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A Sight for Sore Eyes
"A Sight for Sore Eyes" tells three stories, and for the longest time, the reader has no inkling of how they will come together. The first is a story of a little girl who has been scolded and sent to her room when her mother is brutally murdered; as Francine grows up, she is haunted by the experience, and it is years before she even speaks. Secondly, we become privy to the life of a young man, Teddy, born of unthinking young parents, who grows up almost completely ignored. Free of societal mores, he becomes a sociopath, who eventually discovers that killing can be an effective way to get what he wants. Thirdly, we meet Harriet, who from an early age has learned to use her beauty to make her way in the world. Bored by marriage to a wealthy, much older man, she scans the local newspapers for handymen to perform odd jobs around the house, including services in the bedroom.
When these three plots strands finally converge, the result is harrowing and unforgettable. "A Sight for Sore Eyes" is not just the work of a writer at the peak of her craft. It is an extraordinary story by a writer who, after 45 books, countless awards, and decades of international acclaim, is still getting better with every book.
When these three plots strands finally converge, the result is harrowing and unforgettable. "A Sight for Sore Eyes" is not just the work of a writer at the peak of her craft. It is an extraordinary story by a writer who, after 45 books, countless awards, and decades of international acclaim, is still getting better with every book.
417 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1998
280 people are currently reading
2913 people want to read
About the author
Ruth Rendell
456 books1,626 followersA.K.A. Barbara Vine
Ruth Barbara Rendell, Baroness Rendell of Babergh, CBE, who also wrote under the pseudonym Barbara Vine, was an acclaimed English crime writer, known for her many psychological thrillers and murder mysteries and above all for Inspector Wexford.
Ruth Barbara Rendell, Baroness Rendell of Babergh, CBE, who also wrote under the pseudonym Barbara Vine, was an acclaimed English crime writer, known for her many psychological thrillers and murder mysteries and above all for Inspector Wexford.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 489 reviews
April 10, 2024
Ruth Rendell has rarely disappointed me. Her elegant prose cannot be matched in this genre. I continue to be amazed at the significant variety of her prolific imagination. I am not going to fill this review with descriptions of the plot. That would interfere with the pleasure of reading this novel.
Her characters often possess varied deficits and pathologies which reveal increasing deviousness and add continued tension throughout her narrative. This novel is no exception to her skills. In fact, the major offender is one of the most chilling individuals whom I have met in her books. Rendell's clear insight into this man's skewed visions and facade reveal her talent to accurately delve into the innermost features of the troubled mind. Others in this novel further demonstrate variations of psychological anomalies.
As usual with Rendell's tales, suspense builds to the climax and ends with a twist. I do not believe that I could tire of this accomplished novelist.
Her characters often possess varied deficits and pathologies which reveal increasing deviousness and add continued tension throughout her narrative. This novel is no exception to her skills. In fact, the major offender is one of the most chilling individuals whom I have met in her books. Rendell's clear insight into this man's skewed visions and facade reveal her talent to accurately delve into the innermost features of the troubled mind. Others in this novel further demonstrate variations of psychological anomalies.
As usual with Rendell's tales, suspense builds to the climax and ends with a twist. I do not believe that I could tire of this accomplished novelist.
November 15, 2022
The unsolved murder of a wife leaves her young daughter traumatized. A young couple decides to keep a diamond ring left behind in a restroom. An artist chooses a beautiful old house as the setting for a painting that becomes famous. Rendell wove these disparate events into a novel of psychological suspense that gets creepier as it goes along. The tricky plot very cleverly circles back on itself. No spoilers, but the book has several very bad marriages, terrible parenting,numerous psychological pathologies and multiple murders. It was a little too long, but there was a lot to pack into this book.
August 2, 2022
The best crime story I have read this year. Teddy is a young craftsman brought up by unthinking and uninterested parents in filth and unloved. He is a neatness freak, talented and a complete psychopath.
Harriet is a woman whose claim to fame was being a model in a famous picture. She is completely self obsessed with herself and thinks only of herself. Francine as a child had her mother murdered while she was home. It traumatized her and her stepmother Julia feeds her fears although Francine gradually becomes more independent.
All three of them become part of one story. An Edsel, murder, obsession, coal cellar and Orcadia cottage play a role into a memorizing story. The ending is brilliant. Rendell captures the characters descent into madness so well. Excellent story.
Harriet is a woman whose claim to fame was being a model in a famous picture. She is completely self obsessed with herself and thinks only of herself. Francine as a child had her mother murdered while she was home. It traumatized her and her stepmother Julia feeds her fears although Francine gradually becomes more independent.
All three of them become part of one story. An Edsel, murder, obsession, coal cellar and Orcadia cottage play a role into a memorizing story. The ending is brilliant. Rendell captures the characters descent into madness so well. Excellent story.
May 12, 2025
Ruth Rendell is near the top of British mystery authors and she doesn't disappoint with this book. It sent chills down my spine and I'm not sure if it should be considered a thriller or a mystery or a combination of both...........and more.
The story begins with three different unrelated people and events which makes one wonder exactly how that is going to meld. Well, it does and the author works slowly but surely toward meshing the characters into a engrossing tale which is believable.
I am not going to give any spoilers since this is a complicated plot. It is a disturbing book which I would not recommend for bedtime reading if you want to have a good night's sleep. It is just fascinating and I highly recommend it. Rendell is a master storyteller!
The story begins with three different unrelated people and events which makes one wonder exactly how that is going to meld. Well, it does and the author works slowly but surely toward meshing the characters into a engrossing tale which is believable.
I am not going to give any spoilers since this is a complicated plot. It is a disturbing book which I would not recommend for bedtime reading if you want to have a good night's sleep. It is just fascinating and I highly recommend it. Rendell is a master storyteller!
September 13, 2015
Ruth Rendell has made a long career out of writing about damaged people. They go about their lives doing things that are strange, sadistic and even criminal but somehow they are undetected until they spiral out of control. In "A Sight for Sore Eyes" her lead characters are Teddy and Francine. Teddy is an ignored and unloved child from a lower class London family who lives in a filthy smoke filled home. He has no interest in anything until a neighbor shows him carpentry. As Teddy grows up he has dreams of becoming an artist but with no money and in danger of being thrown out of his home he has few options but he chooses murder to solve his problems.
Francine has suffered the childhood trauma of seeing her mother murdered as the age of six. Francine's father remarries the child psychologist Julia, he hires to help Francine. Instead of helping Francine Julia overprotects Francine to the point suffocation.
Francine meets Teddy at an art show and they are attracted to each other. A hookup made in hell. Teddy has his own twisted image of how he wants his life to be with Francine. She must wear dresses and he loves to wrap her in long pieces of silk and jewelery and just sit and watch her. He wants her to have a beautiful home and only Teddy as her friend. Yeah did I mention that Teddy is flat broke with no prospects and a dead body in the trunk of his car. Well Teddy will kill to get what he wants. A fun read with lots of horrible people and the good ones who could make a difference always away on business or on holiday. How convenient is that? I loved the ending with only the reader knowing the full truth. Nicely done!
Francine has suffered the childhood trauma of seeing her mother murdered as the age of six. Francine's father remarries the child psychologist Julia, he hires to help Francine. Instead of helping Francine Julia overprotects Francine to the point suffocation.
Francine meets Teddy at an art show and they are attracted to each other. A hookup made in hell. Teddy has his own twisted image of how he wants his life to be with Francine. She must wear dresses and he loves to wrap her in long pieces of silk and jewelery and just sit and watch her. He wants her to have a beautiful home and only Teddy as her friend. Yeah did I mention that Teddy is flat broke with no prospects and a dead body in the trunk of his car. Well Teddy will kill to get what he wants. A fun read with lots of horrible people and the good ones who could make a difference always away on business or on holiday. How convenient is that? I loved the ending with only the reader knowing the full truth. Nicely done!
May 20, 2016
So unsettling - So creepy - So good
An Alfred Hitchcock type suspense/thriller with a very slow, understated build. It had extremely interesting characters but I definitely had to take my time with this one - not one I wanted to marathon.
Warning: Do not read this late at night.
An Alfred Hitchcock type suspense/thriller with a very slow, understated build. It had extremely interesting characters but I definitely had to take my time with this one - not one I wanted to marathon.
Warning: Do not read this late at night.
September 2, 2021
A very disturbing, creepy story. The psychologist step-mom was scarier than the psychopath, Teddy. There is no suspense in this story, but it is very captivating.
August 9, 2013
Mmm. This was a great read. I think I might be spending some time with Ms. Rendell.
As the summer wanes and I find myself pulling together the reading I'll do with my students, I admit that I'm getting a bit resentful of having to go back to work, for one reason: no more lying on the couch for hours reading, and no more staying up 'til 1 AM finishing a book I just couldn't stop reading. That's exactly what happened with A Sight for Sore Eyes. It was very, very good.
I've gotten spoiled. To this point there has been plenty of "Scottish Noir" available for casual reading, and the more I read of it the more enamored I find myself of the sub-genre. But my favorite new (to me) series, the Logan MacRae novels, are complete (except the one due out in September, but I really don't know if I can bring myself to pay full price, as the initial draw to the series was they were each about $4 and hell, now it's tradition). Looking for something new to read, I came across a picture I had taken of some books I found in the book store (I do this), and was reminded of Rendell's The Vault. I almost got it, but the blurb said it was a follow-up to ASFSE. I hate reading things out of order, so I bought it and started. It didn't take long, and I even had a busy week to contend with.
This book is dark. It is a crime novel, but one in which we see the crime happen. But that's not what makes this book dark. Rather, the darkness comes from watching the three disparate (at first) characters live their lives in a broken society, one where privilege and poverty exist to keep the other in check. Both serve as a kind of prison, and in fact this book really is about prisons, both metaphorical and literal.
Teddy is a monster, Harriet is self-absorbed, and Francine a sheltered naif. However, Rendell is good to not let us lump them in any particular category and dismiss them. Nor does she let us become too sympathetic with any but Francine, who's naiveté serves as a buffer from only some of the grime that comes from living. But Francine isn't perfect, either, and is frustratingly slow to become a true actor in the story. In a way, all three of them are acted on in the beginning of their stories (the novel very cleverly tells three stories for the first half, only gradually interweaving them in a surprising and satisfying way) and none of them have power.
Power, too, is an ever present theme here. Francine is born to it through her upper-middleclass privilege, though others make every effort to strip this power from her. Harriet has power that comes from youth, sex, and not much else. She is the oldest of the three characters, and because her power is so precarious and fleeting, we don't get to see her exercise it except in her memory. Teddy has no real power, except that power that serves as a warning to those well off. Teddy's power is that of violence, of indifference to others, but all of it rooted in fear and need. As it turns out, these different grasps on power, and their different natures, wreak havoc on all concerned.
Again, I'm OK reading books for no other reason than to enjoy a good tale. It's a plus when there is something more beneath the surface, and is there ever here. Highly recommended. Now, to pick up The Vault.
As the summer wanes and I find myself pulling together the reading I'll do with my students, I admit that I'm getting a bit resentful of having to go back to work, for one reason: no more lying on the couch for hours reading, and no more staying up 'til 1 AM finishing a book I just couldn't stop reading. That's exactly what happened with A Sight for Sore Eyes. It was very, very good.
I've gotten spoiled. To this point there has been plenty of "Scottish Noir" available for casual reading, and the more I read of it the more enamored I find myself of the sub-genre. But my favorite new (to me) series, the Logan MacRae novels, are complete (except the one due out in September, but I really don't know if I can bring myself to pay full price, as the initial draw to the series was they were each about $4 and hell, now it's tradition). Looking for something new to read, I came across a picture I had taken of some books I found in the book store (I do this), and was reminded of Rendell's The Vault. I almost got it, but the blurb said it was a follow-up to ASFSE. I hate reading things out of order, so I bought it and started. It didn't take long, and I even had a busy week to contend with.
This book is dark. It is a crime novel, but one in which we see the crime happen. But that's not what makes this book dark. Rather, the darkness comes from watching the three disparate (at first) characters live their lives in a broken society, one where privilege and poverty exist to keep the other in check. Both serve as a kind of prison, and in fact this book really is about prisons, both metaphorical and literal.
Teddy is a monster, Harriet is self-absorbed, and Francine a sheltered naif. However, Rendell is good to not let us lump them in any particular category and dismiss them. Nor does she let us become too sympathetic with any but Francine, who's naiveté serves as a buffer from only some of the grime that comes from living. But Francine isn't perfect, either, and is frustratingly slow to become a true actor in the story. In a way, all three of them are acted on in the beginning of their stories (the novel very cleverly tells three stories for the first half, only gradually interweaving them in a surprising and satisfying way) and none of them have power.
Power, too, is an ever present theme here. Francine is born to it through her upper-middleclass privilege, though others make every effort to strip this power from her. Harriet has power that comes from youth, sex, and not much else. She is the oldest of the three characters, and because her power is so precarious and fleeting, we don't get to see her exercise it except in her memory. Teddy has no real power, except that power that serves as a warning to those well off. Teddy's power is that of violence, of indifference to others, but all of it rooted in fear and need. As it turns out, these different grasps on power, and their different natures, wreak havoc on all concerned.
Again, I'm OK reading books for no other reason than to enjoy a good tale. It's a plus when there is something more beneath the surface, and is there ever here. Highly recommended. Now, to pick up The Vault.
February 5, 2008
When I started my website, I began with a batch of reviews of books I had read that had stuck with me for one reason or another. One that hadn't made the cut was Ruth Rendell's Make Death Love Me, quite readable but failed to leave a lasting impression.
A Sight for Sore Eyes now reminds me of how readable Ruth Rendell is.
This one was very absorbing, and there are few authors I have read that can write about obsession like she can. This novel has one of my favorite formulas, be it with novels or movies, and it is this:
Take three sets of characters, get to know them intimately and the unique circumstances of their lives.You know that eventually the paths of their lives will intersect and it is mesmerizing to sit back and anticipate it.
I'm so envious of Rendell's ability to construct a story like this, and with her talent of bringing her characters to life, well how can you ask for more? I can. I do: More Ruth Rendell!!
A Sight for Sore Eyes now reminds me of how readable Ruth Rendell is.
This one was very absorbing, and there are few authors I have read that can write about obsession like she can. This novel has one of my favorite formulas, be it with novels or movies, and it is this:
Take three sets of characters, get to know them intimately and the unique circumstances of their lives.You know that eventually the paths of their lives will intersect and it is mesmerizing to sit back and anticipate it.
I'm so envious of Rendell's ability to construct a story like this, and with her talent of bringing her characters to life, well how can you ask for more? I can. I do: More Ruth Rendell!!
November 1, 2010
Rendell is a master storyteller. She creates stories that capture me right away. Intriguing plots involving ordinary characters in ordinary situations yet they will inevitably be pushed to commit murder. In Sight for Sore Eyes, she presents three sets of stories.First begins with Marc and Harriett who pose for a portrait in the 1960’s. Marc is a rock star, Harriet, his current girlfriend. He throws her out when she repeatedly asks him if he loves her. It was the last straw. Next there’s Eileen and Jimmy, Teddy, their son, and Jimmy's brother Keith. Finally, there is the story of Francine who witnesses her mother's murder when she is only seven years old. These three seemingly separate stories gradually merge into one horrific tale. Rendell weaves a puzzle and as we, the reader, try to put together the pieces, we are captivated by her ability, her understanding of human behavior and her rendering everything into a mesmerizing whole.
April 18, 2012
So, this is one of those wishy washy books...where you say to your friends "well, it wasn't good but it wasn't necessarily bad either." Like that helps, right? But honestly, I just have lukewarm feelings about this book.
This was the latest choice for my book club as we've picked our way along EW's list of 100 new classics. Since A Sight for Sore Eyes appeared on the list, you know that it is a critical darling (I just want to make you aware that my view of this book likely diverges from popular critical sentiment). So, let me just break it down in a list of pros and cons for ya:
Good Aspects:
*Characterization - extremely realistic and fully fleshed out characters.
*Compelling - this book is easily readable, I finished it in two sittings!
*Multiple POVs done well - sometimes this can be annoying and can make a book feel choppy, not the case in A Sight for Sore Eyes.
Bad Aspects:
*Yucky characters - and by this I mean, I didn't like a single character in this book! Actually, the one person who I had any small amount of sympathy for is a mass murderer!
*Bad categorization - this is shelved in the mystery section of the library and is indeed touted as a mystery...why? There was no mystery to be solved so I'm really perplexed by its categorization. This threw off my expectations for the book a bit (which made me a little miffed)!
*The ending - it's one of those that makes you go "ugh! really?!" I can't say anything more without spoiling except to say that it kind of seemed like the easiest and cleanest conclusion for Rendell, not necessarily the best conclusion for the story (although I can't think up an alternative).
*Also, the Goodreads summary says the reader has "no inkling" of how the three storylines converge...um, not true. I realized how these three would meet up quite easily, although there were other twists and turns to keep me on my toes.
Now that you see my thoughts in list form, can you understand why I call it wishy washy? For those who love character-driven suspenseful literary fiction and don't mind a cast of truly despicable characters you'll probably like A Sight for Sore Eyes much more than I did. Otherwise, I'd probably skip it unless you're low on new books to read.
This was the latest choice for my book club as we've picked our way along EW's list of 100 new classics. Since A Sight for Sore Eyes appeared on the list, you know that it is a critical darling (I just want to make you aware that my view of this book likely diverges from popular critical sentiment). So, let me just break it down in a list of pros and cons for ya:
Good Aspects:
*Characterization - extremely realistic and fully fleshed out characters.
*Compelling - this book is easily readable, I finished it in two sittings!
*Multiple POVs done well - sometimes this can be annoying and can make a book feel choppy, not the case in A Sight for Sore Eyes.
Bad Aspects:
*Yucky characters - and by this I mean, I didn't like a single character in this book! Actually, the one person who I had any small amount of sympathy for is a mass murderer!
*Bad categorization - this is shelved in the mystery section of the library and is indeed touted as a mystery...why? There was no mystery to be solved so I'm really perplexed by its categorization. This threw off my expectations for the book a bit (which made me a little miffed)!
*The ending - it's one of those that makes you go "ugh! really?!" I can't say anything more without spoiling except to say that it kind of seemed like the easiest and cleanest conclusion for Rendell, not necessarily the best conclusion for the story (although I can't think up an alternative).
*Also, the Goodreads summary says the reader has "no inkling" of how the three storylines converge...um, not true. I realized how these three would meet up quite easily, although there were other twists and turns to keep me on my toes.
Now that you see my thoughts in list form, can you understand why I call it wishy washy? For those who love character-driven suspenseful literary fiction and don't mind a cast of truly despicable characters you'll probably like A Sight for Sore Eyes much more than I did. Otherwise, I'd probably skip it unless you're low on new books to read.
July 8, 2014
This book is populated by enough psychologically damaged characters to fill an asylum. The two craziest of the bunch would have to be Julia, the overprotective stepmother, who also happens to be, probably the worst psychologist in the history of the profession; and Teddy, a neglected boy who grows to be a beautiful but scary psychopath. Around this collection of kooks, who fall victim to an unusual amount of miscalculations and misunderstandings, Rendell, as usual manages to weave a fascinating, suspenseful story; one of her best (although I do say that about many of her books.)
November 22, 2020
Just as squirm inducing as the last time I read it. I'm not sure it's my fav Ruth Rendell anymore. The Crocodile Bird has surpassed Teddy and his deviance.
After reading A Sight for Sore Eyes, go onto The Vault and find out what happens 12 years later at Orcadia Place. It's a pretty shitty Wexford mystery (his family woes could happily be cut), but fun to revisit this exquisite house of doom.
After reading A Sight for Sore Eyes, go onto The Vault and find out what happens 12 years later at Orcadia Place. It's a pretty shitty Wexford mystery (his family woes could happily be cut), but fun to revisit this exquisite house of doom.
January 12, 2019
Brought up in an affectionless, distanced family, young Teddy has become an aesthete, a craftsman, an emotional cripple and a sociopath. Having as a child seen her mother murdered, Francine has had her life since then dominated by her controlling, obsessional, quack psychotherapist stepmother, Julia. Harriet still lives in a past where she was a rock socialite celebrated for her pre-Raphaelite-style beauty, subject of an iconic painting; now, married to a far older man who bores her rigid, she whiles away the time by seducing plumbers and electricians. One day she lures Teddy to the house on the pretext that she needs new shelving. By now Teddy has become obsessed with the pure-seeming Francine, who's responsive to his approaches because she's never had a boyfriend before and perhaps also because Julia disapproves of the liaison . . .
That's the setup, and by all counts it should have led to another Ruth Rendell classic.
And yet somehow it . . . didn't, or at least not for me.
One expects a certain amount of artificiality in Rendell's psychological novels, whether written under her own name or as by Barbara Vine. This isn't an adverse criticism. It's as if the novels are following the protocols of stage drama: Everything's just a little divorced from real life, but you expect and accept this because, after all, the characters are separated from the herd by being up there on the stage, the lights are preternaturally bright, the diction is projected rather than merely spoken. None of that detracts from the validity of the play as an observation of human nature, and the same principle applies to Rendell's fiction.
So I didn't come into A Sight for Sore Eyes anticipating realism, but I did assume it'd have a bit more in common with the real world than I found. The problem for me was, I think, that, Francine excepted, I couldn't believe in any of the principal characters. Julia is the kind of caricature you expect in a second-tier villain in a Batman movie. I've met people like Harriet, but here the obnoxious characteristics are taken to absurd extremes and any redeeming ones are simply eliminated -- to the point of, once again, caricature. I could just about believe in Teddy, although his social awkwardness was so much larger-than-life as to be beyond credible. Harriet's husband is so unobservant that he doesn't notice a newly constructed piece of wall inside his own home. Francine's dad is just a cypher, his character never emerging much more than that of a commuter you see daily but don't speak to on the train.
So I found it a bit hard to get my pulse racing as these otherworldly characters danced their dance through series of interrelated actions that weren't themselves especially believable. I could admire the book's artifice while at the same time not becoming much involved in it.
There's also the matter of the writing. Rendell was a very good prose-smith, albeit not a colorful one: she achieved her effects through a sort of conscious, elegant drabness that contrasted nicely with the often melodramatic events she was depicting. The text of A Sight for Sore Eyes, however, is in desperate need of some basic copyediting. Aside from the jumbled matter of the room keys in Julia's house (we're told on page 257 there are only two of them, then on page 259 that there's just the one, while on page 270 it emerges that there are, apparently, lots), I kept tripping over pieces of rank bad writing. Here's just a single example:
The meaning's obvious, but that second sentence is excruciating. I (obviously) didn't keep a count of similar examples, but there must have been dozens, and they had the cumulative effect of, once more, making it difficult for me to immerse myself in Rendell's tale.
So, something of a disappointment for me here from a favorite author. But I have a bunch of other Rendells/Vines still on the shelf, so fingers crossed I strike luckier next time.
That's the setup, and by all counts it should have led to another Ruth Rendell classic.
And yet somehow it . . . didn't, or at least not for me.
One expects a certain amount of artificiality in Rendell's psychological novels, whether written under her own name or as by Barbara Vine. This isn't an adverse criticism. It's as if the novels are following the protocols of stage drama: Everything's just a little divorced from real life, but you expect and accept this because, after all, the characters are separated from the herd by being up there on the stage, the lights are preternaturally bright, the diction is projected rather than merely spoken. None of that detracts from the validity of the play as an observation of human nature, and the same principle applies to Rendell's fiction.
So I didn't come into A Sight for Sore Eyes anticipating realism, but I did assume it'd have a bit more in common with the real world than I found. The problem for me was, I think, that, Francine excepted, I couldn't believe in any of the principal characters. Julia is the kind of caricature you expect in a second-tier villain in a Batman movie. I've met people like Harriet, but here the obnoxious characteristics are taken to absurd extremes and any redeeming ones are simply eliminated -- to the point of, once again, caricature. I could just about believe in Teddy, although his social awkwardness was so much larger-than-life as to be beyond credible. Harriet's husband is so unobservant that he doesn't notice a newly constructed piece of wall inside his own home. Francine's dad is just a cypher, his character never emerging much more than that of a commuter you see daily but don't speak to on the train.
So I found it a bit hard to get my pulse racing as these otherworldly characters danced their dance through series of interrelated actions that weren't themselves especially believable. I could admire the book's artifice while at the same time not becoming much involved in it.
There's also the matter of the writing. Rendell was a very good prose-smith, albeit not a colorful one: she achieved her effects through a sort of conscious, elegant drabness that contrasted nicely with the often melodramatic events she was depicting. The text of A Sight for Sore Eyes, however, is in desperate need of some basic copyediting. Aside from the jumbled matter of the room keys in Julia's house (we're told on page 257 there are only two of them, then on page 259 that there's just the one, while on page 270 it emerges that there are, apparently, lots), I kept tripping over pieces of rank bad writing. Here's just a single example:
. . . in a side street off the back of Kensington Church Street he found areas demarcated on the roadway with white lines. All but one of these was occupied and it was just large enough to take the Edsel.
The meaning's obvious, but that second sentence is excruciating. I (obviously) didn't keep a count of similar examples, but there must have been dozens, and they had the cumulative effect of, once more, making it difficult for me to immerse myself in Rendell's tale.
So, something of a disappointment for me here from a favorite author. But I have a bunch of other Rendells/Vines still on the shelf, so fingers crossed I strike luckier next time.
November 18, 2025
Not one of her best. It lacked that captivating suspense Rendell is so famous for and I lost interest halfway through a novel that should have been half as long as it is. I powered through, skipping pages here and there, and was underwhelmed with the ending.
December 7, 2021
An exquisitely plotted crime novel. At just over 400 pages, it is longer than many of her books, but it’s still a fast read, because the reader is impelled to keep turning the pages to find out what happens next. Like many of her novels, the troubles her protagonists face are brought home to them by events in the past, and this one is no exception.
The Grex brothers – Keith and Jimmy – lived in the family home; then Jimmy married Eileen. They were not imaginative individuals, and there’s plenty of dark humour describing their relationship: ‘in order to be productive ejaculation had to be frequent, lavish and cumulative… a lot of that stuff had to get inside you before anything resulted… like the Grecian 2000 lotion Keith put on his greying hair, which only took effect after repeated applications.’ (p9) The result was an unexpected baby boy, Teddy.
Teddy grew into a handsome youth, but lacked any parental affection and was left to his own devices so that emotionally he was sadly deficient of empathy.
Yet Teddy has one abiding interest: he likes beautiful things, which is fostered by the neighbour, Mr Chance, who is a craftsman in wood and is fond of the phrase ‘A sight for sore eyes.’ (p17, p240)
Rendell’s descriptions are poignant, astute and sometimes amusing. ‘There was something about Keith that suggested a half-melted candle. Or a waxwork left out in the sun. The flesh of his face hung in wattles and dewlaps. It seemed to have waddled down his neck and sagged from his shoulders and chest to settle in stacked masses on his stomach.’ (p21)
The living conditions in the Grex household were decidedly deplorable in Teddy’s eyes, and he was ashamed. ‘Woodworm were devouring the living-room furniture and from the television table had bored into the skirting board… Spiders were in the bath and silverfish wriggled across the floors.’ (p57) ‘The tracks made by moth grubs already showed on the lumpy woollen surfaces and moth cocoons, greyish-white like mildew, nestled between the stitches.’ (p58) ‘The fly-spotted mirror was losing its silvering in a kind of greenish ulceration round the edges…’ (p59)
Little girl Francine Hill was in her bedroom when her mother was murdered downstairs. She hid in case the murderer was after her as well. And when her father found her she was so traumatised she had lost her power of speech. She became a patient of Julia, a psychologist who eventually married Francine’s father. Francine was finally restored and she grew up cossetted by Julia, as if wrapped in cotton wool, fearful lest the murderer came back…
Francine becomes a beautiful young woman, someone who could easily be idolised by the likes of Teddy.
Inevitably, these characters will interact, their lives dovetailing, and slowly but surely there will be a fateful reckoning.
Rendell’s psychological insights, the depiction of a character’s gradual slide into insanity, her masterful plotting and the grim denouement make this novel a totally satisfying experience.
The Grex brothers – Keith and Jimmy – lived in the family home; then Jimmy married Eileen. They were not imaginative individuals, and there’s plenty of dark humour describing their relationship: ‘in order to be productive ejaculation had to be frequent, lavish and cumulative… a lot of that stuff had to get inside you before anything resulted… like the Grecian 2000 lotion Keith put on his greying hair, which only took effect after repeated applications.’ (p9) The result was an unexpected baby boy, Teddy.
Teddy grew into a handsome youth, but lacked any parental affection and was left to his own devices so that emotionally he was sadly deficient of empathy.
Yet Teddy has one abiding interest: he likes beautiful things, which is fostered by the neighbour, Mr Chance, who is a craftsman in wood and is fond of the phrase ‘A sight for sore eyes.’ (p17, p240)
Rendell’s descriptions are poignant, astute and sometimes amusing. ‘There was something about Keith that suggested a half-melted candle. Or a waxwork left out in the sun. The flesh of his face hung in wattles and dewlaps. It seemed to have waddled down his neck and sagged from his shoulders and chest to settle in stacked masses on his stomach.’ (p21)
The living conditions in the Grex household were decidedly deplorable in Teddy’s eyes, and he was ashamed. ‘Woodworm were devouring the living-room furniture and from the television table had bored into the skirting board… Spiders were in the bath and silverfish wriggled across the floors.’ (p57) ‘The tracks made by moth grubs already showed on the lumpy woollen surfaces and moth cocoons, greyish-white like mildew, nestled between the stitches.’ (p58) ‘The fly-spotted mirror was losing its silvering in a kind of greenish ulceration round the edges…’ (p59)
Little girl Francine Hill was in her bedroom when her mother was murdered downstairs. She hid in case the murderer was after her as well. And when her father found her she was so traumatised she had lost her power of speech. She became a patient of Julia, a psychologist who eventually married Francine’s father. Francine was finally restored and she grew up cossetted by Julia, as if wrapped in cotton wool, fearful lest the murderer came back…
Francine becomes a beautiful young woman, someone who could easily be idolised by the likes of Teddy.
Inevitably, these characters will interact, their lives dovetailing, and slowly but surely there will be a fateful reckoning.
Rendell’s psychological insights, the depiction of a character’s gradual slide into insanity, her masterful plotting and the grim denouement make this novel a totally satisfying experience.
January 28, 2021
Not the most satisfying read, and I've read all the Wexford books and loved them.
The story of three somewhat 'damaged' individuals, each with their own unique story and how they intersect and entangle, which does little to alleviate them psychologically, emotionally and any other way which might be important, or at the very least, interesting.
One witnessed her mother's murder at an early age; another was a severely neglected child who learned few social skills (if any); the third is a sort of aging, narcissistic nymphomaniac. None of the three are particularly interesting, except the first, but even she's the kind of character who caused me to keep saying, 'No, no, why did you do that?' Or: 'Oh, come on, get serious!" And even: 'Are you kidding me?'
There's murder here, misunderstandings, vague points of view, conflict and over-the-top psychological pathology - as in one of the minor characters is seriously disturbed and everyone knows it but no one will address it. (Seriously, more than one of the characters fits this category.)
Realistic? All three certainly are. Exasperating, too, all in caps. Readable, yeah, if you enjoy watching humans suffer or people with few redeeming qualities mill about and mess up each others' lives. So def. not my favorite book by Ms Rendell.
A very frustrating three stars.
The story of three somewhat 'damaged' individuals, each with their own unique story and how they intersect and entangle, which does little to alleviate them psychologically, emotionally and any other way which might be important, or at the very least, interesting.
One witnessed her mother's murder at an early age; another was a severely neglected child who learned few social skills (if any); the third is a sort of aging, narcissistic nymphomaniac. None of the three are particularly interesting, except the first, but even she's the kind of character who caused me to keep saying, 'No, no, why did you do that?' Or: 'Oh, come on, get serious!" And even: 'Are you kidding me?'
There's murder here, misunderstandings, vague points of view, conflict and over-the-top psychological pathology - as in one of the minor characters is seriously disturbed and everyone knows it but no one will address it. (Seriously, more than one of the characters fits this category.)
Realistic? All three certainly are. Exasperating, too, all in caps. Readable, yeah, if you enjoy watching humans suffer or people with few redeeming qualities mill about and mess up each others' lives. So def. not my favorite book by Ms Rendell.
A very frustrating three stars.
December 5, 2014
What I like best about Ruth Rendell's work is that the psychological underpinnings of the characters seem very realistic and set the stage for what ends up feeling like inevitable tragedy. In this novel, which I read and enjoyed, the initial influences on the protagonist's character are so exaggerated as to be unbelievable. The reader must decide whether to close the book or to suspend disbelief and keeping going.
Because I have relished so many of Rendell's books, I chose to keep reading. The story was fascinating. Justice is always done in Rendell's novels, though not always through the legal system. She specializes in damaged people who are unable to overcome heart-wrenching challenges that stunt their development. In "A Site for For Sore Eyes," Rendell again weaves together disparate strands into a compelling narrative. She makes you really care about the characters. I return to her books each night with wonder. Although the tales she tells are sad and sometimes horrifying, I stick with them because the writing is so precise and moving.
In this book, I just wish the set-up had been slightly less exaggerated. But once I bought into the premise, I found I could not abandon the novel.
Because I have relished so many of Rendell's books, I chose to keep reading. The story was fascinating. Justice is always done in Rendell's novels, though not always through the legal system. She specializes in damaged people who are unable to overcome heart-wrenching challenges that stunt their development. In "A Site for For Sore Eyes," Rendell again weaves together disparate strands into a compelling narrative. She makes you really care about the characters. I return to her books each night with wonder. Although the tales she tells are sad and sometimes horrifying, I stick with them because the writing is so precise and moving.
In this book, I just wish the set-up had been slightly less exaggerated. But once I bought into the premise, I found I could not abandon the novel.
June 21, 2014
I re-read this book as I have ordered The Vault and although 'A Sight for Sore Eyes' isn't a Wexford novel the two stories are linked.
I have always enjoyed Ruth Rendell's books although I have felt that the newer books have not quite lived up to my expectations. This book is more in the style of her Barbara Vine books in that it examines the lives of damaged people; Teddy Brex who as a young adult values beauty beyond everything else, Francine Hill, a young lady who when a young child was present when her mother was shot and Julia the psychotherapist who married Francine's father. As always Ruth Rendell has a large number of characters in this novel and skilfully brings all the strands of their stories together. She writes with such simple yet powerful prose and no matter how bizarre the characters actions are they are always believable.
Great book to read again and I hope the Vault is as satisfying a read.
I have always enjoyed Ruth Rendell's books although I have felt that the newer books have not quite lived up to my expectations. This book is more in the style of her Barbara Vine books in that it examines the lives of damaged people; Teddy Brex who as a young adult values beauty beyond everything else, Francine Hill, a young lady who when a young child was present when her mother was shot and Julia the psychotherapist who married Francine's father. As always Ruth Rendell has a large number of characters in this novel and skilfully brings all the strands of their stories together. She writes with such simple yet powerful prose and no matter how bizarre the characters actions are they are always believable.
Great book to read again and I hope the Vault is as satisfying a read.
April 25, 2016
I've enjoyed some of Rendell's short stories, and I think I read one of the Inspector Wexford novels years ago. I'm not really into "police books" much, so while I always knew she was a good writer, I wasn't that keen on investigating much of her extensive bibliography.
it turns out she has a whole slew of psychological thriller type stuff that seems like it'd be far more up my alley. This book, for example. It's extremely sharp; vividly written to the point where a thoroughly damaged and ugly sociopath is fascinating to spend time with. her insights are really on point and there's a profound sense of class-motivated struggle and resentment that is simultaneously universal and distinctly British in character. In some ways, Rendell's writing here makes me think of Cornell Woolrich, but a generation on and with that English crime sensibility that I probably don't know enough about to pinpoint accurately, but which I think I recognize when I read it.
One thing I'm getting used to with Rendell is that some of her characters are really weird, and don't always act as you or I would. I made reference to this a little in my review of the short story collection The New Girlfriend, mentioning that all a character had to do was go to the library like a sensible person and look up the one piece of information that would change everything. It's not as if Rendell was hiding the library from the reader's attention, though, is it? She wants you to believe in the strange mental processes of these people, and for the most part, I think we do. After all, how many cheaters, liars, killers meet their undoing because of some stupid, silly mistake? This is Woolrich type territory, too.
This book is a journey. If you think of it as the story of a sociopath and a sheltered beautiful girl coming together and the tragedy that plays out thereafter, I think you'll be disappointed. This book is really about sordid families, sordid upbringings and just how wrong people can be about almost everything. We start way back in the 60s with the previous generation of the Brex family. It's all greasy pubs, dirty houses and people hooking up just because it's something to do. It's drab, but Rendell brings a certain wise, detached but intense earnestness, and a good amount of wry wit as well, as she tells the stories of these people: how they grew to be broken and flawed, telling us about their hopes and desperations and desires. It's much more engrossing than I would have imagined at the outset. And that Teddy Brex. The way Rendell shows how his brain ticks is akin to being in some kind of altered state of consciousness where everything is skewed in some horribly off-kilter way. He's really compelling for someone so cold and incapable of anything approximating normal human emotion. He doesn't have murderous thoughts the way you might expect, either. Murder is a tool of sorts, which he uses to get what he wants, no, needs. He values things so much more than people, except for Francine of course, who is beautiful and eminently desirable. But his attraction to her is completely tied with his need for objects, and in fact, a desirable object is really what she is to him. The two of them have such oppositional needs it's "tragicomic" in a way that I think Chekhov would have appreciated.
Underlying everything is this notion of class and social strata. Teddy's anxiety comes from what he perceives as the poverty of his person. Not just his upbringing, but his manner, his voice, his very being. If he could just have loads of money, everything would be all right. But Teddy's poverty goes deeper than he realises, because he's never really had a friend, and while he's in many ways very intelligent, his intelligence is concentrated so completely on his own personal needs that tasks that would seem simple to an average man of Teddy's own social standing flummox and anger him. On the other hand, he's sure he's right about everything, and feels the world would be infinitely better if the other people in it thought just like him. Unfortunate, then, that despite his discovery of the tool of murder, he doesn't really make a good criminal. Surely he could have done better with the car, and with hiding the bodies. He spends so much time and effort fashioning what he thinks of as the perfect disguise for his crimes, only it doesn't really work, and in the end his attempts turn out to be both absurd and a little frightening, because they reveal just how alien his thought process really is. Notice how Rendell always draws attention to the wall where the cellar door shoudl be, the wall that everyone knows wasn't there before, the wall that was so painstakingly built by a master craftsman yet still sticks out like the proverbial sore thumb.
And in the end, Teddy's ultimate undoing is something small, stupid, pointless. It all happens so suddenly that it's a bit of a surprise. I expected some kind of big unraveling, a chain of events set into motion by the little screw-ups he'd been making ever since , but it's nothing like that. It's quick and almost cartoonish,, and in a way I think that's more appropriate. Francine, meanwhile, ends the book practically where she began, crying over a dead woman and unable to speak. She doesn't even really learn Teddy's secret. I like these sorts of resolutions where things don't quite seem to wrap up, as often they feel very truthful. Fans of police procedurals, however, may not be too pleased.
While I'm perfectly willing (and eager, really) to accept that Rendell has written better, this book sort of converted me. The story is admittedly a bit on the thin side, but it's told with such clarity and sharp confidence that I was really, inescapably drawn in. I liked her writerly voice so much that I'll be seeking out more of these standalone novels of hers as soon as I get the chance.
it turns out she has a whole slew of psychological thriller type stuff that seems like it'd be far more up my alley. This book, for example. It's extremely sharp; vividly written to the point where a thoroughly damaged and ugly sociopath is fascinating to spend time with. her insights are really on point and there's a profound sense of class-motivated struggle and resentment that is simultaneously universal and distinctly British in character. In some ways, Rendell's writing here makes me think of Cornell Woolrich, but a generation on and with that English crime sensibility that I probably don't know enough about to pinpoint accurately, but which I think I recognize when I read it.
One thing I'm getting used to with Rendell is that some of her characters are really weird, and don't always act as you or I would. I made reference to this a little in my review of the short story collection The New Girlfriend, mentioning that all a character had to do was go to the library like a sensible person and look up the one piece of information that would change everything. It's not as if Rendell was hiding the library from the reader's attention, though, is it? She wants you to believe in the strange mental processes of these people, and for the most part, I think we do. After all, how many cheaters, liars, killers meet their undoing because of some stupid, silly mistake? This is Woolrich type territory, too.
This book is a journey. If you think of it as the story of a sociopath and a sheltered beautiful girl coming together and the tragedy that plays out thereafter, I think you'll be disappointed. This book is really about sordid families, sordid upbringings and just how wrong people can be about almost everything. We start way back in the 60s with the previous generation of the Brex family. It's all greasy pubs, dirty houses and people hooking up just because it's something to do. It's drab, but Rendell brings a certain wise, detached but intense earnestness, and a good amount of wry wit as well, as she tells the stories of these people: how they grew to be broken and flawed, telling us about their hopes and desperations and desires. It's much more engrossing than I would have imagined at the outset. And that Teddy Brex. The way Rendell shows how his brain ticks is akin to being in some kind of altered state of consciousness where everything is skewed in some horribly off-kilter way. He's really compelling for someone so cold and incapable of anything approximating normal human emotion. He doesn't have murderous thoughts the way you might expect, either. Murder is a tool of sorts, which he uses to get what he wants, no, needs. He values things so much more than people, except for Francine of course, who is beautiful and eminently desirable. But his attraction to her is completely tied with his need for objects, and in fact, a desirable object is really what she is to him. The two of them have such oppositional needs it's "tragicomic" in a way that I think Chekhov would have appreciated.
Underlying everything is this notion of class and social strata. Teddy's anxiety comes from what he perceives as the poverty of his person. Not just his upbringing, but his manner, his voice, his very being. If he could just have loads of money, everything would be all right. But Teddy's poverty goes deeper than he realises, because he's never really had a friend, and while he's in many ways very intelligent, his intelligence is concentrated so completely on his own personal needs that tasks that would seem simple to an average man of Teddy's own social standing flummox and anger him. On the other hand, he's sure he's right about everything, and feels the world would be infinitely better if the other people in it thought just like him. Unfortunate, then, that despite his discovery of the tool of murder, he doesn't really make a good criminal. Surely he could have done better with the car, and with hiding the bodies. He spends so much time and effort fashioning what he thinks of as the perfect disguise for his crimes, only it doesn't really work, and in the end his attempts turn out to be both absurd and a little frightening, because they reveal just how alien his thought process really is. Notice how Rendell always draws attention to the wall where the cellar door shoudl be, the wall that everyone knows wasn't there before, the wall that was so painstakingly built by a master craftsman yet still sticks out like the proverbial sore thumb.
And in the end, Teddy's ultimate undoing is something small, stupid, pointless. It all happens so suddenly that it's a bit of a surprise. I expected some kind of big unraveling, a chain of events set into motion by the little screw-ups he'd been making ever since , but it's nothing like that. It's quick and almost cartoonish,, and in a way I think that's more appropriate. Francine, meanwhile, ends the book practically where she began, crying over a dead woman and unable to speak. She doesn't even really learn Teddy's secret. I like these sorts of resolutions where things don't quite seem to wrap up, as often they feel very truthful. Fans of police procedurals, however, may not be too pleased.
While I'm perfectly willing (and eager, really) to accept that Rendell has written better, this book sort of converted me. The story is admittedly a bit on the thin side, but it's told with such clarity and sharp confidence that I was really, inescapably drawn in. I liked her writerly voice so much that I'll be seeking out more of these standalone novels of hers as soon as I get the chance.
June 21, 2017
I didn’t really know what to expect of the novels of Ruth Rendell before I read A Sight for Sore Eyes. Out of a certain omnipresence hers was one of the names my eye skipped over in the book shop or the library; now I think that was perhaps unfair. I have nothing against crime novels but I didn’t realise that there is rather more to her books than the procedural exercises of genre fiction. A Sight for Sore Eyes has crime in it, but the crime is somehow incidental to the business of the plot.
There are three main currents to the story, which spans a period of some thirty years. We follow Teddy Grex, born into a family who singularly ignore him; Francine, whose childhood is scarred by the sudden, inexplicable murder of her mother; and Harriet, a woman briefly immortalised in a famous portrait by an artist in the late 60s. At a certain point the paths of all three will cross, but the novel takes its time in setting this up. Teddy and Francine grow up from babies to toddlers to adolescents before there is even any inkling that they might one day meet.
The young people here end up damaged in different ways. Teddy is the subject of contempt and low expectations from his father and alcoholic uncle — he comes to despise the ugly world they inhabit. After the death of Francine’s mother, her father marries Julia, his psychoanalyst. Julia inflicts on her a different kind of abuse: paralysed with anxiety, her stepmother keeps her life under total lockdown, forbidding all kinds of activities that might bring her into contact with a dangerous world.
All the characters in this book are divided into three very neat class-based categories: working class (Teddy and his family); middle class (Julia and Francine); upper class (Harriet). Part of the entertainment of the novel comes from comparing and contrasting the traits of these classes against one another. But there's also a sense in which the novel is picking out the stereotypical worst features of that class and holding them up to the light. At times there is what feels like a very thinly-veiled contempt towards the Grex family in particular. It is not just that they are abusive towards Teddy, but they have to be characterised in a way intended to provoke disgust in the reader. And the author's idea of what might be disgusting is very specific:
'During his gestation his mother had lived on croissants with butter, whipped-cream doughnuts, salami, streaky bacon, fried eggs, chocolate bars, sausages and chips with everything. She had smoked about ten thousand eight hundred cigarettes and drunk many gallons of Guinness, cider, Babycham and sweet sherry…'
'There was always abundant food in the house and large meals of the TV-dinner and chip-shop variety were served…’
As a literary effect, I actually quite enjoy Rendell's tendency to suddenly digress into writing lists of very specific things. I really like this list of miscellaneous junk, for example:
'An old Mason-Pearson hairbrush, its stiff black bristles clogged with Eileen’s equally wiry but greying hair, a scent bottle in which the perfume had grown yellow and viscid with age, a comb whose teeth were gummed together with dark-grey grease, a cardboard box that had once held Terry’s All Gold chocolates, a glass ashtray containing pins, hairgrips, scraps of cotton wool, a dead fly, the top of a ballpoint pen and, horribly, a piece of broken fingernail. And all this sitting on a greyed and stained crocheted lace mat, rumpled in the middle and curled at its fringed edges, like an island in a dusty sea after a nuclear explosion.'
But I think we are supposed to find this repulsive. It's never clear whether it's supposed to be a symptom of their wickedness, or a cause. A certain amount of this contempt is applied to Julia as well, and to Angela; but the novel makes the Grex family out to be so much worse perhaps because the implication is that they haven't done anything to earn their idleness. Teddy, in contrast, emerges as a borderline sympathetic figure because of his dedication to health, cleanliness and beauty; a Protestant work ethic combined with a Catholic aesthetic sensibility.
Submerged in all of this is the idea that the working classes could be 'improved' by their exposure to great works of art and human culture. But the novel subverts this because while Teddy develops a fascination with arts and crafts, this does nothing to save him - it only leaves him arrested in a state of perpetual adolescent anger at the state of the world. Francine, on the other hand, feels a little under-developed; she is never quite able to escape the orbit of her family, and once Julia is gone the book doesn't quite seem to know what to do with her.
And yet I think the portrait of the kind of abuse that Julia inflicts on Francine is the most disturbing part of the book for me. Perhaps the fact that Francine is rarely described outside of the context of her trauma is exactly the point. There's something profound and disturbing in that recurring image of Francine approaching the front door of her home, only for Julia to open it at the last moment.
I’m not sure it’s worth ascribing an active contempt to some of the characterisations in this book. That suggests a connivance which isn’t there. The depiction of class feels automatic, unthinking; I wish the author had interrogated their own assumptions more, or had someone else do that for them. But what elevates this novel beyond caricature is the consideration and empathy it has for its central characters. It isn’t evenly spread — but perhaps that’s necessary for a certain kind of novel to exist. In order for life to be worth living the illusion of depth can’t be maintained for everyone.
There are three main currents to the story, which spans a period of some thirty years. We follow Teddy Grex, born into a family who singularly ignore him; Francine, whose childhood is scarred by the sudden, inexplicable murder of her mother; and Harriet, a woman briefly immortalised in a famous portrait by an artist in the late 60s. At a certain point the paths of all three will cross, but the novel takes its time in setting this up. Teddy and Francine grow up from babies to toddlers to adolescents before there is even any inkling that they might one day meet.
The young people here end up damaged in different ways. Teddy is the subject of contempt and low expectations from his father and alcoholic uncle — he comes to despise the ugly world they inhabit. After the death of Francine’s mother, her father marries Julia, his psychoanalyst. Julia inflicts on her a different kind of abuse: paralysed with anxiety, her stepmother keeps her life under total lockdown, forbidding all kinds of activities that might bring her into contact with a dangerous world.
All the characters in this book are divided into three very neat class-based categories: working class (Teddy and his family); middle class (Julia and Francine); upper class (Harriet). Part of the entertainment of the novel comes from comparing and contrasting the traits of these classes against one another. But there's also a sense in which the novel is picking out the stereotypical worst features of that class and holding them up to the light. At times there is what feels like a very thinly-veiled contempt towards the Grex family in particular. It is not just that they are abusive towards Teddy, but they have to be characterised in a way intended to provoke disgust in the reader. And the author's idea of what might be disgusting is very specific:
'During his gestation his mother had lived on croissants with butter, whipped-cream doughnuts, salami, streaky bacon, fried eggs, chocolate bars, sausages and chips with everything. She had smoked about ten thousand eight hundred cigarettes and drunk many gallons of Guinness, cider, Babycham and sweet sherry…'
'There was always abundant food in the house and large meals of the TV-dinner and chip-shop variety were served…’
As a literary effect, I actually quite enjoy Rendell's tendency to suddenly digress into writing lists of very specific things. I really like this list of miscellaneous junk, for example:
'An old Mason-Pearson hairbrush, its stiff black bristles clogged with Eileen’s equally wiry but greying hair, a scent bottle in which the perfume had grown yellow and viscid with age, a comb whose teeth were gummed together with dark-grey grease, a cardboard box that had once held Terry’s All Gold chocolates, a glass ashtray containing pins, hairgrips, scraps of cotton wool, a dead fly, the top of a ballpoint pen and, horribly, a piece of broken fingernail. And all this sitting on a greyed and stained crocheted lace mat, rumpled in the middle and curled at its fringed edges, like an island in a dusty sea after a nuclear explosion.'
But I think we are supposed to find this repulsive. It's never clear whether it's supposed to be a symptom of their wickedness, or a cause. A certain amount of this contempt is applied to Julia as well, and to Angela; but the novel makes the Grex family out to be so much worse perhaps because the implication is that they haven't done anything to earn their idleness. Teddy, in contrast, emerges as a borderline sympathetic figure because of his dedication to health, cleanliness and beauty; a Protestant work ethic combined with a Catholic aesthetic sensibility.
Submerged in all of this is the idea that the working classes could be 'improved' by their exposure to great works of art and human culture. But the novel subverts this because while Teddy develops a fascination with arts and crafts, this does nothing to save him - it only leaves him arrested in a state of perpetual adolescent anger at the state of the world. Francine, on the other hand, feels a little under-developed; she is never quite able to escape the orbit of her family, and once Julia is gone the book doesn't quite seem to know what to do with her.
And yet I think the portrait of the kind of abuse that Julia inflicts on Francine is the most disturbing part of the book for me. Perhaps the fact that Francine is rarely described outside of the context of her trauma is exactly the point. There's something profound and disturbing in that recurring image of Francine approaching the front door of her home, only for Julia to open it at the last moment.
I’m not sure it’s worth ascribing an active contempt to some of the characterisations in this book. That suggests a connivance which isn’t there. The depiction of class feels automatic, unthinking; I wish the author had interrogated their own assumptions more, or had someone else do that for them. But what elevates this novel beyond caricature is the consideration and empathy it has for its central characters. It isn’t evenly spread — but perhaps that’s necessary for a certain kind of novel to exist. In order for life to be worth living the illusion of depth can’t be maintained for everyone.
May 15, 2022
I’m not a fan of psychological thrillers, tho.. admittedly, this could not be termed as a “thriller” - there were no on edge moments. It was slow-paced and very well thought out, literally wrapping things up in the end. I’m just more lighter reads. Some humor. There was so much mental illness is this book, I felt like it was an asylum bibliography. A considerable amount of it seemed totally improbable, but hey, it wasn’t coined as true crime, so have at. I appreciate the pulling together of all characters and somewhat happy ending, but as long as real life remains a downer, I’ll stick to happier tales. (Note, this was a bookclub selection, so somewhat obligated to read it.)
June 17, 2013
My favorite of all of Rendell's novels. Just brilliant. Great depth of characterization and the characters develop over time in unpredictable ways. I read _The Vault_, which apparently picks up some of the same characters. some time ago. Now I plan to read it again and will probably enjoy it more.
Read
March 27, 2024Great read, as ever, but o so depressing!
March 30, 2016
Ruth Rendell is an excellent writer, particularly in her descriptions of persons and places. And that descriptive power is especially important in a book like "A Sight for Sore Eyes," which, as the title implies, has a lot to do with beauty (or the lack of it). And, given that this is a Ruth Rendell novel, the moral rules and laws characters break in their striving for it. But she also explores how beauty can become a hollow shell and how it can hide a dark interior.
One character, for instance, is the woman in a renowned painting of a couple in a rus en urbe setting (by a house that takes on a key role in the story). We see her as she and her boyfriend at the time break up, as she remarries (to an older man), as she ages but tries to hang on to her past youth and beauty (and preys on youth and beauty).
There is also the beautiful young artist raised in a setting of physical and psychological ugliness who ends up with a certain moral deadness as well as an obsession with beautiful objects--from the mirror he crafts (fitting and worth unpacking in terms of symbolism) to a specific young woman.
And then there's that young woman whose childhood was also beset with tragedy (but in a different way) and almost becomes a modernized fairy tale princess--an "evil stepmother," a longing to escape, and a seemingly charming prince.
I enjoyed "A Sight for Sore Eyes," but I found it less compelling and suspenseful than some of Rendell's other works--and the threads didn't blend as well as they could have. The last chapter is also a bit flat, save for the very end.
3.5 stars
One character, for instance, is the woman in a renowned painting of a couple in a rus en urbe setting (by a house that takes on a key role in the story). We see her as she and her boyfriend at the time break up, as she remarries (to an older man), as she ages but tries to hang on to her past youth and beauty (and preys on youth and beauty).
There is also the beautiful young artist raised in a setting of physical and psychological ugliness who ends up with a certain moral deadness as well as an obsession with beautiful objects--from the mirror he crafts (fitting and worth unpacking in terms of symbolism) to a specific young woman.
And then there's that young woman whose childhood was also beset with tragedy (but in a different way) and almost becomes a modernized fairy tale princess--an "evil stepmother," a longing to escape, and a seemingly charming prince.
I enjoyed "A Sight for Sore Eyes," but I found it less compelling and suspenseful than some of Rendell's other works--and the threads didn't blend as well as they could have. The last chapter is also a bit flat, save for the very end.
3.5 stars
February 8, 2024
Another nail-biter that had me staying up past my bedtime; the ending was completely unexpected and I have to admit, unsatisfying, but I'm not complaining. This was suspenseful to the nth degree, and well-crafted with many moving parts.
December 5, 2019
Great plot, great ending ! You can never be disappointed by Ruth Rendell.
September 8, 2021
Teddy et Francine sont deux adultes dont l’enfance a laissé des ravages psychologiques. Leurs âmes endommagées sont bien mal préparées à la vie…Teddy a été élevé dans une famille modeste, dans l’indifférence totale. Pas de violence, certes, c’est déjà pas mal, mais pas d’amour non plus, ce qui est peut-être plus dommageable. Francine, quant à elle, avait 7 ans lorsque, cachée dans le placard de sa chambre, elle a entendu sa mère se faire assassiner. Elle sera suivie par une psychologue, Julia, qui finira par épouser le père de Francine. Julia va étouffer Francine en la surprotégeant.
Le récit débute au printemps 1966, où nous faisons la connaissance de Francine le jour terrifiant de l’assassinat de sa mère, d’Harriet, qui vit dans un splendide cottage, et de Teddy, grandissant sans amour avec son oncle et ses parents. Au départ, cet enchevêtrement peut troubler le lecteur, et puis, peu à peu, les liens se font.
Tout au fil de l’histoire, des gens meurent (cause naturelle ou non…), j’ai adoré cette propension qu’ont les parasites à tomber comme des mouches ! Teddy m’a bien fait rire avec ce corps dont il doit se débarrasser, et dont il ne sait que faire. Même si je n’ai pas été très convaincue par son raisonnement….Bien qu’il soit sociopathe, je l’ai trouvé bien sympathique. J’ai éprouvé beaucoup de peine pour lui, car s’il avait reçu un tant soit peu d’amour, il aurait eu un autre destin. Par contre, Julia m’a vraiment énervée, à surveiller les moindres gestes de Francine, l’étouffant et l’empêchant d’essayer de retrouver une vie normale. Aucune résilience n’est possible avec un vautour pareil !
La force de ce roman réside complètement dans la complexité des personnages, y compris les personnages secondaires. Ils sont tous extrêmes. Ruth fouille le thème des troubles de la personnalité suite à un traumatisme ou à un environnement social carencé sous plusieurs angles intéressants. En effet, chaque personnage souffre d’un trouble de la personnalité différent, Ruth nous offre un panel non exhaustif de différentes pathologies que l’on peut rencontrer. C’est glaçant dans le sens où on se conforte dans le fait que les psychopathes en liberté ont très souvent l’air normal, quand on ne les côtoie pas de trop près !!
Francine vit dans une bulle imposée à la fois par elle-même et par son entourage. Elle n’aura de cesse d’en sortir. Elle va croiser la route de Teddy, et le résultat en sera explosif, une rencontre à la fois improbable et pourtant prévisible. Pour Teddy, la fragile et innocente Francine personnifie son idéal de femme parfaite (inconscient du fait que cet idéal a été créé à partir de son propre isolement…), tandis que Francine voit en Teddy un moyen de s’échapper de l’emprise de Julia, ne réalisant pas que la privation émotionnelle dont il a été victime a façonné sa dangerosité. Quant à Harriet, je vous laisserai la découvrir, mais sachez juste qu’elle est incroyable !
Ruth nous propose une immersion dans la société américaine, une histoire captivante où elle éclaire les recoins les plus sombres de la psyché de ses personnages, malgré quelques longueurs. A noter toutefois que ce sont ces longueurs qui permettent au lecteur de se retrouver au plus proche des personnages et de l’ambiance. J’avais l’impression d’être sur les lieux, je visualisais très bien les scènes et certaines m’ont donné la chair de poule. La plume est riche, incisive, pointue et détaillée.
Un bon pavé, qui se lit avec délice, qui vous régalera, si, comme moi, vous avez une certaine appétence pour les thrillers psychologiques.
« Francine se replongea dans le livre qu’elle était en train de lire. C’étaient les Lettres de Tchekov, et cela lui plaisait, mais pendant un petit moment elle regarda la page fixement, sans rien voir. Pourtant, elle avait des projets pour l’avenir, si seulement elle obtenait la permission de les concrétiser. »
Je remercie les Editions Archipoche et Mylène pour cette lecture.
#sagecommeuneimage #RuthRendell #Archipoche
Le récit débute au printemps 1966, où nous faisons la connaissance de Francine le jour terrifiant de l’assassinat de sa mère, d’Harriet, qui vit dans un splendide cottage, et de Teddy, grandissant sans amour avec son oncle et ses parents. Au départ, cet enchevêtrement peut troubler le lecteur, et puis, peu à peu, les liens se font.
Tout au fil de l’histoire, des gens meurent (cause naturelle ou non…), j’ai adoré cette propension qu’ont les parasites à tomber comme des mouches ! Teddy m’a bien fait rire avec ce corps dont il doit se débarrasser, et dont il ne sait que faire. Même si je n’ai pas été très convaincue par son raisonnement….Bien qu’il soit sociopathe, je l’ai trouvé bien sympathique. J’ai éprouvé beaucoup de peine pour lui, car s’il avait reçu un tant soit peu d’amour, il aurait eu un autre destin. Par contre, Julia m’a vraiment énervée, à surveiller les moindres gestes de Francine, l’étouffant et l’empêchant d’essayer de retrouver une vie normale. Aucune résilience n’est possible avec un vautour pareil !
La force de ce roman réside complètement dans la complexité des personnages, y compris les personnages secondaires. Ils sont tous extrêmes. Ruth fouille le thème des troubles de la personnalité suite à un traumatisme ou à un environnement social carencé sous plusieurs angles intéressants. En effet, chaque personnage souffre d’un trouble de la personnalité différent, Ruth nous offre un panel non exhaustif de différentes pathologies que l’on peut rencontrer. C’est glaçant dans le sens où on se conforte dans le fait que les psychopathes en liberté ont très souvent l’air normal, quand on ne les côtoie pas de trop près !!
Francine vit dans une bulle imposée à la fois par elle-même et par son entourage. Elle n’aura de cesse d’en sortir. Elle va croiser la route de Teddy, et le résultat en sera explosif, une rencontre à la fois improbable et pourtant prévisible. Pour Teddy, la fragile et innocente Francine personnifie son idéal de femme parfaite (inconscient du fait que cet idéal a été créé à partir de son propre isolement…), tandis que Francine voit en Teddy un moyen de s’échapper de l’emprise de Julia, ne réalisant pas que la privation émotionnelle dont il a été victime a façonné sa dangerosité. Quant à Harriet, je vous laisserai la découvrir, mais sachez juste qu’elle est incroyable !
Ruth nous propose une immersion dans la société américaine, une histoire captivante où elle éclaire les recoins les plus sombres de la psyché de ses personnages, malgré quelques longueurs. A noter toutefois que ce sont ces longueurs qui permettent au lecteur de se retrouver au plus proche des personnages et de l’ambiance. J’avais l’impression d’être sur les lieux, je visualisais très bien les scènes et certaines m’ont donné la chair de poule. La plume est riche, incisive, pointue et détaillée.
Un bon pavé, qui se lit avec délice, qui vous régalera, si, comme moi, vous avez une certaine appétence pour les thrillers psychologiques.
« Francine se replongea dans le livre qu’elle était en train de lire. C’étaient les Lettres de Tchekov, et cela lui plaisait, mais pendant un petit moment elle regarda la page fixement, sans rien voir. Pourtant, elle avait des projets pour l’avenir, si seulement elle obtenait la permission de les concrétiser. »
Je remercie les Editions Archipoche et Mylène pour cette lecture.
#sagecommeuneimage #RuthRendell #Archipoche
July 28, 2021
Read 2008
January 28, 2023
Minu arvamuse leiab blogist https://triinuraamatud.wordpress.com/...
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