believes he is better off with her. Many of the marketing blurbs on the book make it sound as though it were primarily a love story, but it’s far broader than that as it follows Frances around in her domestic and foreign travels, addressing the significance of landscapes in both her personal and professional history and that of her family of origin.
There are other viewpoints represented, including those of Frances’ cousin Janet Bird, a new mother who has a far different life than Frances, circumscribed and controlled by an unpleasant husband. Her lack of ambition to break out of a maddeningly depressing suburban rut is the exact opposite of Frances’ independent personality and habits. I’ve noticed that many contemporary reviews of this 1975 novel refer to it as a “feminist” or “70’s novel,” but at the time I first read it I didn’t think of it as such, probably much in the way fish don’t notice they’re in water. And, as was the mode in some 1970s literature, there are occasional meta-fictional intrusions by the author/narrator reminding us that this is a story she/they are making up. This is a technique I really love when done subtly and well, as I believe it is here.
The story touches on themes related to how people of whatever era and culture manage their struggles and have done down the millennia, why people bother to cope with all the disease, war, corruption, disasters, tedium, loss, and heartbreak inherent in living. But amongst all the struggle, Frances and other characters are seen appreciating the bounty that life can offer as well, the love for the people in their lives, and for their homeland (including some lovely odes to the English countryside that made me want to go explore the land of my ancestors), the satisfaction of learning and work. It’s about both dynamics, as well as mortality and continuity, cultures and community, and the institutions and rituals that support them: marriage, religious customs, the raising of children, funeral rites and memorializing those who have come before us. This book makes me think about, and enjoy thinking about, the things that Frances is thinking about. So, I’m glad I read this again; the pleasure of reading it has not diminished at all.
Somehow, I’ve ended up with two old paperback editions of this novel, a Bantam, sorely in need of a glue stick, and a Penguin. But at one time decades ago, I owned zero copies of it, to my great distress. I’d given my only copy to my then-husband to take on a business trip because he needed something to read on the plane. I told him “It’s a favorite of mine, don’t lose it.” So, of course, he promptly did. After he came back without it, I was properly miffed and then couldn’t find a copy anywhere. This was well before the internet and it took me months to track down another. Perhaps I bought a second copy as a back-up and safeguard against being Realms-of-Gold-less again, because I really didn’t like being without one. Oh, and the marriage didn’t last. You really couldn’t expect me to stay married to a man who would lose my favorite books, now could you?
The main character, well-known archaeologist Frances Wingate, has an assured, self-confident approach to the world, her work, family, personal history, and beliefs about the world. She’s recently broken off a long-term affair with her married lover, an agricultural historian, but why (outside of the obvious practical and moral reasons) seems a mystery to us and to her as well, because she obviously loves him deeply and sincerely believes he is better off with her. Many of the marketing blurbs on the book make it sound as though it were primarily a love story, but it’s far broader than that as it follows Frances around in her domestic and foreign travels, addressing the significance of landscapes in both her personal and professional history and that of her family of origin.
There are other viewpoints represented, including those of Frances’ cousin Janet Bird, a new mother who has a far different life than Frances, circumscribed and controlled by an unpleasant husband. Her lack of ambition to break out of a maddeningly depressing suburban rut is the exact opposite of Frances’ independent personality and habits. I’ve noticed that many contemporary reviews of this 1975 novel refer to it as a “feminist” or “70’s novel,” but at the time I first read it I didn’t think of it as such, probably much in the way fish don’t notice they’re in water. And, as was the mode in some 1970s literature, there are occasional meta-fictional intrusions by the author/narrator reminding us that this is a story she/they are making up. This is a technique I really love when done subtly and well, as I believe it is here.
The story touches on themes related to how people of whatever era and culture manage their struggles and have done down the millennia, why people bother to cope with all the disease, war, corruption, disasters, tedium, loss, and heartbreak inherent in living. But amongst all the struggle, Frances and other characters are seen appreciating the bounty that life can offer as well, the love for the people in their lives, and for their homeland (including some lovely odes to the English countryside that made me want to go explore the land of my ancestors), the satisfaction of learning and work. It’s about both dynamics, as well as mortality and continuity, cultures and community, and the institutions and rituals that support them: marriage, religious customs, the raising of children, funeral rites and memorializing those who have come before us. This book makes me think about, and enjoy thinking about, the things that Frances is thinking about. So, I’m glad I read this again; the pleasure of reading it has not diminished at all.
Somehow, I’ve ended up with two old paperback editions of this novel, a Bantam, sorely in need of a glue stick, and a Penguin. But at one time decades ago, I owned zero copies of it, to my great distress. I’d given my only copy to my then-husband to take on a business trip because he needed something to read on the plane. I told him “It’s a favorite of mine, don’t lose it.” So, of course, he promptly did. After he came back without it, I was properly miffed and then couldn’t find a copy anywhere. This was well before the internet and it took me months to track down another. Perhaps I bought a second copy as a back-up and safeguard against being Realms-of-Gold-less again, because I really didn’t like being without one. Oh, and the marriage didn’t last. You really couldn’t expect me to stay married to a man who would lose my favorite books, now could you?
May 9, 2018
Another book picked up on a whim in a second hand shop. This was a slow burner - I found the first half hard work, and struggled to maintain an interest in the central character Frances Wingate, a divorced archaelogist. The next section, though bleak, was more interesting - an analysis of a bored housewife, Frances's distant cousin Janet and her life with an unsympathetic husband and her attempts to come to terms with this limited existence. This section also introduces us to Tockley, a town in the flat Lincolnshire fenland which forms a drab backdrop in keeping with the story. During the first half there are several authorial asides almost apologising for the dull material of the plot. The second half is much livelier, bringing together Frances's extended family in the aftermath of the death of a mad aunt. It also changed my opinion of the book as a whole, which I found quite moving and full of ideas.
March 18, 2025
I discovered Margaret Drabble when this book was assigned for a class my last quarter in college. And it was a transformative novel -- it was like pulling back a curtain and flooding a room with sunlight. Even though I'd read novels by women writers throughout my undergrad years, this was a serious, contemporary novel by a woman and featured a complex, distinctive, female protagonist and it ROCKED my world! When I talked to my professors about serious contemporary writers, here's who came up -- John Irving. Saul Bellow. Philip Roth. Norman Mailer. Thank goodness for Anne Mellor, who introduced me to Margaret Drabble, guaranteeing me a lifetime of wonderful reading!
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November 24, 2018Meklēju kaut ko Grāmatu kluba tēmai "Ķīmiskais elements grāmatas nosaukumā", izklausījās dikti cerīgi - arheoloģe, mīlestība utt. Diemžēl galīgi nav manā gaumē, par filmu pietiktu pateikt, ka "klasikas Eiropas kino", lai paskaidrotu, bet grāmatām laikam tā nav pieņemts. Tiku līdz 112 lapaspusei un tālāk nemocīšos.
April 3, 2009
I've read nearly everything MB has written, she's like the book equivalent of sinking into a hot bath - stimulating but relaxing. All her books are very much of their time - this one written in the mid 1970s revolves around a divorced archeologist discovering her family roots.
April 28, 2010
It's been a long time since I've read "the Margarets" - Lawrence, Drabble, and Atwood.
This one was published in the '70's and shows it a bit. The main character, Frances Wingate, is
a well-known archaeologist yet also the mother of four children, divorced, and having a serious
affair with a married man. This is a character driven book. Drabble has made Frances an intriguing woman, and I enjoyed being inside her head. The plot meanders somewhat but does a good job of taking you through ordinary lives in a way that shows no one's life is just ordinary. As I said, the book is a little dated but still good.
This one was published in the '70's and shows it a bit. The main character, Frances Wingate, is
a well-known archaeologist yet also the mother of four children, divorced, and having a serious
affair with a married man. This is a character driven book. Drabble has made Frances an intriguing woman, and I enjoyed being inside her head. The plot meanders somewhat but does a good job of taking you through ordinary lives in a way that shows no one's life is just ordinary. As I said, the book is a little dated but still good.
June 18, 2013
This was recommended to me by a The World According to Garp fan and I'm such a John Irving fiend that I thought for sure I'd love this novel.
I got 15 pages in and I had to give up. The never-ending neurotic inner monologue of an average, middle aged woman? Not exactly compelling material.
I got 15 pages in and I had to give up. The never-ending neurotic inner monologue of an average, middle aged woman? Not exactly compelling material.
September 9, 2016
I discovered Drabble in the 1970s and read all her early books then. Loved them all--they were beautifully written women's fiction (though certainly not called that) that addressed the issues facing young married women and later women with children. Looking back I think hers were among the first really popular explorations of the politics of feminism in women's lives. In this novel starring archaeologist Frances Wingate, she presents a very capable woman who made a discovery early on and now teaches and lectures, leaving her 4 children in the care of a housekeeper and occasionally her ex-husband. And everyone does surprisingly well--I always admired that! But she struggles with the question of whether one can be married and have a career, and her answer is no. When her daughter seems to excel at physics, she wonders whether a woman can be a physicist, a thought that clearly places this book at a time when one would actually question that. As all these books reflect, the 70s were the start of a glorious time for women with more possibilities than ever, but while women could accept that intellectually, it turned out to be pretty hard to put feminism into practice. That's what I think Drabble considers in these early books, and as someone who lived during that time and those changes, I've always found them very satisfying, even on re-reading.
March 20, 2020
Unexpected flakes of gold. Little comedies and tragedies accommodated with stylish ease. A smart and contrary archeologist who nevertheless is able to know something good when she bumps into it and landscapes that speak on behalf of solitary humans and a world that just is - in this novel fate and destiny aren't the outcome of any mysterious higher power but a matter of random chance and personal choices made. Her career involves digging into the distant past of long gone people but it's the near past of the protagonist's own family with its eccentricities and imperfections that brings her to a surprising acknowledgement of the possibility of joy - she thanks God at that point because there is no one else to thank - in her own mish mash of a life. It's a novel imbued with wry intelligent humour even at its bleakest moments. The dialogue is so good that it's hard not to think of the characters as real three dimensional people. Excellent thoughtful read for the exercise bike!
October 30, 2012
Hilarious. I think Margaret Drabble must have a lot of fun writing, as i just find her books so enjoyable in a quirky, off-beat sort of way.
This one written in 1975 is the story of Frances Wingate, an archaeologist with a major find under her belt, who seems to travel the world on speaking tours and conferences, leaving her 4 children behind to sort of fend for themselves. All very liberated woman stuff, but Frances still is hankering for more. How the author thinks of the odd situations Frances gets into beats me, what a wonderful imagination.
Along the way though, she makes some wonderfully wry observations on life and the universe, and maybe that is why I enjoy her books so much.
This one written in 1975 is the story of Frances Wingate, an archaeologist with a major find under her belt, who seems to travel the world on speaking tours and conferences, leaving her 4 children behind to sort of fend for themselves. All very liberated woman stuff, but Frances still is hankering for more. How the author thinks of the odd situations Frances gets into beats me, what a wonderful imagination.
Along the way though, she makes some wonderfully wry observations on life and the universe, and maybe that is why I enjoy her books so much.
April 30, 2013
Not quite perfect - the narrator stepped in too often, the plot was tidier than it needed to be - but pretty close. I loved Frances Wingate, her messy glamorous life, her family and lovers, but I love Margaret Drabble more, for writing something that feels more interesting and honest than anything I've read recently.
December 28, 2012
I adored this book in college and read it many times since. I especially appreciate Drabble's empathetic view of her characters and her juxtaposition of the beauty of the mundane with the difficulties of living in a modern world.
January 7, 2009
I couldn't finish this book. Perhaps it was due more to the incredibly small type face than to the very slowly developing plot. Perhaps I'll try another day.
November 20, 2008
I haven't been able to finish it... it just doesn't move fast enough for me
August 25, 2009
Enjoyed this. It rings true and avoids the obvious. Also fun to read.
May 10, 2015
Entertaining. Sometimes bogged down. Would like to read more by her. I didn't realize that she was AS Byatt's sister.
June 1, 2025
Alltid djupt tillfredsställande att läsa Margaret Drabble. Känner mig nära henne tankebanor i så mycket, trots att jag är en generation yngre. Läser gärna om henne böcker.
June 30, 2018
Mimsy Hampstead-liberal wandering aimless fluff. And I use the word 'fluff' advisedly, as one who has no idea of the Goodreads policy on effing and jeffing. Drabble actually goes in for some meta idiocy at points, admitting she's making it up as she goes along, has changed her mind about some plot points and doesn't know what she's doing. Tip: DON'T DO THAT.
If you're still going to read it, I have no idea what to say to you.
If you're still going to read it, I have no idea what to say to you.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 28, 2025
Good to get back to Drabble.
March 21, 2018
Frances Wingate, protagonist of this engrossing and very well written novel (which I’ve just read for the third time) is my favourite female fictional character:
A successful, rich and sought-after archeologist, weathered, bleached and coarsened by field-work under the African sun, a large, strong, big-nosed, very attractive woman, emotional, exuberant, eccentric, vain, self-satisfied, resilient, adaptable, immodest, energetic, enjoying luxury but perfectly able to rough it, a devoted but relaxed divorced mother of four and desperately in love with pale, scrawny, pedantic, shy, modest, harassed, tortured, weak, passive Karel, Holocaust survivor and born victim, he of the huge beaky nose, thinning sandy hair and false teeth.
As we follow the ups and downs of their huge, improbable love the narrator casts her net wider and includes more and more of Frances’ family members past and present, close and extended, known and hitherto unknown, and all of these characters are brilliantly portrayed and totally believable.
It’s a feminist novel but it touches on a wide range of topics : archeology, history, family relationships, love, sex, parenting, first world, third world, the British class system, local politics, the destruction of the countryside, ways of life lost, identity and the search thereof, life, death, suicide, burials, madness, loneliness, marriage, adultery etc., it’s all there and it’s gorgeous.
A successful, rich and sought-after archeologist, weathered, bleached and coarsened by field-work under the African sun, a large, strong, big-nosed, very attractive woman, emotional, exuberant, eccentric, vain, self-satisfied, resilient, adaptable, immodest, energetic, enjoying luxury but perfectly able to rough it, a devoted but relaxed divorced mother of four and desperately in love with pale, scrawny, pedantic, shy, modest, harassed, tortured, weak, passive Karel, Holocaust survivor and born victim, he of the huge beaky nose, thinning sandy hair and false teeth.
As we follow the ups and downs of their huge, improbable love the narrator casts her net wider and includes more and more of Frances’ family members past and present, close and extended, known and hitherto unknown, and all of these characters are brilliantly portrayed and totally believable.
It’s a feminist novel but it touches on a wide range of topics : archeology, history, family relationships, love, sex, parenting, first world, third world, the British class system, local politics, the destruction of the countryside, ways of life lost, identity and the search thereof, life, death, suicide, burials, madness, loneliness, marriage, adultery etc., it’s all there and it’s gorgeous.
November 19, 2015
Izlasīju nedaudz vairāk par 100 lpp.
Autore viennozīmīgi prot rakstīt, valoda baudāma, stāstījums saistošs un gribas lasīt vēl un vēl. Bet tie galvenie varoņi!!! Nu lai cik interesanti, man aptecējās dūša lasot galvenās varones amorālos spriedumus un rīcības un no tām izrietošās neticamās situācijas. Kkā pat negribējās lasīt līdz kādai agonijai tas viss tiks novests pirms apsolītajām laimīgajām beigām. Kopumā tas viss radīja ļoti savādu iespaidu. Bet es pilnīgi ticu, ka izlasot visu grāmatu, varbūt domātu savādāk.
Autore viennozīmīgi prot rakstīt, valoda baudāma, stāstījums saistošs un gribas lasīt vēl un vēl. Bet tie galvenie varoņi!!! Nu lai cik interesanti, man aptecējās dūša lasot galvenās varones amorālos spriedumus un rīcības un no tām izrietošās neticamās situācijas. Kkā pat negribējās lasīt līdz kādai agonijai tas viss tiks novests pirms apsolītajām laimīgajām beigām. Kopumā tas viss radīja ļoti savādu iespaidu. Bet es pilnīgi ticu, ka izlasot visu grāmatu, varbūt domātu savādāk.
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July 31, 2012This is only one of Margaret Drabble's wonderfully detailed (often like the interior of a Dutch painting) and funnily conceived tragi-comic novels about life among intelligent women loving and living in England during the last decades of the twentieth century. These novels (see also The Middle Ground and The Radiant Way) have marvellous plots, a lot of deep thinking that only underlines her deft characterization. My all time favorite novels.
June 30, 2016
The realms of gold by Drabble Margaret
Story of a woman who after leaving her husband had tried different means to cope, drinking, pills, etc.
She should've socialized more...with her lectures she is able to travel a lot and carry on as if she's not married at all...
Like her career choice but not sure how she was able to do it with children and being married. so many struggles.
I received this book from National Library Service for my BARD (Braille Audio Reading Device).
Story of a woman who after leaving her husband had tried different means to cope, drinking, pills, etc.
She should've socialized more...with her lectures she is able to travel a lot and carry on as if she's not married at all...
Like her career choice but not sure how she was able to do it with children and being married. so many struggles.
I received this book from National Library Service for my BARD (Braille Audio Reading Device).
August 16, 2024
4.5
Dated in some ways (most egregiously in its depiction of domestic violence which is quite atrocious) but also so rich, including with themes and ideas that continue to resonate, especially about the landscape, extraction and history, both on a human scale and an archaeological one.
I love her prose so much. This is the kind of book that makes me envious of the writer, an emotion I don’t often feel.
Dated in some ways (most egregiously in its depiction of domestic violence which is quite atrocious) but also so rich, including with themes and ideas that continue to resonate, especially about the landscape, extraction and history, both on a human scale and an archaeological one.
I love her prose so much. This is the kind of book that makes me envious of the writer, an emotion I don’t often feel.
July 24, 2016
The insights into domestic arrangements are often penetrating and enlightening. However, it was difficult to get a clear picture of the protagonist, Frances. From the beginning descriptions of her thoughts and actions, she seemed much older than she actually is. Her attraction to, and love for, Karel is not particularly believable.
September 2, 2016
Maybe 3 1/2 stars. Took a long time to really get into this rather dense book with no chapters! It did become interesting finally and I'm glad I stayed with it. Almost a study of family relationships, kinships, and love.
Want to read
September 4, 2011Same isbn Penguin different cover
Displaying 1 - 30 of 55 reviews