The Pure Gold Baby

by Margaret Drabble

Jessica Speight, a young anthropology student in 1960s London, is at the beginning of a promising academic career when an affair with her married professor turns her into a single mother. Anna is a pure gold baby with a delightful sunny nature. But as it becomes clear that Anna will not be a normal child, the book circles questions of responsibility, potential, even age, with Margaret Drabble's characteristic intelligence, sympathy, and wit.Drabble once wrote, "Family life itself, that safest, most traditional, most approved of female choices, is not a sanctuary; it is, perpetually, a dangerous place." Told from the point of view of the group of mothers who surround Jess, "The Pure Gold Baby" is a brilliant, prismatic novel that takes us into that place with satiric verve, trenchant commentary, and a movingly intimate story of the unexpected transformations at the heart of motherhood.

Genres: Fiction, Literary Fiction, Contemporary, British Literature, Book Club, Family, Novels

304 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2013

About the author

Dame Margaret Drabble was born in Sheffield in 1939 and was educated at Newnham College, Cambridge. She is the author of eighteen novels including A Summer Bird-Cage, The Millstone, The Peppered Moth, The Red Queen, The Sea Lady and most recently, the highly acclaimed The Pure Gold Baby. She has also written biographies, screenplays and was the editor of the Oxford Companion to English Literature. She was appointed CBE in 1980, and made DBE in the 2008 Honours list. She was also awarded the 2011 Golden PEN Award for a Lifetime's Distinguished Service to Literature. She is married to the biographer Michael Holroyd.

Drabble famously has a long-running feud with her novelist sister, A.S. Byatt. The pair seldom see each other, and each does not read the books of the other.

Reviews

[karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

somehow, this is my very first margaret drabble novel.

i know.

and while i can look at it objectively and see the strength of its craft, it never really grabbed me as a reader. part of that is due to the shape of the book: it is ostensibly about jess and her pure gold, developmentally disabled baby anna, but it is told at a remove, through a friend of jess' named nellie. nellie seems to have quite a lot of access to jess and her thoughts and actions, but still - at the end of the day - there is a barrier between the narrator and subject that makes it read more like a biography of someone unknown and unspectacular rather than a work taking advantage of the rich emotional possibilities a novel affords. and that's fine; that is a perfectly valid way to write a book, but the synopsis promised me this was written from the point of view of the group of mothers who surround Jess, and that's just not true. there is still only one POV here, despite her perceived authority to tell jess' story, and the stories of everyone surrounding jess. i think if there had been a chorus of voices and perspectives, it would have made for a fuller story. instead, it is as problematic as that "other" literary nelly, through whose filter we get the bulk of wuthering heights.

it is a novel in which nothing dramatic or tumultuous happens. it begins in the 60's, in london, with anthropologist jess becoming pregnant after an affair with her married professor, finding out that anna isn't like other little girls, and raising her alone through a series of personal events set against a larger backdrop of historical ones. the writing is unsentimental, not quite stark, but there is something of the montage-feel to it. some people will find this lovely and muted, but to me, it is a little dull.

there are moments of quiet sparkle. one character is described as having resigned himself to a life of unproductive daily anguish, which is a sentiment to which i can relate, but although we are given insight into jess' inner thoughts, again, it is through this filter that for me, was an obstacle to really getting to the heart of the character, and no amount of prose-sparkle can be a substitute for an engaging character.

i wish i had liked this book more, but even though it was not to my particular tastes, i will give drabble another chance. i can definitely see other people liking this one a lot, i just have never really responded to this kind of quiet storytelling. at one point, anna is described as having no story to her life, no plot. The concept of progress did not apply to Anna. and that sums up my reaction precisely: occasionally beautiful, but echoless and empty.

karenfail.

come to my blog!

[Samadrita · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are two kinds of rambling I have come across in literature - the good kind of rambling wherein the narrator jumps from one topic to another quite abruptly, dwelling on one subject for a good many number of pages before attempting to make a point of some sort and succeeding in that endeavour. And the bad kind of rambling wherein a reader realizes, with a growing certainty, that the author's intention has been merely to dawdle and haphazardly branch out into topics with little to no substantial connection, occasionally inserting a philosophical musing or two to dispel some of the aimlessness of the narrative but with less than satisfactory results. 'The Pure Gold Baby' is an adherent of the latter kind of intolerable rambling. And Margaret Drabble is an eloquent rambler. It's good to listen to her talking but there's also the moment of irritation creeping in intermittently when one is tempted to abandon reading and wonder aloud 'is this going anywhere?'.

Is this about the perils of motherhood? a feminist take on the dynamics of a mother-daughter relationship? a commentary on mental illness and neurological conditions? a homage to children afflicted by congenital disorders?

I could not fathom. And that's majorly responsible for the half-hearted 3-star rating.

But a few days ago, by a stroke of good luck, I found Margaret Drabble's article in The Guardian on the deplorable treatment of senior citizens worldwide and her well-argued pitch for allowing them to die a dignified death (legalizing euthanasia in other words). And I found the connection with 'The Pure Gold Baby' developing instantly. The concept of growing old is inextricably linked with the idea of growing more and more incapable of being in control of one's life and that's one identifiable theme in this book.

The eponymous pure gold baby, a differently-abled child of sunny disposition who doesn't comprehend the complexities of the world and smiles and stumbles along her way through an uneventful life with the aid of her competent and headstrong mother has very little to do with the narrative but everything described within somehow revolves around her pitiable existence. Throw in the life story of a single mother, some theoretical anthropology, case studies of Zambian 'lobster-claw' children (born with physical deformities), examples of famed winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature with brain-damaged children like Kenzaburō Ōe, Pearl S. Buck and Doris Lessing, top it off with references to Jane Austen's 'mentally ill' brother George Austen and what you get is a jumbled mess named 'The Pure Gold Baby'.

To be fair to Ms Drabble, it is quite an aesthetically put together mess since she surely possesses the ability of fashioning a narrative out of sensitive issues without venturing into drippily sentimental territory. But that's about the only redeeming feature of this mess.
That and the correct usage of the word 'prolepsis'.

**Thanks to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and Netgalley for an arc**

[Elaine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Even minor Drabble is still Drabble. The exquisite delineation of character, mores, setting and nuance is still there, as is the deft taking of the long view - showing how things have changed, or not, in recent human history. And that Drabble specialty that I love - the magpie-like picking up of broad and assorted bits of knowledge (here, twinned themes of explorers/missionaries and the changing characterization and treatment of humans who deviate from the norm, whether it be physical, mental or psychological difference) and weaving them into something quite thought-provoking indeed.

I also enjoyed working backwards through the lifecycle with Drabble. Her most recent book, The Dark Flood Rises, was about quite elderly people dealing with the end of life. In this book, written 4 years earlier, her characters call themselves "old" but are somewhat younger - dealing with retiring, wondering whether they still have a romantic life, etc. I'm going to keep moving back in time!

If I call The Pure Gold Baby minor, it is because the framing device of having a person tangential to the story relate it didn't really work for me. There's a menace to the narration that never quite comes to fruition - why does the narrator dwell so obsessively on Jess and her "special needs" daughter Anna? I guess it wouldn't be Drabble if some major plot development emerged out of that almost creepy focus, but wondering what the narrator was up to was a significant distraction.

[Snotchocheez · Rating 1 out of 5]

Wanna know the best way to land on my one-star list? Easy. Just take a subject that's near and dear to me (e.g. the parenting of special-needs children), title your book with something catchy like The Pure Gold Baby to fish in suckers like me who think they're going to read a moving and affecting story about a special needs child, insert an annoying protagonist (i.e. Mom, Jessica Speight, an anthropologist whose maternal instincts were, we're led to presume, sparked while on assignment in Zambia by witnessing ectrodactylic (i.e. Lobster-Claw Syndromic) children), feature her having an affair with a married professor, have her get knocked up and conceive the titular "pure gold baby" (i.e. Anna, a daughter with an undetermined (though possibly autism-related) disorder rendering her "slow" and "feeble"), make Mom look like a saint of a mother, yet throughout the novel have her rue the advancement of her career and the diminution of a social life because of the encumbrance of parenting said "pure gold baby"...

A recipe for disaster.

Add in Margaret Drabble's ridiculous decision to have the Golden Mom's friend narrate the story of mom and child (a narrator who is barely ever present in Jessica Speight's life, yet is omniscient to every detail of it, which obviates the need for dialog {really: there might be a grand total of ten lines of dialogue in the entire novel, most of them spoken by minor characters with little or nothing to do with the "plot"--if there even is one} and allows the reader no feelings of sympathy, empathy, disgust...any feelings whatsoever for any of the characters in the book), not to mention Dame Drabble's generous dollops of dull, uninspired archaeological factoids, and mere lip service to special-needs parenting...and there you have it: straight to my one-star shelf. Blecch.

[Dale Harcombe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some of the writing in this stops me in my tracks because it is so beautiful or so utterly apt a description. Here is one example. ‘It was one of those grey monochrome February days when the road and the skies flatten and join and spread to a discouraging infinity.’
The story is told from the point of view of Nellie who is friend to Jess. As a result of her affair in the 1960s with a married man, her professor, Jess becomes pregnant and ends up single parent to Anna. But Anna is not the same as other children. It’s an interesting look at how people react to those who don’t fit the norm because of some disability.
The back blurb says,’ the pure gold baby will raise your spirits and break your heart.’ Sadly, it didn’t have that effect on this reader. While I feel inadequate making any criticism of this great lady of Literature, I found this to be part of the problem – that I never felt I really got to know or become involved in the lives of Jess an Anna. There was always a remove as if there was an invisible barrier between me and the characters.
It rambles into a lot of tangents and topics, including friendship, anthropology, parenthood, social changes in society, growing older and some reference to known literary figures and their families, like Jane Austen, Peals S Buck, Doris Lessing and Arthur Miller. While much of this was interesting, yet for all of that at times I found it hard to keep reading and needed something lighter to read at the same time. Perhaps this description of Anna best describes my thoughts to the book. ’She was becalmed. There was no story to her life, no plot.’ In a sense that same comment could be applied to the book as a whole. It remained for me a picture of events, rather than an engaging read. So while I enjoyed the writing at times and it was filled with a lot of information and description of getting older and of social changes, I never felt emotionally connected to the characters. I'm prepared to concede others may view this book differently

[Paul Fulcher · Rating 3 out of 5]

A beautifully written book - but somehow a little unsatisfying, indeed perhaps deliberately so.

The main character Jess gives up her anthropology career to care for her child with development problems - the "Golden Baby" Anna.

She instead becomes, as another character describes her, a social anthropologist of the area of North London in which she lives.

And the best part of the books is Margaret Drabble's observations - as told through the narrator and indirectly Jess - of the changing life in London over the last 40 or so years. Changing attitudes to motherhood, child rearing, society and most pertinently treatment of mental health issues.

However the author has made two key editorial decisions that, while understandable in terms of what she is trying to achieve, can make it a frustrating book to read.

The first is to tell the story at one remove, via a friend of Jess, one whose life is hinted at but never really explored. This choice of a relatively minor character in the book as narrator of the main characters' lives was I think a deliberate one - first as a form of anthropology itself, but most importantly to enable the narrator to trace her own changing attitudes and put herself in the place of the characters at the time. For example there is a lovely line after a meal that "cholesterol hadn't been invented in those days" and a very contemporary reference to the seeming innocence of childrens' TV that no longer appears so.

The second decision is that of a deliberate absence of any real plot in terms of Anna, indeed that's the crucial message of the book. "There can be no plot of Anna, she can't develop" as Margaret Drabble said at a recent book reading and she said she deliberately avoided plot devices suggested to her by people with whom she discussed the book, such as a seduction of Anna or an arranged marriage.

But as the narrator says "Anna's condition was not very interesting except to Jess. It lacked drama and progress and the possibility of a surprising or successful outcome". This passage comes about a third of the way through the book and rather serves as a warning for the reader.

The crucial message of the book and Anna's life is that life can be sad, it may lack drama - happy endings or even unhappy ones. But that it is still human life.

But as I said at the outset that makes for a deliberately rather unfulfilling book to read.

[philosophie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ενδιαφέρον αλλά όχι εξαιρετικό, ή καλύτερα, καθόλου αξιομνημόνευτο.
Οι άπειρες παρεκβάσεις κατέστρεφαν την ατμοσφαιρικότητα της διήγησης μιας ιστορίας που ούτως ή άλλως, στη βάση της, δεν είχε ιδιαίτερες αρετές, δεν πρόκειται δηλαδή για ένα έργο μοναδικό ή πρωτοποριακό θεματικά. Σύγχυση προκαλούσε, επίσης, η έλλειψη δομής, ιεράρχησης της διήγησης, καθώς αφηγητής ήταν μια γειτόνισσα-φίλη της Τζες, που πολλές φορές μιλούσε για τον ίδιο τον εαυτό της, αποσπώντας την εστίαση απ' την ουσιαστική πρωταγωνίστρια του έργου. Η απουσία κέντρου βάρους, ενός πυρήνα πλοκής, έδινε την αίσθηση πως η συγγραφέας δεν είχε κάτι ξεκάθαρο στο μυαλό της, δεν ήθελε να γράψει αποκλειστικά για ανύπαντρες μητέρες, για τη δεκαετία του '60 στην Αγγλία, για παιδιά με προβλήματα, συνέθεσε λοιπόν ένα κομφούζιο, διασκεδαστικό μεν, κουραστικό μετά από λίγο δε.
Η μόνη ποιότητα του έργου ήταν η γραφή της Drabble· μαγευτική πρόζα, θα μπορούσα να διαβάζω επί ώρες την αξιολάτρευτή της φλυαρία.

[Sheri · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is my first Drabble and I am disappointed. I have had her on my to-read list for a while and was excited to pick this up off the e-shelf while browsing the other day (didn't even need to use e-reserve!). And after having just finished Lessing's The Fifth Child (interested to see that Drabble mentions Lessing in this novel and says that Lessing had a mentally handicapped child, this is trivia of which I had not been previously aware), the topic seemed relevant. Unfortunately, I was not impressed. This is the kind of novel that circles and circles and makes lots of allusions and is "smart" and "thought-provoking", but has no real verve. Ultimately, it just felt flat to me.

The baby, of course, is Anna. Single mother Jess has mentally-deficient Anna and despite it all Anna is a pure gold baby. She is the type of baby (and later adult) who is always smiling, always eager, and always happy. Even though Jess has been dealt a tough hand, Anna is good and worthwhile; she is pure gold and Jess is happy in her role of motherhood.

Drabble explores the parallels (without oblique references) between motherhood and slavery; between freedom and colonialism; between mental handicaps and oppression; between aging and death. She leads the reader in a round-about way to think in terms of similarities between different kinds of limitation (self-imposed, legally-imposed, physically/mentally-imposed) and for this her work is strong. However, she is very repetitive. She discussed Livingstone (and his racist/colonial/domination/slave-ownership) and the horrors of poor quality mental health facilities over and over and then even some more. She mentioned the "mum is dead" problem for dependent children at least 5 times, when I felt that maybe once would have done more.

In short, "Anna, as we have seen, made no progress at all. She was becalmed. There was no story to her life, no plot. The concept of progress did not apply to Anna." And so, the concept of plot or progression did not apply to this novel either. This is a story of stagnation (one in which Jess searches for meaning and connection to people with hand deformities) in essence it is a character piece, but in actuality the two main characters (Jess and Anna) and their relationship remain stagnant throughout. In that way, it is almost a Waiting for Godot of a novel; the reader is invited to a post-modern commentary on the evils of modern life through the development of a rather bland story of a middle-class educated white woman and her mentally deficient daughter.

That said, Drabble does make some interesting commentary on modern life. My favorite was her comment on the change in public morals:"Decency is an artefact, and has failed to save our culture or centre our sexuality, so maybe, she speculates, an overflowing of what used to be called obscenity will. Battered and drenched by massive earth-shattering orgasms, we will all be purified."

Overall, I would not recommend it. It is short, but repetitive and boring. I will pick her up again as I have heard so many good things, but I am hoping that her other stuff is better.

[George · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. A compassionate, sympathetic, interesting character based novel about Anna, a child with intellectual deficiencies, who is a happy child, always willing to smile at the world around her. Her mother Jess, is in her 20s, living in North London. Jess is taking care of Anna by herself, with a little help from friends.

The narrator is someone who is very familiar and has an indirect friendship with Jess and Anna. She is an observer and Jess doesn’t know that the narrator is writing about herself and Anna.

A story about family, friendship and a neighbourhood.

There is not much plot momentum. The novel can be a little dull at times, but there is a lot of information about caring for a child with intellectual deficiencies.

The narrator writes that most couples with such a child are likely to break up. Author Pearl Buck had only one daughter, Carol, uneducable and beyond help. As Buck grew rich and more famous, she adopted other daughters and founded homes and institutions. Arthur Miller ignored the existence of his Down’s syndrome son, placing his son in a home. Kenzaburo Oe writes obsessively about his physically disadvantaged son.

A thought provoking reading experience.

This book was first published in 2013.

[Νατάσσα · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ενδιαφέρον, καλογραμμένο - υπέροχες περιγραφές. Ενδιαφέρουσα ιστορία, μου άρεσε που την τοποθετεί στο Λονδίνο του '60 και του '70 και το περιγράφει.

[Cynthia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Story with an Agenda

I love Margaret Drabble. I didn’t love “Pure Gold Baby”. It’s about a mother/daughter relationship beginning in the ‘60’s. Jessica is a professional woman and unmarried when she has Anna which was unusual at the time. Also unusual is that she doesn’t immediately reveal who Anna’s father is and seems to delight in single parenthood. And then there’s Anna’s situation. She’s mentally challenged. Drabble uses this to explore the history of mental health care in Britain beginning with the ‘60’s to the current time. The book loses its personal focus when it strays to the political implications surrounding this issue. It verges on being preachy.

As always with Drabble the writing itself is exemplary. I enjoyed the description of the community and how they banded together for mutual support when their children are small as well as how some of the friendships lasted into old age. The mysterious narrator, Jess’s friend Nellie, sometimes came across as distant and robbed the story of a personal feel. I kept wishing Drabble had written a scholarly work to get her heart felt points across rather than using a fiction format

This review is based on an advance reader's copy provided by the publisher.
(Disclaimer included as required by the FTC.)

[Mandy · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s quite a while since I read a Margaret Drabble book and I’d forgotten just what a good writer she is, and with this her latest novel she’s certainly on top form. Jessica Speight is a young anthropology student in 1960s London, all set for a successful career, when an affair with her professor leads to an unwanted pregnancy. The arrival of Anna inevitably transforms her life, the more so as Anna is a special baby, a “pure gold baby”, a child who makes particular demands and who brings both much joy but also much sadness to her devoted mother.
Over the decades we follow Jessica and Anna’s story, as the times and attitudes around them change – attitudes to mental illness and mental disability, to motherhood, feminism and careers, to care of the sick and the old and to how we raise children.
This book is a portrait of a family and a neighbourhood and a whole society. It examines how we used to live and how we live now. Drabble has an unerring eye for what it means to be a woman and a mother and a friend, what it’s like to grow old and to see our children age and how it feels to no longer be able to make everything right for them. With many acute and unsentimental observations (Christmas will now always be for me that “frenzied festival of foregone failure”) the novel is a moving and compelling snapshot of a time and place and a tribute to all the women who simply do their best and manage to survive.
Thoroughly enjoyable and a book I heartily recommend.
Thanks to Netgalley for sending me the book.

[Mariano Hortal · Rating 4 out of 5]

Publicado en http://lecturaylocura.com/la-nina-de-...

La niña de oro puro de Margaret Drabble. Secretos de vida

Siempre es de agradecer que alguien se atreva a publicar algo distinto en el mercado editorial (tan previsible en ocasiones); tal es el caso de la última novela de la escritora inglesa Margaret Drabble, hermana pequeña de la grandísima A.S. Byatt, y aún menos conocido que esta por aquí; de hecho si buscáis libros suyos solo podréis encontrar, posiblemente, La piedra de moler, una obra temprana que publicó Alba en su sello Rara Avis. El resto está descatalogado/inencontrable.
La niña de oro puro, que tan gentilmente nos trae Sexto Piso, es su última novela, publicada en el año 2013 y es una elección muy adecuada para mi proyecto de lecturas de este año (enlace); tres personajes son los pilares en los que fundamenta su narración Drabble: Anna Speight (la niña de oro puro del título), Jessica Speight, y un tercer personaje, una narradora innominada, amiga de Jessica. Tres mujeres le sirven para preocuparse de temas referentes a ellas.
Dos párrafos me sirven para presentar a Anna, en el primero de ellos se presenta la cualidad por la que se hace especial: una luminosidad innata que hace felices a aquellas personas que se relacionan con ella además de ser feliz ella misma per se. No importan las dificultades que surjan, siempre consigue sacar una sonrisa ante los problemas:
“La peculiaridad de esta niña pequeña no resultó evidente al principio. A simple vista parecía como cualquier otro recién nacido. Poseía cinco dedos en cada mano, cinco dedos también en cada pie. Su madre, Jess, fue feliz con el nacimiento de su primogénita, a pesar de las inusuales circunstancias, y la quiso desde el primer momento en que la vio. No estaba segura de que fuera a ser así, pero la quiso. Su hija resultó ser uno de esos niños especiales. Ustedes los conocen, los han visto, los han visto en parques, en supermercados, en aeropuertos. Son los niños felices, y una se fija en ellos porque son felices. Sonríen a los extraños; cuando una los mira, reaccionan sonriendo. Nacieron así, se dice una, mientras prosigue pensativa su camino.
Sonríen en sus carritos y en sus cochecitos.
Sonríen incluso cuando están convalecientes de sus operaciones de corazón. Se despiertan de la anestesia y sonríen. Sonríen cuando sólo tienen unas semanas de vida, son del tamaño de un pollo atravesado por una brocheta y tienen cosidos con un hilo los esternones, como un paquetito. Una vez vi a una, no hace tanto, en el Hospital Infantil de Great Ormond Street, en Londres. Cuando me la presentaron y me hallaba escuchando una descripción de su caso y de su situación, abrió los ojos y me miró. Y al verme, sonrió. Su primer impulso, al ver a una extraña, fue sonreír. Era un pequeño bulto de pelo negro, cara colorada y arrugada, como una indita vendada, tan a a gusto en su diminuta cuna. Había salido sana y salva de una complicada operación. Sonreía.”
El segundo párrafo nos revela una realidad muy diferente a la inicial, la percepción de este tipo de dificultades no es sencilla (lo sé por un caso real); pequeñas señales se van sumando para, al final, detectar que la niña es autista; la única que se da cuenta en un último momento es quien siempre la ve, su propia madre:
“Así que fue una conmoción descubrir que tenía problemas.
Era, eso sí, un poco descoordinada y, a menudo, torpe. A veces dejaba caer cosas, o las tiraba, o derramaba el zumo. Pero ¿qué niño no lo hace? Su forma de hablar, quizá, era algo simple y tenía tendencia a repetir expresiones, a veces sin sentido, que le gustaban. Nunca aprendió a manejar el pequeño y achaparrado triciclo de ruedas gruesas rojo y amarillo que había en el parque infantil: no conseguía pillarle el truco al pedaleo. […] Encajaba en el grupo y era aceptada por sus compañeros. A los dieciocho meses, a los dos años, incluso a los tres, sus problemas cognitivos y de desarrollo no eran obvios, […] Nunca parecía frustrarse por sus fracasos, o enfadarse con ella misma o con otros. No molestaba a nadie. A todos nos caía bien. Nadie se daba cuenta de lo diferente que era.
Salvo su madre. Jess, por supuesto, se daba cuenta.”
Jessica Speight, la madre de Anna, es madre soltera, antropóloga de vocación y tiene que afrontar una vida en la que ha tenido que tomar muchas situaciones difíciles (la primera de ellas tener su hija soltera) y que presenta una gran incertidumbre futura por la dependencia de su hija (incapaz de poder hacer todo por sí misma):
“Era lo que hoy llamamos una madre soltera, y eso era algo mucho menos normal entonces de lo que es ahora. Pensamos que pasaría dificultades, a pesar de que su niña era de oro puro.
Era una madre soltera que había interrumpido su carrera profesional, la cual, tanto ella como nosotras, dábamos por sentado que reanudaría más activamente cuando la niña se hiciera algo mayor. Era la clase de carrera que podía continuar, en cierto modo, lo mismo en casa que fuera de ella: leyendo, estudiando, corrigiendo exámenes, realizando labores editoriales en una pequeña revista académica dando una clase extracurricular o dos, escribiendo artículos de periodismo médico para publicaciones del ramo. (Cada vez estuvo más capacitada en la última de estas actividades, y llegó una época en que fue invitada a escribir, más lucrativamente, en la prensa generalista). No perdió el contacto con su disciplina. Era antropóloga por vocación, de formación y de profesión, y consiguió ganarse modestamente la vida con estos expedientes y garabatos. Escribía con rapidez y facilidad, lo mismo a nivel académico que divulgativo. Se convirtió en una antropóloga de sillón, amarrada a la mesa del estudio, dependiente de las bibliotecas. Una antropóloga urbana, aunque no en el sentido moderno del término.”
MargaretDrabbleBW75La narración presenta una perspectiva muy distinta de la que podríamos esperar (el típico narrador en primera persona); la escritora británica escoge una narradora intra-diegética, una amiga de Jessica, incluida en la historia y que cuenta desde su peculiar perspectiva todo lo que le va sucediendo a madre e hija; esta perspectiva borra la posibilidad de una empatía sensiblera pero nos involucra como lectores ya que asistimos igualmente a las dificultades que les surgen:
“Inicialmente, había releído Lolita en busca de representaciones de un amor sin condiciones, obsesivo y exclusivo, algo que también reencontró, como vagamente recordaba, aunque manchadas, pervertidas, manchadas. Hay genio, pero también hay frialdad. El corazón de Jess no puede permitirse cederle espacio a la frialdad. No puede permitirse enfriarse y helarse.
Jess ha entregado la mayor parte de su vida al amor exclusivo, incondicional y necesario. Ésta es su historia, que presuntuosamente me he impuesto intentar narrar. Pero su amor adopta una forma socialmente más aceptable que la del Humbert Humbert de Nabokov, el trágico amante de una nínfula. Jess ha tenido aventuras menos reputadas, pero hasta la fecha ha permanecido fiel a su vocación maternal a través de todas las vicisitudes.
Me he impuesto narrar esta historia, pero es su historia, no la mía, y me avergüenza mi temeridad.”
Y somos conscientes, según avanza la narración, de que es uno de esos narradores poco fiables, que utiliza su prisma para narrar hechos que pueden no ser ciertos, sobre todo cuando habla de sí misma:
“Tal vez fuera culpa, la culpa de los que gozan de salud, la culpa de los normales, la culpa de los libres. Y, sin embargo, no creo que yo fuese culpable. Trataba de ser una buena amiga.
No quiero privilegiar mi amistad con Jess. Jess tenía muchas amigas. Yo sólo era una de tantas. No reivindico que la conociera especialmente, no reivindico ninguna relación especial.”
Poco importa esta poca fiabilidad, ya que gracias a sus ojos podemos reflexionar sobre la condición femenina y la forma de afrontar temas diversos que van desde la responsabilidad y el sacrificio hasta la maternidad; asistimos con estupefacción al hecho de darnos cuenta de que Anna no vivirá una evolución. Siempre será igual. En ella no se verá una historia, sino un momento congelado de su vida:
“Anna, como hemos visto, no evolucionó lo más mínimo. Se quedó inmóvil. No se podía hacer un relato de su vida, no había trama. La idea de evolución no era aplicable a Anna. Sucedían cosas, pero no le afectaban. Dentro de su círculo hubo algunas crisis inesperadas, como la melodramática detención y condena de Joshua Raven, pero no tuvieron impacto en Anna, aunque la conmovieron.”
Su punzante mirada nos revelará, a través de su desconocimiento, el nuestro propio, nunca podemos saber todo de cada persona, incluso de aquellas que están más cerca de nosotros:
“Dios mío, qué barriada. No conocemos, no podemos imaginar, las vidas de nuestros conciudadanos. Viven tras una cortina de desconocimiento, tras una nube de desconocimiento.”
Si bien es cierto que, entre tanta calamidad, encontramos un atisbo de esperanza futura, está claro que las historias de mujeres cada vez cobran mayor importancia, buena muestra de ellos es precisamente este libro:
La-piedra-de-moler“No suele agradarme ese simbolismo tan crudo y público, pero la energía de esta pieza era abrumadora. Me impactó como La belle Heaulmière me había impactado a los diecisieta años. Me había estado esperando.
No habría estado expuesta cuando yo tenía diecisiete años. Las esculturas femeninas, las historias de las mujeres eran menos valoradas entonces.”
Al fin y al cabo, la narradora es lo más parecido a nosotros como lectores, es por ello que tenemos la sensación de estar observando una historia muy íntima, podría ser la de cualquier persona que conocemos, con lo que conocemos y con lo que desconocemos, llena de secretos:
“De modo que ésta es la historia de Jess, y la historia de Anna. Las dejaré en mitad del aire, pero sabrán que aterrizaron a salvo, o yo no habría sido capaz de contar su historia aquí.
No he inventado mucho. He especulado, aquí y allá, he inventado algunos diálogos, pero se sabe cuándo lo he hecho porque se nota. Hace mucho que conozco a Jess, y a Anna la conozco desde que nació, pero aun así habrá cosas en las que me he equivocado, que he malinterpretado. Jess y yo hablamos mucho, pero no nos lo contamos todo. Hay cosas de mi vida de las que no sabe nada, y ella también tiene sus secretos.”
Un secreto que quizá no seamos capaces de contar, como la amiga de Jessica, incapaz de revelarlo, pero que nos dice más de la persona de lo que podemos imaginar.
“La foto que Bob le hizo a Jess en cuclillas junto a las tumbas de Cacerola es extraordinaria. Ella no sabía que él la iba a hacer. No sabe que yo he estado escribiendo esto. No creo que sea capaz de decírselo nunca.”
Un libro que se convierte en sí mismo en una revelación, donde cobra más importancia aquello que no ha sido revelado o nos falta por saber. La vida continúa.
Los textos provienen de la traducción de Antonio Rivero Taravillo de La niña de oro puro de Margaret Drabble para la editorial Sexto Piso.

[Laurie · Rating 5 out of 5]

In a novel that spans 50 years, from the early 1960s to the present, Margaret Drabble follows the lives of Jess and her daughter Anna, the pure gold baby of the title.

Jess was a budding anthropologist planning on doing field work in Africa when she became pregnant by a married man. Putting her career aside, she becomes instead a free lance writer so she can stay home and support and raise her child. At first Anna is seen as a perfect child; never cranky, never colicky, always cheerful. In a few years, however, it becomes clear that she is developmentally delayed, never to learn to read or do numbers, always to remain a child in mind. A very self possessed child, though; she seems to be ever calm and even unwilling to upset others, especially her mother, with her problems. All the people around her go through turmoil and change, Anna remains the still heart of the storm. The story, in fact, does not seem to be so much about her as about relationships and obligations that swirl around her as she remains her mother’s anchor.

Anna’s preeminence in Jess’s life obvious; she dumps lovers (and she has very few of them) if she feels they interfere with her relationship with Anna. Other people are background filler: Anna’s father who goes nameless until late in the book; the first person narrator about whom we know just as little and who also goes nameless until late in the story; the husband who Jess moves out of her house after just a few months but who stays in her life to help with Anna; a sort of satellite, a body with little gravity and pull.

Drabble explores many things in this novel; motherhood, friendship, commitment, the treatment of the mentally ill, aging, feminism, and more. While there is little action, the book is dense with themes. For such a quiet book, it was gripping to me and I couldn’t put it down.

[Amy Warrick · Rating 2 out of 5]

I kept getting the feeling that Margaret Drabble made a bet with her publisher that she could write a book in which NOTHING HAPPENS so well that I would eventually finish it. She won; I hope the stakes were big.

This is a book about a single mother with a developmentally delayed?disabled? what's the correct term these days? daughter, the sunny, good-natured pure gold baby of the title. It's told by a close friend, and sometimes reads like an erudite conversation...the friend tells about how Jessica did C, and D, without knowing how E would affect her life, but wait, there was first B which needs to be explained, oh, and A, so let's move on to F, but remember that E thing? it was really nothing, so, here we are at M. This rambling narrator also comments often that she wasn't sure if her interpretation of events is correct, which would be how any of us would tell the tale of somebody else's life, but we wouldn't wrap it up in a book, and sell it.

Yeah, my metaphor is disjointed and actually goes nowhere, which is this book, on a nutshell. it is an interesting look back in time, London and academia in the 70s, but has the feel of a "you had to be there" nostalgia.

Yes, yes, she's a talented writer, but if this book had a point it went sailing over my head.

[Daphne · Rating 4 out of 5]

I should have a shelf called" I didn't like it when I started it and then I couldn't put it down". This would be on that list. It's not really a novel,it's an elderly women getting things out of her system.

[Ana RLQP · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 ⭐️ No es una novela al uso, quizás a caballo con el ensayo.Tal vez por eso sea recomendable leerlo con tranquilidad.Pero es un libro hermoso. Hace reflexiones interesantes sobre la maternidad, la amistad, la vejez y sobre el cuidado de niños especiales. Me ha encantado.

[Israel Montoya Baquero · Rating 2 out of 5]

Me quedo, con diferencia, con la Drabble de los relatos cortos.
Completamente frio (y aburrido) me ha dejado este libro...

[Eve · Rating 1 out of 5]

I never abandon books three quarters through but I couldn't subject my brain to any more of this ableist, racist crap!

[Carolyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have followed Margaret Drabble's novels over the course of her career. She is just a little older than I am and each of her books has spoken to me at the age she was writing and I was reading them. To go back now and read an earlier novel, however, does not work for me.

This recent novel tries to be both contemporary and historical - or historical in a personal sense. The narrator tells the story of Jess and her daughter Anna (the 'pure gold baby'). The narrator was a friend to Jess and to Anna when they were young parents in the 60s and has followed their lives with interest. Anna is a beautiful baby but it emerges gradually that she has limited capacity to learn and develop. Anna's diagnosis is never clear - perhaps she is meant to represent all children with disabilities. There is an empty quality to Anna that makes it difficult to empathise with her as a character.

Jess on the other hand is well drawn - an intelligent woman who manages to maintain herself and Anna as a desk-bound anthropologist even though she would dearly have loved to follow her career in the field, particularly in Africa.

Apparently Drabble has based this story on an actual friendship with a woman with a disabled child. She uses this starting point to explore how attitudes and social mores change over the decades, the role of women and mothers and more broadly the issue of mental illness and incapacity.

I had fluctuating feelings as I read this book, sometimes feeling very involved and at other times distanced from the characters and issues by the tone of the authorial voice. I'm pleased to have read it but it won't feature in my favourites - among Drabble's work or novels more generally.

[Xenia Germeni · Rating 4 out of 5]

Τι ακριβως να γραψω η ταπεινη αναγνωστρια; Το λατρεψα!! Η μεταρφραση της Κ.Σχινα εξαιρετικη, αν σκεφτεί κανεις οτι η Drabble πε��ιγραφει σαν χειμαρρος..Η Τζες -η ηρωιδα του βιβλιου- ζει ολα οσα συμβαινουν στην Βρετανία κατα διαρκεια των δεκαετιών '60 και '70. Η Drabble στηνει ενα μωσαικο του βρετανικου κόσμου εκεινων των δεκαετιων που ολα ανατρεπονται και ολα αμφισβητουνται. Η κόρη της Τζες, η Αννα, που ειναι ενα "μωρο απο ατοφιο χρυσαφι", ενα "ιδιαιτερο" πλασμα, μπορει να φαινεται στη σκια της μητερας της Τζες, ωστοσο η ιστορια και "ιδιαιτεροτητα" της σκιαγραφουν και περιγραφουν πως αντιμετωπιζονταν -τοτε και σημερα- οι "διαφορετικοι" (οι αλλοι/οι εταιροι) απο την κοινωνια των φυσιολογικων...Στο παρελθον, σαν μεταπτυχιακη φοιτητρια κοινωνικης ανθρωπολογιας και ιστοριας βρεθηκα αντιμετωπη πολλες φορες με το ιδιο ερωτημα...Τι είναι "άλλος"; Εγω τι ειμαι ; Η αγωνια της Τζες μανας-κοινωνικης ανθρωπολογου-γυναικας ειναι αξιοθαυμαστη και συγκινητικη! Η περιγραφη του ταξιδιου στην Αφρικη ειναι μαγευτικη -αλλα ισως να κουρασει καποιον ασχετο και με το αντικειμενο! Οσο για την Drabble ξερει πολυ καλα να σε βαζει να σκεφτεις και να αντιδρασεις στο κατεστημενο και στις δομες του. Μην το διαβασεις εαν δεν σου αρεσει η κοινωνικη ανθρωπολογια, η λογοτεχνια, η Βρετανια, το βρετανικο χιουμορ και οι "άλλοι".

[Sarah AF · Rating 1 out of 5]

There are books that feel like a chore to read and then there is The Pure Gold Baby which deserves its own category of reading misery.

I struggled to understand what the point was. If you're wanting to tell the story of an educated, ambitious single mother in the 1960s bringing up a child with SEND then why are you telling the story from the perspective of a neighbour which keeps the reader at a massive distance? If you're wanting to tell the story of how it was Much Better In The Olden Days™ when communities pulled together then at least give the community some structure and perhaps don't glorify and simplify a child - then woman - to being smiley and pliant when she was actually an individual with feelings, desires and experiences.

It was rambling, meandering and if there was a bigger message to take away from this book then I was either too bored to grasp it or it just went entirely over my head.

[Joan Colby · Rating 5 out of 5]

On the surface, this is a novel about a woman with a retarded child. But, as with all Drabble’s books, the plot is incidental. Her magic is to admit us seamlessly into the lives of her characters—their actions, thoughts, ruminations, griefs, and the asides she shares with their brilliantly apt insights. Drabble could write the phone book and I would read it with pleasure.

[Rahul Singh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Early this year, I read my first Drabble through her tantalising short story collection. I was enamoured by her writing and imagination. I had bought this book right then planning on reading it immediately but one thing led to another and I read it now. This was a 2013-book, a late one and I felt it was more intensely thought-provoking. It straddles the pulls of an academic discipline and a story of a mother-daughter to encapsulate the imagination with which Drabble works. Jess, an anthropologist decides to leave academia after her postgrad because she has an affair with one of the professors and that results into a child, her daughter, Anna. But Anna is not the child Jess was. There is a peculiarity even Jess cannot pinpoint. It reminds her of the babies, the pure gold babies (I found this a bit racially dramatic), she had seen in Africa when she was there for her fieldwork. Upon suggestions, she decides to pack her daughter off to a school for the specials. The story is told through a friend, a neighbour of Jess who is a mother herself. We follow the observations of this neighbour as she carves out Jess's affairs, failed marriage, her friendships and her obsession with deformity in various forms in an academic way. Frankly, I found the last part a little weak. I was looking forward to a more anthropological insight into discussions of disability, race, gender or class but it read more like a literature graduate's thesis than an anthropologist's. Somewhere the novel was lost in its academic interest. It would have been best to make Jess a literature graduate than an anthropologists because the author did not do her research that well on the anthropological line, I feel. But the story as such was moving and emotional. There was a certain resignation to the prose that made itself felt in its echoes. It stays with you. And you are suddenly enraptured in the story without feeling dramatically amazed. It was slow, tenuous at times but the novel is felt more strongly when you let it go. I don't know if I make myself clear, but I am sure you get the drift. I do look forward to reading more of Drabble.

[Elizabeth Sulzby · Rating 3 out of 5]

Finally, A Margaret Drabble Book I Could Read

I have tried to get into a book by Margaret Drabble a few times over the years. Finally, I found one that I could follow to the end. The Pure Gold Baby, as a title, is a strange choice since Drabble only lets Anna, the baby with some kind of strange cognitive (and a bit, physical) disability inhabit a minor part of the novel. Anna appears to function as a part of a way way of letting an adventuresome young women, Jessica (Jess) have a part of a life narrated by a part of a "friend." The first 4-ish pages tell of an adventure by a "she" who is on an adventure, somewhat anthropological, in a part of Africa which the reader is certain will be important through the rest of the novel. The term "proleptic" is used in the first sentence: "What she felt for those children, as she was to realize some years later, was a proleptic tenderness."

I first came upon the term "proleptic" in a graduate seminar by A.D. (Don) Hirsch at the U of Virginia before his first (obnoxious) book on education and writing first came out. With Hirsch, proleptic devices are those devises which are used to relate clauses/sentences/paragraphs to each other according to the author's intention. SO (so is a proleptic term with little meaning except to say, "Hey there guys I am going on talking") Hirsch helps us to understand them (proleptic terms). "In this context" (another proleptic devise), "them" means these kinds of terms. BUT (another proleptic term) in this novel the term proleptic seems to mean only "in the future." And "in the future" in this novel is a strangely both down to earth and etherial notion. In the earth, on the soil, in the swamp, and around rivers and streams. Etherial notions in people's brains--including those that we learn keeps Jess tied to England and dreaming of Africa and the forked toed children.

"Jessie has a baby, cain't work no more," as the song goes except that Jess does continue to "work" after her golden baby is born. But (proleptic device, shucks, you recognize these now, so I will rarely point them out) her work, instead of being traveling to other exotic lands or going back to Africa becomes writing about other people's adventures or the other lands as seen by other people. We are told that she writes academically approved pieces as well as "everyday reader" pieces but we are shown no evidence of her knowledge that earned her a Ph.D. We are told that she has a beautiful young girl baby and that she is so dull as not to notice that her daughter lags behind other babies in development, excused by having "Doctor Spock" as her guru.

WOW, I did not realize until I began writing this how much I hate this "lead character," Jess. And that may be the fault of our faulty guide, the "friend" narrater. The book drones on and on about, first, how much Jess dotes on her sweet Anna. Then we are TOLD, not shown, how much the two are intertwined, while Jess gets into a new love affair/marriage which has little life at that time and not later at the end of the novel when "husband" Bob, the step father becomes a part of the two-some of Jess and Anna. In fact (proleptic device), Jess's relationships with the men in her life are all TOLD, not shown, even when Bob is "on stage." This is an amazingly passive novel and yet it gripped me and kept me reading to the end.

The "big idea" of The Pure Gold Baby is a sad, passive one and not really one about the "baby." Jess the MOTHER TO BE had a big adventure in life early on, going to a rarely experienced part of Africa in which she sees and is enchanted by children with toes that are both fused and afterward split. We are supposed to believe that she is moved by these children and that, somehow, some Eff-ing how, she later uses this vision in her relationship with her baby born "out of wedlock" before that was fashionable in London--and other parts of the middle 20th century.

We are drudged through the early years in which every one of Jess's friends has a baby and in which "golden" Anna does not stand out as a "special child." Later when Anna's developmental delays and differences become apparent, we the readers do not really get much of a picture of that except that Anna has difficulty learning letters and numbers. Our insights into her learning and problems with learning are equally muddied as the novel goes on.

I think the author had in mind that the reader would just accept the mysterious difference of this English child and then accept the fact that Jess, the mother, would simultaneously become a relatively well paid author of scientifically based prose and a stay-at-home mom who is so fused with her child as to give up her life. Yet Jess re-marries and sends Anna off to a boarding school, a la the picture of British middle to upper class life. Anna shows up as Jess's tag-along to a couple of abandoned institutions where Jess has either worked or has had friends work. The big "a-ha" in this novel is Jess's realizing when Anna is an adult "of indeterminate age" that Jess can return to the same part of Africa where she saw the strange children of her youth. But (proleptic device) things are not the same AND (proleptic device) we are taken into Jess's view but not her real forms and processes of learning.

I was drawn into the story throughout The Pure Gold Baby but I was angry with the story, especially at the end, looking back. I felt I had been toyed with as a reader. And the only reason "the pure gold" baby was called that was that she seemed at first to be beautiful and to remain beautiful. WTF? What a mis-leading metaphor. Anna, the "developmentally delayed" child/woman, is an okay character in an okay novel. But a novel with beautiful pieces, lovely sentences, great bits and pieces.

[Evi Routoula · Rating 4 out of 5]

Η Τζες Σπέιτ, ανύπαντρη μητέρα, προσπαθεί να μεγαλώσει την κόρη της, Άννα στο Λονδίνο των δεκαετιών του 1960 και του 1970. Η Άννα πάσχει από διανοητική καθυστέρηση και η Τζες αγωνιά για το μέλλον της. Όλα αυτά τα μαθαίνουμε από την αφήγηση της γειτόνισσας και φίλης της Τζες.
Υπέροχη περιγραφή της αγγλικής πρωτεύουσας μέσα από πέντε δεκαετίες. Το βιβλίο δεν μένει μόνο στο πρόβλημα της ανατροφής της Άννας, αλλά τονίζονται ιδιαίτερα οι αλλαγές της μόδας, της νοοτροπίας, της μετανάστευσης, των οικονομικών συναλλαγών, της πολιτικής μέσα σε όλα αυτά τα χρόνια. Όποιος έχει επισκεφτεί το Λονδίνο παλιότερα και τώρα, καταλαβαίνει τις διαφορές και το κλίμα που περιγράφεται.

[Amanda B · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5⭐️ This was very nearly a 5⭐️ for me. I thought it was beautifully written about topics I’m interested in. I understand why it’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but it worked for me 😊

[Juliet Del Rio · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book should not have been named The Pure Gold Baby, nor should it say it focuses on motherhood.

About 20% of this book deals with Jess's journey raising her special needs daughter, Anna, who along the way is referred to as an "idiot-child" and "feeble-minded" but never diagnosed with anything definitive.

This book is full of speculative ramblings that abruptly jump around and most irritatingly are incredibly repetitive. I understand it's written from an aging point of view reflecting on the transformations of life, but it didn't make for an enjoyable read.

The story tried to handle too many topics. One paragraph you're getting an in-depth lesson on famous anthropologists and their contributions to studying African communities, then you're learning about the history of care for those with mental health issues throughout England, then back to learning disabilities, then building up characters in the community who simply go through life meeting success and suffering then death. So much time is spent developing these topics and neighborhood characters, and for what? It all adds up to nothing. I found the connection to tie it all together to be very weak and felt very little investment in the numerous side characters' lives.

Drabble has a very advanced vocabulary and some beautiful one-liners, but that shouldn't be confused with good storytelling. There was no plot besides the small events of an average life. Just when you think there is a climax in the last 50 pages, it is easily resolved. Jess doesn't even have real revelations on the meaning of life. She makes up events to justify her need for causation. Truly, the narrator says, "I shouldn't have written this, I hadn't the right." I found a close friend being the narrator for an incredibly personal story to be an odd choice.

I picked up this book to study mother-daughter relationships for a piece I'm writing. I walked away with no knowledge. The book focuses on Jess's life, her misplaced blame on Anna for thwarting her budding career, her obsession with the lobster-claw children. The term Pure Gold Baby had no impact on this story, it was about Jess's career and love affairs and a community of mothers aging together. Had my expectations not been set to a tender novel about a single mother's struggles raising a daughter with a learning disability, perhaps I would have given it 3 stars. Maybe.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Margaret Drabble is so well-known that I am embarrassed to confess that I have read only two of her extensive oeuvre of 17 novels, just The Millstone (published in 1965 and unsurprisingly still in print because it is brilliant) and The Witch of Exmoor (1996) which I wasn’t so keen on. Still, it didn’t put me off buying The Seven Sisters (2002) and The Red Queen (2004) and snapping up everything on offer at the Op Shop: The Realms of Gold (1975); The Radiant Way (1987) and A Natural Curiosity (1989). The Red Queen and The Radiant Way are both listed in 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die. I just haven’t got round to reading them.

Now, however, I’ll be moving them up the pile. The Pure Gold Baby (as you could perhaps tell from the Sensational Snippet that I posted last week) is every bit as good as The Millstone and has reminded me what a great writer Margaret Drabble is.

Drabble has tackled an unsexy subject and made it utterly compelling. Amusing, wise and wry, The Pure Gold Baby tells the story of Jess Speight who has an ill-advised student affair with the professor at her university, and has a baby who is ‘not quite right’. Drabble traces this quiet story from the late sixties and seventies to the present through the eyes of one of Jess’s contemporaries, which enables a forensic dissection of changes in British life over time. Nellie, now in her seventies, shares a ‘getting of wisdom’ over their shared lifetimes, with all the nostalgia, cynicism, wisdom and (usually) graceful resignation that you will recognise if you listen to women of this age group.

Nellie is a wonderful creation. Ostensibly telling Jess’s story, she is also telling her own. Her nostalgia is for their shared youth, their innocence, their liberating ignorance about many things, and their stout opinions about this or that

To read the rest of my review please visit http://anzlitlovers.com/2013/12/08/th...

[Chaitra · Rating 2 out of 5]

I can't make up my mind if I thought this book was ok or if I actually liked it. I think I'm leaning towards the ok side at the moment. It's my first Margaret Drabble, and I wish I'd taken up something with a better following than this one. No matter - there was nothing in the writing itself that put me off. It was more the story and the characters.

I understand that it's a poignant enough story, the book makes the point academically. But it just never grabbed hold of me or touched me in any meaningful way. It's too distant from the poignancy it describes. What was life like for Jess and Anna? How would Nellie (the narrator) know, what with her perfectly healthy and perfectly decent boys? Nellie isn't the greatest narrator for this purpose - she's too diffuse, she's too much in awe of the mother-daughter bond between Jess and Anna to actually get close with it. It can't have been sunny all the time, pure gold baby or not. Jess must have felt frustrated, there must have been times when Jess must have railed against the unfairness of it all - that's never mentioned. Not once. If Anna is the pure gold baby, Jess is the pure gold mother. What's the point of an unrelentingly positive view of what is pretty much a horrific condition?

That's probably the reason I couldn't much care for Jess' character - she's idealized too much for her to be a real person. The rest of the characters are background noise mostly, including Narrator Nellie. They might as well not have been there. The prose was ok, but without a solid base of characters and/or plot, the prose can't do much to elevate the book. A disappointment. 2 stars.