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The Optimists
Disillusioned photojournalist Clem Glass finds solace close to home after witnessing a horrible truth, in this “subtle, beautifully written” novel from the award-winning author of Pure (The Boston Globe).
“[A] work of solemn artistry.” —The New York Times Book Review
“[A] work of solemn artistry.” —The New York Times Book Review
Paperback
First published January 1, 2005
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About the author
Andrew Miller
16 books514 followersAndrew Miller was born in Bristol in 1960. He has lived in Spain, Japan, Ireland and France, and currently lives in Somerset. His first novel, INGENIOUS PAIN, was published by Sceptre in 1997 and won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction, the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and the Grinzane Cavour prize in Italy. His second novel, CASANOVA, was published in 1998, followed by OXYGEN, which was shortlisted for the Whitbread Novel Award and the Booker Prize in 2001, and THE OPTIMISTS, published in 2005.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 62 reviews
June 25, 2021
I've now read all Andrew Miller's novel and without doubt I saved the worst one to last. The majority of his other novels have been set in past periods of history; this is set in a contemporary world and quite frankly you can see why he is attracted to the distant past because, on this evidence, he doesn't have much of interest to say about the contemporary world. No surprise then his characters here are all engaged in a retreat from the contemporary world. The problem he always has creating an engaging central character is even more on display here than usual too. His characters throughout his novels have a tendency to be emotionally impotent and, more problematic, charmless. Clem Glass is the epitome of the author's constant losing struggle to create a compelling central character.
Clem Glass is a photographer. In Africa he goes on assignment to a church where an atrocity has taken place. The experience traumatises him. Canada gets a cameo when he goes there to speak to the journalist who was with him in the church. He is helping feed homeless people and one gets a glimpse of a better novel and a more engaging character in the endeavours of this friend. But soon Clem is back in London and the plot is laboured when it isn't a little absurd. And it probably has one of the most ridiculous faux dramatic endings I've ever encountered in a novel.
I have a lot of love for Andrew Miller as an author, especially as a sentence writer, but if you're going to read him avoid this one.
Clem Glass is a photographer. In Africa he goes on assignment to a church where an atrocity has taken place. The experience traumatises him. Canada gets a cameo when he goes there to speak to the journalist who was with him in the church. He is helping feed homeless people and one gets a glimpse of a better novel and a more engaging character in the endeavours of this friend. But soon Clem is back in London and the plot is laboured when it isn't a little absurd. And it probably has one of the most ridiculous faux dramatic endings I've ever encountered in a novel.
I have a lot of love for Andrew Miller as an author, especially as a sentence writer, but if you're going to read him avoid this one.
September 2, 2009
The leads in the three of Andrew Miller’s novels that I’ve read are plagued with emotional removal. “An Ingenious Pain” focuses on, literally, an unfeeling doctor. His second novel, “Casanova in Love,” is remote and cruel in its treatment of women. “The Optimists,” which I read after its release in 2005 and again now, deals with a man, a photographer who has abandoned his craft – named, with heavy authorial nod, Clem Glass – and who is removed, because of trauma, from his entire world.
Miller’s goal is always the bringing-round rather than the getting-to, and we know Glass as removed from the start. Miller does a good job – perhaps too good – of capturing emotional withdrawal, but the larger problems with “The Optimists” are that the plot feels to be all dread and little story, and that the method of removal this time around is used to questionable purpose.
You could argue that “The Optimists” is not really about Africa, or about the “well documented atrocity in Rwanada in 1994” mentioned in the Author’s Note. You could argue that the genocide only sets in place the events more to our concern, and that we are viewers removed from what could be any tragedy: a European genocide, a Western superpower confronting terrorist attacks, etc. But such a view does injustice to the real and individual tragedies that are glossed over by the approach. That the chosen conflict is still fighting for legitimate attention from Western media, and that Westerners have never been great about differentiating the nations and peoples of the World’s second-largest continent, creates a cloud of discomfort over Miller’s tone that, considering one plot point’s improbable turn, isn’t left behind at novel’s end.
In invoking Africa only as a giant mass and a few moderately drawn figures, Clem’s tragedy is too general, and too much aligned with the Western expectation that most news from Africa – a continent that to us may as well be of any size, really – be tribally affiliated, unspecific in motive or pall, but also as horrific as we can imagine. The difficulty for authors like Miller in exploring this world is that the exploration can seem culturally removed, even colonially paternal, and gruesome for its own sake, as if the tragedies are so expected, so within the realm of our experiential vocabulary, that they could almost be relegated to their own genre of form, sort of like what we’ve done with Holocaust-themed fiction.
All this fuss over what is probably a minor part of the novel suggests to me that the story itself is so withdrawn and generic as to not warrant much discussion. It is a story of removal-from and returning-to comfort and conscience that weighs heavily on the latter.
Miller’s goal is always the bringing-round rather than the getting-to, and we know Glass as removed from the start. Miller does a good job – perhaps too good – of capturing emotional withdrawal, but the larger problems with “The Optimists” are that the plot feels to be all dread and little story, and that the method of removal this time around is used to questionable purpose.
You could argue that “The Optimists” is not really about Africa, or about the “well documented atrocity in Rwanada in 1994” mentioned in the Author’s Note. You could argue that the genocide only sets in place the events more to our concern, and that we are viewers removed from what could be any tragedy: a European genocide, a Western superpower confronting terrorist attacks, etc. But such a view does injustice to the real and individual tragedies that are glossed over by the approach. That the chosen conflict is still fighting for legitimate attention from Western media, and that Westerners have never been great about differentiating the nations and peoples of the World’s second-largest continent, creates a cloud of discomfort over Miller’s tone that, considering one plot point’s improbable turn, isn’t left behind at novel’s end.
In invoking Africa only as a giant mass and a few moderately drawn figures, Clem’s tragedy is too general, and too much aligned with the Western expectation that most news from Africa – a continent that to us may as well be of any size, really – be tribally affiliated, unspecific in motive or pall, but also as horrific as we can imagine. The difficulty for authors like Miller in exploring this world is that the exploration can seem culturally removed, even colonially paternal, and gruesome for its own sake, as if the tragedies are so expected, so within the realm of our experiential vocabulary, that they could almost be relegated to their own genre of form, sort of like what we’ve done with Holocaust-themed fiction.
All this fuss over what is probably a minor part of the novel suggests to me that the story itself is so withdrawn and generic as to not warrant much discussion. It is a story of removal-from and returning-to comfort and conscience that weighs heavily on the latter.
August 24, 2020
This was my second novel by Andrew Miller (having previously read Pure). It was a 3 1/2 star read for me so I’ve rounded it up to 4. The Optimists may be an optimistic title for this novel. Most of the characters in the novel are struggling to find wholeness. The story centres round Clem Glass, a photojournalist who has photographed the aftermath of a genocide in Africa. An interesting novel with a bizarre ending, hence the loss of a 1/2 star.
July 3, 2020
I enjoyed this novel and would have given it a 4 star rating except for the ending. The story was rolling along and things are unfolding and then all of the sudden we're doing something completely different. It reminded me a little of how the Hallmark or Lifetime movies go: All this build up and drama and you're all engaged and then BOOM everything is somehow resolved in the last 3 minutes. I felt a little cheated.
June 7, 2014
Well...I think this is the longest that has taken me to read a book. I guess that just shows how unspecial this book was. The entire plot felt messy, the dialogue felt messy, and the characters felt messy. None of it drew me, but only some good things save it from me giving it 1 star. I don't know what else to say about it. Meh.
May 25, 2022
Another Andrew Miller novel (2005) which hits the mark as well worth reading, so full it is of human dilemmas, sufferings & mental anguish.
Clem Glass, the main character, has suffered as a photographer covering complex political/military situations, & his last, in a bloody Rwanda, involves cruelty & violence & civilian murder.
He comes home to London traumatised before he slowly unveils the truth of his soul searching. His sister, Clare, an art academic, has her own psychological issues, & Clem devotes his empty time to helping her recover her mental & physical balance, & in the process of re-establishing close contact with his aunt, cousins & locals in his holiday home in Somerset.
Clem, finally, travels to Brussels to track-down a missing war criminal & finds some salvation with a troubled ex-pat Rwandan, Laurencie who eventually helps him, somewhat grudgingly, to reveal the truth that Clem is desperate to find; that he is not personally responsible for the world's problems, even as he took stunning photos of atrocities in an almost disinterested manner on moral rights and wrongs.
This is a very engrossing story and Andrew Miller's development as a writer since this early work has been illuminating. Read more!
Clem Glass, the main character, has suffered as a photographer covering complex political/military situations, & his last, in a bloody Rwanda, involves cruelty & violence & civilian murder.
He comes home to London traumatised before he slowly unveils the truth of his soul searching. His sister, Clare, an art academic, has her own psychological issues, & Clem devotes his empty time to helping her recover her mental & physical balance, & in the process of re-establishing close contact with his aunt, cousins & locals in his holiday home in Somerset.
Clem, finally, travels to Brussels to track-down a missing war criminal & finds some salvation with a troubled ex-pat Rwandan, Laurencie who eventually helps him, somewhat grudgingly, to reveal the truth that Clem is desperate to find; that he is not personally responsible for the world's problems, even as he took stunning photos of atrocities in an almost disinterested manner on moral rights and wrongs.
This is a very engrossing story and Andrew Miller's development as a writer since this early work has been illuminating. Read more!
November 18, 2025
well written, I enjoyed it
September 22, 2017
Definitely a 3.5 star review. An intriguing story about a heart worn photojournalist returned from war torn Africa where he has seen, and photographed, unspeakable crimes against humanity, against individual humans whom he cannot get out of his mind. Our main man, Clem's his name, is lurching around London in a bit of a fog, mostly emotional and psychological, although weather-wise it's not that great either, when he gets a call from his dad, living in a cloistered religious society of about 20 old men on some island, to say his sister is unwell. Again.
We discover the foundation of this illness of Clare's (that's the sister's name) when he arrives at the private clinic she's staying in, and discover it's of the mind, a mental (or is it emotional?) illness. It's never completely clear, but what is clear is that Clare is in Struggle Town herself, although of quite a different location to Clem's.
Clem then proceeds down a rather erratic pathway, we presume in an attempt to exorcise these demons which have followed him home from Africa and the atrocities he witnessed and Cannot Forget. He goes to Canada, on a whim, to visit his old pal from the Africa days, the journalist who also witnessed all the horrific things Clem did, and was unable to write it up - the New York Times presumably still waiting for their 2000 words. There in Toronto, Frank (the journalist pal's name) is doing penance of his own, feeding the homeless and dispossessed, a job he takes very seriously, and which is also a very handy way to avoid any contact with his wife in NYC.
This side trip to Canada not offering any salve to speak of, Clem returns to London. He makes a few calls and before we know it, lickity split, he's picking up Clare from her fancy private clinic and whisking her to a family home, a crumbly cottage his beloved (and much more fun than his mum, who died after going blind when Clem was a tween) aunt Laura owns but does not live in (she lives up the lane, with an adult son who has some undisclosed problem, presumably a learning disability and/or other debilitating problem that has prevented him from developing as other people do, keeping him a perennial child, albeit in a 35 year old body).
This crumbling cottage is literally sinking into the ground, subsidence being caused by many tunnels the previous occupants several hundred years ago had burrowed. So it's uninhabitable for paying tenants but okay for family, particularly those of a Very Unstable Temperament, with which both Clare (diagnosed) and Clem (undiagnosed and, to boot, the primary carer for Clare) clearly are in possession of right now.
It is in this environment that Clare begins to improve somewhat, in a kind of two-steps-forward-one-step-back sort of way. Clem does a lot of domestic duties, which we are privy to, and are sort of interesting in a dull way.
Then! A bombshell! A twist in the tale! Clare's friend Finola, who never approved of Clem (in general, it would seem, as well as specifically for taking Clare away from the private clinic and, therefore, from her) , arrives. With a newspaper cutting. Showing that the fiendish mastermind of the African massacre is now in Brussels. This 200 word piece in Wednesday's Scotsman spirals Clem into another round of erratic behaviour, and before we know it, he's back in London packing bags and digging out negatives from that awful time, and zipping across the Channel to Brussels. Where he proceeds in a ham-fisted way to try to make contact with this African despot.
This is all so far, so good. Clem is a bit unhinged but we're given a really good reason for that, and it's a believable one. Even the Brussels portion of the story lumbers along in a fairly believable fashion - it's not entirely rational, everything Clem does, but he's a man provoked, a man possessed, a man in deep need of some kind of salvation. So we can forgive him for not thinking every little thing through.
It's when he returns back to London, and after the family wedding of which we were privy to the preparations for during the sinking cottage phase, and we are in the home stretch -- the last few pages -- that it gets really strange.
Spoiler coming up:
In the last few pages, after moving into a dingy but much more affordable flat in a seedy undesirable suburb of London, Clem does something so strange that it beggars belief. I cannot imagine how the author's editor allowed him to keep it in, it's that strange. In these last pages, Clem goes into a random police station and admits to a rape that he did not commit. This supposed rape is of a young woman that Clem chanced upon in the early part of the story, who had clearly been through some rather unpleasant if not awful experience (we never know what it was), and Clem fails to adequately help her. An inaction for which he feels guilty about, possibly even ashamed. This incident is touched on fairly lightly earlier in the story, so i was rather surprised to see the author circle back to it, and in such a bizarre way.
Was this admitting to a rape he didn't commit part of his attempt at salvation? It's not clear, and even when the arresting officer tries to explain it to us, to Clem, about human nature and what happens to people who see bad things and how it twists their minds and makes them start to believe they, too, are bad people, it doesn't become any clearer. It's just a strange and unsatisfying way to end a rather excellent book. Without this bizarre ending, I would have leaned more toward a 4 star review.
Apart from that, a good read. And quite different to the others by this author, which I have all enjoyed in various ways (Casanova, Ingenious Pain and Oxygen).
We discover the foundation of this illness of Clare's (that's the sister's name) when he arrives at the private clinic she's staying in, and discover it's of the mind, a mental (or is it emotional?) illness. It's never completely clear, but what is clear is that Clare is in Struggle Town herself, although of quite a different location to Clem's.
Clem then proceeds down a rather erratic pathway, we presume in an attempt to exorcise these demons which have followed him home from Africa and the atrocities he witnessed and Cannot Forget. He goes to Canada, on a whim, to visit his old pal from the Africa days, the journalist who also witnessed all the horrific things Clem did, and was unable to write it up - the New York Times presumably still waiting for their 2000 words. There in Toronto, Frank (the journalist pal's name) is doing penance of his own, feeding the homeless and dispossessed, a job he takes very seriously, and which is also a very handy way to avoid any contact with his wife in NYC.
This side trip to Canada not offering any salve to speak of, Clem returns to London. He makes a few calls and before we know it, lickity split, he's picking up Clare from her fancy private clinic and whisking her to a family home, a crumbly cottage his beloved (and much more fun than his mum, who died after going blind when Clem was a tween) aunt Laura owns but does not live in (she lives up the lane, with an adult son who has some undisclosed problem, presumably a learning disability and/or other debilitating problem that has prevented him from developing as other people do, keeping him a perennial child, albeit in a 35 year old body).
This crumbling cottage is literally sinking into the ground, subsidence being caused by many tunnels the previous occupants several hundred years ago had burrowed. So it's uninhabitable for paying tenants but okay for family, particularly those of a Very Unstable Temperament, with which both Clare (diagnosed) and Clem (undiagnosed and, to boot, the primary carer for Clare) clearly are in possession of right now.
It is in this environment that Clare begins to improve somewhat, in a kind of two-steps-forward-one-step-back sort of way. Clem does a lot of domestic duties, which we are privy to, and are sort of interesting in a dull way.
Then! A bombshell! A twist in the tale! Clare's friend Finola, who never approved of Clem (in general, it would seem, as well as specifically for taking Clare away from the private clinic and, therefore, from her) , arrives. With a newspaper cutting. Showing that the fiendish mastermind of the African massacre is now in Brussels. This 200 word piece in Wednesday's Scotsman spirals Clem into another round of erratic behaviour, and before we know it, he's back in London packing bags and digging out negatives from that awful time, and zipping across the Channel to Brussels. Where he proceeds in a ham-fisted way to try to make contact with this African despot.
This is all so far, so good. Clem is a bit unhinged but we're given a really good reason for that, and it's a believable one. Even the Brussels portion of the story lumbers along in a fairly believable fashion - it's not entirely rational, everything Clem does, but he's a man provoked, a man possessed, a man in deep need of some kind of salvation. So we can forgive him for not thinking every little thing through.
It's when he returns back to London, and after the family wedding of which we were privy to the preparations for during the sinking cottage phase, and we are in the home stretch -- the last few pages -- that it gets really strange.
Spoiler coming up:
In the last few pages, after moving into a dingy but much more affordable flat in a seedy undesirable suburb of London, Clem does something so strange that it beggars belief. I cannot imagine how the author's editor allowed him to keep it in, it's that strange. In these last pages, Clem goes into a random police station and admits to a rape that he did not commit. This supposed rape is of a young woman that Clem chanced upon in the early part of the story, who had clearly been through some rather unpleasant if not awful experience (we never know what it was), and Clem fails to adequately help her. An inaction for which he feels guilty about, possibly even ashamed. This incident is touched on fairly lightly earlier in the story, so i was rather surprised to see the author circle back to it, and in such a bizarre way.
Was this admitting to a rape he didn't commit part of his attempt at salvation? It's not clear, and even when the arresting officer tries to explain it to us, to Clem, about human nature and what happens to people who see bad things and how it twists their minds and makes them start to believe they, too, are bad people, it doesn't become any clearer. It's just a strange and unsatisfying way to end a rather excellent book. Without this bizarre ending, I would have leaned more toward a 4 star review.
Apart from that, a good read. And quite different to the others by this author, which I have all enjoyed in various ways (Casanova, Ingenious Pain and Oxygen).
August 23, 2007
okay, it's not really a 4, but it's better than other books that i've rated 3, sooooo....it only made me cringe a couple of times, and toward the end i did get the vibe that the guy just wanted it to end...there were some real grasping at straws moments and, well, that's all i'll say, wouldn't want to give anything away...
the protagonist is a war photographer trying to come to terms with the things that he's seen...oddly coordinated with the terri gross interview yesterday of pulitzer prize winning war photographer paul watson whose real life experiences gave some validity to the fictional character's turmoil...
the protagonist is a war photographer trying to come to terms with the things that he's seen...oddly coordinated with the terri gross interview yesterday of pulitzer prize winning war photographer paul watson whose real life experiences gave some validity to the fictional character's turmoil...
May 19, 2013
Deals with weighty subjects: guilt, getting back to a "normal" life after major disruption, the personal vs. the political, genocide, etc. The various themes don't necessarily hang together all that well, and the tone of the book is more like a very long short story than a fully-engaging novel. I like Miller's writing, and, while I didn't exactly enjoy the book, I didn't mind reading it. I don't think I'd wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone as a "must-read."
October 20, 2010
I'm not sure that "The Optimists" is a very fitting title for this book, since most of the main characters seemed to be very sad, pessimistic type people. I enjoyed the part where the narrator took care of his sister, but it was unfortunately book-ended by something very dark, where I didn't understand his motives and wished he would have let me in on what he was thinking.
July 8, 2007
This is a brilliant book. I love all of Millers books, he is brilliant. It is your basic, is there any humanity left in the world kind of story. It is shocking in some places, quite graphic, but has some good London scenes which makes the visuals very easy to imagine.
July 6, 2014
Misery and more misery.
September 12, 2017
It's been a while since I've been this disappointed in a book. I thought it was going to be a good one: Prize-winning author, great title, beautiful cover, interesting premise...what's not to like?
The "story" is about a photographer who took pictures of a genocide in Africa and lost his faith in humanity. Then he goes to the countryside to take care of his mentally ill sister. Then he goes to Belgium to try to make sense of the genocide. I say "story" because the pace is so painfully slow, the four parts are barely connected to each other, the characters and dialogue are flat, and the few actual plot points are so goddamn incredulous (especially the stuff with the family in Belgium).
There were some interesting concepts in this book, but overall it was such a boring read filled with so many long-winded and pointless diversions that the themes got buried a little bit. I guess you can say the point is that there is no objective way of perceiving the world, but humanity has goodness if you're optimistic enough to look for it, and survivor's guilt is a thing. Now save yourself the trouble and don't bother reading this novel.
The "story" is about a photographer who took pictures of a genocide in Africa and lost his faith in humanity. Then he goes to the countryside to take care of his mentally ill sister. Then he goes to Belgium to try to make sense of the genocide. I say "story" because the pace is so painfully slow, the four parts are barely connected to each other, the characters and dialogue are flat, and the few actual plot points are so goddamn incredulous (especially the stuff with the family in Belgium).
There were some interesting concepts in this book, but overall it was such a boring read filled with so many long-winded and pointless diversions that the themes got buried a little bit. I guess you can say the point is that there is no objective way of perceiving the world, but humanity has goodness if you're optimistic enough to look for it, and survivor's guilt is a thing. Now save yourself the trouble and don't bother reading this novel.
April 15, 2022
Some beautiful writing but I struggled with it – it never really got going. I guess a lack of pace. And because I never had the urge to pick it up and keep reading, I lost my place and couldn't remember the characters. It meanders and only really kicks in once the photographer Clem Glass travels to Brussels.
But some wonderful, evocative descriptions. For instance:
The unsettling: p78 Clem smells the sweet, continuous stink of decay on his skin.
The everyday: p146 "The kitchen smelt of fish pie, the radio was on; the dog circled itself in the corner and lay down on a rug, instantly asleep."
Time passing: p182 "The sun went down and sixty square miles of Somerset were folded into night."
The weather: p183 "The rain lengthened, grew briefly fierce, then eased to drizzle."
In the doctors' waiting room: p192 "... the queasy knowledge that the body as it failed would be increasingly spectated."
A memoir writer: p248 writing, "Lines to help her make sense of the mystery, to tie life down on its back and show her its belly."
But some wonderful, evocative descriptions. For instance:
The unsettling: p78 Clem smells the sweet, continuous stink of decay on his skin.
The everyday: p146 "The kitchen smelt of fish pie, the radio was on; the dog circled itself in the corner and lay down on a rug, instantly asleep."
Time passing: p182 "The sun went down and sixty square miles of Somerset were folded into night."
The weather: p183 "The rain lengthened, grew briefly fierce, then eased to drizzle."
In the doctors' waiting room: p192 "... the queasy knowledge that the body as it failed would be increasingly spectated."
A memoir writer: p248 writing, "Lines to help her make sense of the mystery, to tie life down on its back and show her its belly."
January 25, 2022
I found this a gentle, contemplative, exploratory read. The central question - how can you function well, be optimistic, enable happiness and well-being, when you've witnessed the depths of human depravity and cruelty? - is so important, even for those of us who only experience it in a watered-down form. To some extent I was disappointed - felt it could have been more penetrating. Perhaps the sense of superficiality stems from the fact that the central character is a photographer - brilliant attending to what can be seen, but fuzzy about the complex processes leading up to those awful images. Unlike most of the reviewers quoted on the book cover, I can't say I ended up feeling hopeful. But I was pleased to have been asked the question (are there any grounds for hope, given what we know about humans?), in a kind, searching way. I'm really pleased to have read this book.
July 22, 2020
Odd, the last book I read I didn't finish because it was too full of self-pity.
This book is also full of self-pity, but it's not too full. There are enough optimistic characters and side-stories to keep the pages turning.
I was onto chapter 3 before I realized I'd read this before, some 4 years ago, yet it still seemed fresh and interesting.
You won't find joy in this week: you may not even enjoy it, but it's worth reading to learn about depressions - plural. Because while the two main characters are clearly suffering, their versions of depression are very different.
And understanding the how and why of each other's depression is definitely worth exploring.
This book is also full of self-pity, but it's not too full. There are enough optimistic characters and side-stories to keep the pages turning.
I was onto chapter 3 before I realized I'd read this before, some 4 years ago, yet it still seemed fresh and interesting.
You won't find joy in this week: you may not even enjoy it, but it's worth reading to learn about depressions - plural. Because while the two main characters are clearly suffering, their versions of depression are very different.
And understanding the how and why of each other's depression is definitely worth exploring.
May 11, 2019
Like ‘Oxygen’ this took me sometime to get into. But when photo journalist, Clem, recently deeply traumatised by a massacre in Africa, takes his mentally ill sister Clare to recuperate in the countryside, the book takes great shape. The twin but differing traumas of the siblings play alongside each other, until Clem is faced with the possibility of confronting the leader of the massacre. The characters and family relationships surrounding Clem and Clare are beautifully and convincingly drawn, and the writing excellent.
December 28, 2017
Optimisterna / Andrew Miller ; översättning: Ia Lin
ISBN 978-91-85251-49-0 (inb) Stockholm : Bromberg, 2007 Svenska 298, [1] s.
Min recension:
En lågmäld men aldrig tråkig berättelse. Titeln är lite fånig. Temat är: går det att tro på mänskligheten, på godhet trots alla grymheter som sker i vår värld. Det är så lätt att falla i depressionens djupa hål. Går det att leva oberörd? Jag rekommenderar också Syre(Oxygen) av samme författare.
ISBN 978-91-85251-49-0 (inb) Stockholm : Bromberg, 2007 Svenska 298, [1] s.
Min recension:
En lågmäld men aldrig tråkig berättelse. Titeln är lite fånig. Temat är: går det att tro på mänskligheten, på godhet trots alla grymheter som sker i vår värld. Det är så lätt att falla i depressionens djupa hål. Går det att leva oberörd? Jag rekommenderar också Syre(Oxygen) av samme författare.
October 23, 2022
This is such a strange book. Charting Clem’s obsession with the perpetrator of an abysmal massacre in Africa, it also touches upon his relationships, from absentee father to loving aunt & his sister who has suffered a breakdown. The writing is good, the struggle touching, but I couldn’t help feel that there could have been so much more to the story. It’s a good observation of fragile characters but seems to meander thoughtfully to an abrupt full stop.
January 30, 2021
Engrossing
What I iked most was how the writer explored how we process hugely significant experiences. And how our thoughts, when left unexpressed to others can lead us down into darkness. Also, how the sinking into darkness and owning it is the only way to come back into the light.
Well written characters and an excellent story make this a really worthwhile read.
What I iked most was how the writer explored how we process hugely significant experiences. And how our thoughts, when left unexpressed to others can lead us down into darkness. Also, how the sinking into darkness and owning it is the only way to come back into the light.
Well written characters and an excellent story make this a really worthwhile read.
March 12, 2020
Not sure what to say about this book. Often it seemed about case histories with the theme if it doesn't kill you, you will have a hard time recovering. Still, it's one of a handful of books that ever kept me awake to finish it when it was past my bedtime.
September 18, 2023
I mostly loved this, the characters were interesting and filled their roles well. Andrew Miller's storytelling is wonderful for me his writing makes me turn pages. I thought he lost his way with the ending which was rather random confessing to a rape that he didn't do....strange.
July 13, 2020
So excited when I see usage of envisage!
Not really a plot as such, the illness was the bit that really did have a story; something happened in that bit and was my favourite part of the novel.
Not really a plot as such, the illness was the bit that really did have a story; something happened in that bit and was my favourite part of the novel.
July 17, 2020
I didn’t think I was going to like this book but I was drawn into the life of Clem. It’s not a light book to read and the ending felt a little rushed. A thoughtful read.
Read
November 4, 2021DNF
December 25, 2021
Ugh. At least I finished this one. I’ve tried 3 or 4 of Miller’s books, but he’s just not for me.
June 23, 2022
shite. dragging
January 20, 2023
As a beginner it was very hard to read. The themes felt disconnected. Couldn't get a clear picture of what author wanted to communicate.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 62 reviews