Juggling

by Barbara Trapido

Sparky Christina and her saintly adopted sister Pam couldn’t be more different. Raised in New York, they are sent to boarding school in England where they meet the similarly mismatched friends Jago and Peter. The four embark on a dazzling series of pairings and partings, outrageous coincidences, and eleventh-hour entrances. Their camaraderie is interrupted one disastrous Halloween when schoolboy revelry turns horribly wrong. Three years on, as Christina analyzes the wit, cruelty, and crossed genders of Shakespearean comedy, the cast of her own life reunites and the curtain falls on some gloriously unexpected partnerships.

"Why did it take me so long to discover the singular joys of Barbara Trapido’s novels? Why, for so many years, had I missed these witty, soulful, heartbreaking, expansive, brilliant tales? I have become a literary evangelist on her behalf. On account of my badgering, all my friends now love her, too. I won’t rest until everyone in America has read (and fallen in love with) this fabulous author." --Elizabeth Gilbert

Genres: Fiction, Ebooks, Coming Of Age, British Literature, Audiobook, Literary Fiction, Contemporary

320 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1994

Reviews

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wasn’t sure about this one as I haven’t read any Barbara Trapido before; but it was actually rather good. It is a sequel apparently, but works as a standalone very well. This is all about Shakespearean comedy; which is to say it’s all rather tragic; in a light and comedic sort of way.
Trapido serves up twins separated at birth, a defrocked priest, misplaced siblings, coincidences that are Shakespearean in concept, switched and transposed parents, blurred genders, rape, incest, religion, English public schools, fathers and daughters/sons, finding your mum snogging your English tutor’s wife and Trapido juggles all these balls and more in a very adept way.
Juggling in this context has the Elizabethan meaning of to play tricks or deceive; a sort of sleight of hand. In the middle of a book one of the characters writes an essay on Shakespearean comedies which is reproduced in full and is brilliant: the point being;
“The Tragedies are Tragedies and the Comedies are Tragedies. The Comedies are a better sort of tragedy because they make us laugh and because the characters stay alive.”
And;
“In the conflict of gender, the women win the war of words, but the men will win the battle. The women win on points, but the men are the people who have the points. They have the last weapon against the last word. They have kisses and penetration.
Peace, I will stop your mouth
Women are made to bear and so are you.
The tragedy of the Comedies is that while sex draws men and women together, gender draws them apart. This is the terrible contradiction.”
Trapido’s plots plays brilliantly with all of this in what is essentially a coming of age tale. The plot is really too complex to try to explain, but is simply told and easily followed. It does help to have something of a grasp of Shakespeare’s Comedies because there are so many references and parallels.
I don’t really understand why Trapido is not better known; this is good stuff.
4.5 stars

[Kate · Rating 2 out of 5]

'Juggling' is a book that I quite enjoyed reading, but that I'll ultimately forget. It'll sit on my book case gathering dust, and I'll eventually donate it to charity. For all the praise I've read for Trapido's writing, I didn't see it too well. I felt it was quite naive, and almost childish at times. Perhaps I'm being too critical, but I kept expecting something amazing and profound to jump out at me, something about relationships and family (the novel heavily focuses on both, the an extreme, you could argue) that would stick with me for days, but unfortunately nothing.

I do think that Trapido is very clever though. To the point where upon finishing, I found myself calling her a 'very clever author'. One of the repeated points int he novel is Shakespearean plays, comedies and tragedies; so it's of no surprise that the novel plays out like one. Towards the end I actually found myself getting annoyed by it though. Things became altogether too silly and nonsensical for my liking (did the genre suddenly shift to fantasy?) and I felt it was rushed and clumped together. As if the author inspired to create a shattering Shakespearean ending, but could only piece together a dull, everything-in-its-place epilogue. I wonder, upon finishing, if the author named the book so because of this?

On the other hand, she does create very likable, very well-rounded characters. I found the shift in protagonist fresh and interesting, and it kept surprising me. I found myself guessing at what would happen, and constantly being proved wrong. That was very refreshing. It's a shame that Peter, my favourite character, wasn't explored more, but that could be my bias showing.

[Melinda Worfolk · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the best ways I can describe reading this book is that you get on the horse at the beginning and it takes off at a gallop. You are flung off the horse at the end, so you stand up, look around, and try to make sense of the journey you've just been on!

This is what happens when you put a bunch of holds on Overdrive and forget about them. When Juggling came in, I could not remember why I had put a hold on it, but there it was, so I read it. Happily, I was not disappointed. Trapido is a talented writer and her prose is funny, prickly, and energetic. There are deliberate allusions to Shakespeare's mistaken identity comedies, and the plot of Juggling is accordingly convoluted. It's not a five-star read for me simply because I wasn't crazy about some of the weird coincidences (and in all honesty I am already starting to forget some of the story--all that galloping), but I really enjoyed it overall.

[Colin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I usually love anything by Barbara Trapido, but for some reason that I can’t quite put my finger on, I couldn’t get on with Juggling, despite having loved Temples of Delight, the book to which this is the sequel. There’s no denying that her writing sparkles with wit and is full of energy and verve, but this Shakespearean comedy of errors, bizarre coincidences and larger than life characters just wasn’t for me at this time, probably because it’s the sort of book that would benefit from a good long initial go at it, rather than the few minutes here and there I was able to give it. It’s in the category of MTAL: Might Try Again Later.

[Carla]

Fast-paced, witty, but ultimately less satisfying than its (truly wonderful) predecessor Temples of Delight. The faith and magical qualities of the former are now replaced by a somewhat cynical comic spirit-- and what was touching before becomes somewhat ordinary. Some of the plotting seems forced, too. There's a masterful whirlwind wrap-up of juggled partnerships, but because we haven't seen any of them develop, they seem unpersuasive.

[Frances Wheare · Rating 2 out of 5]

Juggling, the third book in my Barbara Trapido re-read project, revisits Alice Pilling, her husband Joe, and their two children, Pam and Christina. The sisters end up at a boarding school run by Alice's ex-boyfriend Roland, where they meet and become entwined with Jago and Peter.

SPOILERS AHEAD

Ugh. This book. I always remember it being my least favourite of this loose series, but I thought that was because of Christina getting together with Roland. Her headmaster. Her mother's ex-boyfriend. Who is twenty years older than her. In fact, it's because it's pretty badly written. It feels like Trapido was trying to do too much, bring in too many stories, and in doing so just skates over huge numbers of details. Like WHEN did Alice even meet Judith, Christina's ??landlady (the details are unclear), let alone get to know her well enough to kiss her? What happens to Jago when Christina and Pam leave school, and how does he end up back with Pam? What's with all the hints of incest between Judith and her brother? It's just shoddy writing. And don't get me started on the insanity of Christina running away from home and happily living with Dulcie, a girl she had JUST MET (who ends up getting together with Christina's mother because - reasons??? and is just waved into Cambridge midway through the term????) Not to mention the pages and pages dedicated to reproducing Christina's essays, which could perhaps have been better spent, I don't know, developing the characters and furthering the plot? Such a frustrating book, which only gets two stars out of fondness for Barbara Trapido.

[Mme Forte · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm afraid I just don't get it.
There's an undercurrent of Shakespeare running through this, and his plot contrivances are mentioned on at least one occasion, and if this whole thing is meant to be an homage of sorts to that, then I get it.
I don't like it much, but I get it.
We have a saintly "angel" who occasionally floats above the ground (or above the covers -- I picture it like Sigourney Weaver in "Ghostbusters") and can stop people doing violent or bad things. He appears mainly in the background so he isn't around to stop a rape but fetches up in a friend's bed to tell her that he's in love with the twin brother of the man she's loved for years. (Yes, the whole plot is like this.)
Coincidences abound and everybody is related somehow and if you can keep it straight, congratulations. I couldn't. Probably because I wasn't invested enough to put in the mental work. I didn't hate this, I just didn't CARE.

[Roshin · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars. The book is written as though it's a Shakespearean comedy plot-wise but set in the modern day (published in 1994). The story, as a result, is completely ridiculous. If you're into that, you might enjoy it. I did manage to finish it (and I don't finish books that are too awful) so it's not terrible, and perfectly readable. But not for me.

[Vansa · Rating 1 out of 5]

I really enjoyed Temples of Delight, and was looking forward to reading more of the characters' lives. If Trapido loosely used 'The magic flute' as a thread through 'Temples of Delight', this book takes a look at Shakespeare's plays called comedies, and explores the idea that a lot of very awful things happen to the characters, and sometimes strange characters are introduced at the end to neatly resolve things. The only reason for them being given the misnomer of 'COmedies;, as a character in 'Juggling' argues, is that the body count is low and doesn't include the protagonists! That's a really interesting idea and when I stopped to think about it, it's very true!
The book wouldn't work as a standalone, and suffers from that. It starts with ALice now the mother of 2 teenagers-CHristina, and her adopted daughter Pam, who's Jem's daughter. There's a huge cast of characters ( very SHakespearian), including ALice's ex-boyfriend and his family, who intersect with Alice's family all the time. I found her handling of some things flip-and here's a trigger warning for sexual assault, that I wish I had before I read this book! She seems to dismiss it as just another incident in someone's life, and a character who could have something to stop it ends up being a love interest for the survivor, at which point I wanted to fling the book into the bin. ( THis is something she reuses in other books as well, Trapido has strange ideas about sexual assault). Christina is one of the main protagonists, and she was completely unbearable-completely selfish but the author wants you to think she's merely headstrong( another character trope she reuses). A pet peeve of mine is when authors contrive a complete change in a character's economic circumstances, from comfortably middle class to working class, and then just write it off as something very easy to handle. In this case, Christina decides to estrange herself from her parents and moves in with her friend's family, a Black girl and "pay her way". We're not told if her friend's saintly mother even wants that, or an additional, extremely irritating teenager in the house. Of course,why would that be important. This book was such a disappointment. It's a testament to how much I loved 'Brother of the more faous Jack', that I keep persevering with Trapido's work

[Sandy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fast-paced read. Rather than follow a conventional narrative arc, this book “juggles” an at times baffling number of characters before weaving their stories together. There were points when I would have liked to explore one character’s story a bit more (a lot happened: a rape, childhood killing, various affairs …). But Barbara Trapido kept a lot of balls in the air so not much time to dwell on a single story until she wrapped them all up in the epilogue.

Relatable characters, entertaining, sets a cracking pace - but I’d probably give it a 3.5 if I could.

[Helen · Rating 1 out of 5]

I appreciate the cleverness of this, but I felt the conceit of reflecting Shakespearian comedies got in the way of empathy with the characters and a credible plot. There were plot points such as the way the rape of a 16 year old schoolgirl seemed to be treated with a blase lack of outrage and was dealt with bizarrely in my view. I did not enjoy the reading experience and felt the majority of characters were simply self centred cyphers. A bit of a pointless and narcissistic enterprise for me.

[Catsalive · Rating 2 out of 5]

Tedious, irritating & repellent; I didn't get along with this farcical nonsense. Perhaps, if I'd read Temples of Delight, I'd have liked this one more; or, if I'd read it 20 years ago when it first started hogging shelf-space, I'd have appreciated it; but now I'm just glad to get rid of it.

[Leah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think maybe this was just one big gigglingly uproariously humorous riff on Shakespeare? Anyway it reminded me equally of AS Byatt and Diana Wynne Jones and all the best parts of going-away-to-college stories and it was highly enjoyable.

[Tanjabb · Rating 1 out of 5]

Den fangede overhovedet ikke.. Orkede ikke at høre den færdig.. Men at dømme efter diverse reviews, må det hænge sammen med oplæseren.. Hun var virkelig søvndyssende og yderst uengageret.. Det kan nok dræbe enhver bog..

[Jane Gregg · Rating 4 out of 5]

So clever. All the Shakespearean comic allusions need their own special: twins - born and made separated and rediscovered, false friends, false parents... oh ... and rape, incest and Cambridge. It’s wild ride alright.

[Evan James · Rating 4 out of 5]

loved the writing. perhaps a little too "tricky" in the 3rd quarter but a strong finish!

[Liz Lou · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautiful conclusion to Temples of Delight and the interwoven nature of relationships. Or, a story on the preponderance of soul mates.

[Maxime · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can't recommend Barbra Trapido enough. Clever, silly, Shakespearan riots on paper.

[Lyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love Barbara Trapido’s books and I did enjoy reading this. But...the ending was absurd and really let the whole story down. I was very disappointed.

[Amanda · Rating 3 out of 5]

There may have been too much juggling in this book.

[Katie Peachey · Rating 3 out of 5]

I absolutely love trapido’s writing style but this book was absolutely bonkers (though I think that was the point)

[Dan Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very suspenseful book, full of turn and juggling.

[Rita · Rating 4 out of 5]

1994, her fourth novel, said to be a sequel of her third [Temples of Delight]. I'll want to be reading her first three novels!

This book was delightful to read and I'll need to read it a second time; there's lots in it. Lovely language.

Good, credible characterization of the egotistical, manipulative, overly charming father, who dominates every room he's in. As well as a teenage boy of approximately the same mold, also a main character.

This book has more main characters than most, though there is just the one that we follow throughout the book. Very little time is 'wasted' on descriptions of landscape, so we have all that time to 'be with' the characters.

One of the characters is dark-skinned, presumably of Caribbean parentage, and this offers the chance for Trapido to introduce just a couple of racist incidents/comments. [a good thing to do]

Checking back to reviews of some of her other novels, I see she sometimes does have characters reappear in another novel. And several themes can be found in more than one of her novels -- e.g. two sisters very close in age, divorces of parents, step-parents. A child in the family dying young.

Having many many different characters seems to be another characteristic of Trapido's books. Of course we can't get to know most of them well, yet they all go to make a more convincing tapestry or mosaic. [I just read one of Oates's shorter novels where aside from the two main characters we feel there is nobody else around at all. I suppose that's more focused, but it seemed impoverished as well.]

This book has an Epilogue, which tells us how all the characters ended up years later. Did the publisher request this addition? It makes it seem so Victorian.

QUOTES
112 'They [the old and the young narcissist, on first meeting] bounced off each other, talking with animation and cracking the air with their bursts of laughter.'

'...Alice [who sees through the narcissism] was saying, with a slightly brittle volubility,'

'[The narcissist] had won this woman his wife] with the extravagant landscapes of his mind'....'captivating tyrant'

124 'Christina continued to yearn for Jago....Pam had none of these problems. She possessed no power to change herself and no awareness of any need to do so.'

306 '..It had all been an experience not to be missed. But the energy that it had consumed! All that constant hammering of oneself into something which one was not.'

[Dave Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

http://electrichalibut.blogspot.com/2...

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

Much better than Temples of Delight, although maybe that’s just because I’d gotten use to her style of writing. Amazing how the characters and storylines are intertwined, with a Shakespearean theme running through it.

[Clarissa · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5☆

[Buchdoktor · Rating 4 out of 5]

In "Jonglieren" treffen zahlreiche Personen aus komplizierten Familienverhältnissen aufeinander - neudeutsch: Kinder aus Patchwork-Familien. Christina ist die leibliche Tochter von Alice. Ihre ältere Schwester Pam wurde als Neugeborenes von Alice und Joe adoptiert, nachdem das Drama um den Tod von Pams Mutter das Paar an deren Sterbebett überhaupt erst zusammengeführt hatte. Joe ist der Verleger der Verstorbenen. Die Geschichte der ungewöhnlichen Familiengründung erzählt Mutter Alice ihren Töchtern wie ein Märchen. Die Mädchen sind im Alter weniger als ein Jahr auseinander und Christinas Eifersucht auf die Erstgeborene ist nur zu verständlich. Schon früh wird Christinas Drang deutlich, Gleichaltrige zu dominieren und aus der Enge ihrer Familie auszubrechen. Pietro, der Jongleur, dem sie so gern nacheifern würde und den sie zum Beinahe-Vater ehrenhalber ernennt, wartet mit einer ähnlich komplizierten Herkunft auf. Als Kind kennt Christina die Verbindung zwischen Alice und einem Mann namens Roland Dent noch nicht, die durch Pietros Herkunft bis nach Frankreich reicht. Durch eine Begegnung mit Internatsschülern entschliesst sich Joe spontan, seine Töchter auf das englische Internat dieser Jungen schicken. Die Schule nimmt noch nicht lange Mädchen auf, ihre Strukturen sind stark durch männliche Rituale geprägt. Christina findet im Internat ihr aus "Der Herr der Fliegen" bekannte Gruppen-Beziehungen vor. Herrscher und Meinungsführer der Schüler ist Jago Rutherford, dessen Kontakt zum eigenen Zwillingsbruder durch die Trennung seiner Eltern abriss und der unbewusst auf der Suche nach seiner verlorenen schwächeren Hälfte zu sein scheint. Der Neuanfang im Internat ermöglicht Joe und Alice ein Leben ohne Kinder; die Mädchen können sich endlich mit Gleichaltrigen messen, nicht wie bisher nur mit der eigenen Schwester. Die Beziehung zwischen der allgemein bewunderten Christina und Jago könnte die Verletzungen des wilden, unglücklichen Jungen heilen, würde bei Jagos Ersatzzwilling Peter jedoch neue Wunden reißen. In einer Halloween-Nacht kommt es zu einer Gewalttat unter den Internatsschülern. Mehrere Personen wollen - mit besten Absichten - dem Opfer helfen, in eigener Hilflosigkeit verschlimmern sie die Sache jedoch. Was gut gemeint war, sprengt die ohnehin komplizierten Beziehungen.

In Rückblenden in die Kindheit werden die Familienbeziehungen gleich zu Beginn der Handlung aufgefächert, so dass man ähnlich wie in einer Krimihandlung Details sammeln kann, die zu einer Lösung führen könnten. Das Thema Herkunft läuft wie eine zweite Spur neben der Handlung. Wie die eigene Entwicklung von der Nationalität der Eltern beeinflusst wird, das Wissen über die leiblichen Eltern, wie auch die Situation von Stief- und Halbgeschwistern laufen wie ein roter Faden durch die Handlung.

Die bis dahin so spannende Handlung hebt leider im letzten Drittel des Buches ab, sie zerfasert an dem Punkt, an dem ich lieber wissen wollte, wie es dem Opfer der Gewalttat inzwischen geht. Chrissie, vom Kinderbuch "Madeline" und von "Herr der Fliegen" geprägt, arbeitet inzwischen als Studentin über Shakespeare - Barbara Trapido schwelgt deutlich in literarischen Bezügen. Durch die Beziehungen zwischen sehr vielen Personen, sowie die intertextuellen Bezüge war "Jonglieren" für mich ein mit feinem bis drastischem Humor beobachteter, sehr fordernder Familien-Roman, der sicher bei der zweiten Lektüre weitere Seiten von sich preisgeben wird.

Die im Berlin Verlag (ISBN 978-3833303104) und vorher bei Goldmann erschienene Übersetzung Jonglieren. wurde für diese Ausgabe überarbeitet.

[Peter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good dancing dialog and an excellent central character- Christina. A web of characters with intersecting lives coalesces into neat little clusters. Although I thoroughly enjoyed the writing style the last third fell flat- the threads winding together was just too neat, and a bit creepy. There was also a silly floating thing that must be meant to mean something, but as i don’t know what it is I found it simply annoying. 3.5, nowhere near "Brother of the more famous Jack".

[Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve never read anything by Barbara Trapido before. Well, that’s not quite true – I tried to read Frankie and Stankie and just couldn’t get to grips with it at all. But I found Juggling in a charity shop and thought Barbara Trapido’s reputation had at least earned her another try. And how I loved this book! The cast of characters demands advanced juggling skills – the edgy Christina, her adopted sister Pam, the ethereal Peter, the slightly dangerous Jago and a vast cast of other characters like the exotic Dulcie, Christina’s pushy dad Joe, the fragrant Alice, the bohemian Judith, the unfrocked priest, the long-lost twin. The plot is labyrinthine, but handled with a deft lightness of touch – and some of the most wonderfully quirky language. The parallels with Shakespearean comedy – and tragedy – are explicitly drawn. The story ranges through religion, the academic world, childhood, sexuality, religion and more. Parts are shocking, parts are laugh-out-loud funny, others are unutterably sad. And the drawing together of the story threads at the end is satisfying, shocking and wonderfully appropriate. I was expecting dry erudition, but instead I enjoyed a highly entertaining read. Why did I leave it so long?

[Kathe]

I read Juggling for the first time soon after it came out in 1994. Loved it then and loved it even more this time, which is lucky as my book club will be talking about it tomorrow night. (It was my turn to choose the book.) We'll also be discussing the prequel, Temples of Delight, which I reviewed here recently as well.

I love novels with stratified plots and characters who surprise me. Juggling delivers on these and many other counts. I'm a Shakespeare nut, so that helps with a lot of the references in Juggling. There's a Horrendous Event right in the middle that I'd forgotten about, but it's central to the plot so I forgive the author.

If you've never read any Trapido, read Temples of Delight first, then Juggling, as T of D provides a lot of the background for understanding the characters and why they are the way they are. The ending is extremely Shakespearean, complete with reunited twins and characters changing partners. In the hands of a less skillful writer, it would probably seem hokey, but no - it's wonderful.