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The Needle's Eye
Simon Camish, an embittered, diffident lawyer in a loveless marriage, would not have particularly noticed Rose Vassiliou had he not been asked to drive her home one night after a dinner party. Yet at one time she had been notorious-her name constantly in the news.
Now, separated from her Greek husband, she lives alone with her three children. Despite all the efforts and sneers of her friends, she refuses to move from her slum house in a decaying neighborhood to which she has become attached. Gradually, Simon becomes aware that Rose is a woman of remarkable integrity and courage. He is drawn into her affairs when her husband takes legal action to reopen the question of custody of the children-a scheme for getting his wife back. And, while the precise nature of their ties eludes him, Simon comes to realize that Rose and her Greek ex-husband are forever and inextricably bound to each other.
Now, separated from her Greek husband, she lives alone with her three children. Despite all the efforts and sneers of her friends, she refuses to move from her slum house in a decaying neighborhood to which she has become attached. Gradually, Simon becomes aware that Rose is a woman of remarkable integrity and courage. He is drawn into her affairs when her husband takes legal action to reopen the question of custody of the children-a scheme for getting his wife back. And, while the precise nature of their ties eludes him, Simon comes to realize that Rose and her Greek ex-husband are forever and inextricably bound to each other.
444 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1972
36 people are currently reading
734 people want to read
About the author
Margaret Drabble
160 books508 followersDame Margaret Drabble was born in Sheffield in 1939 and was educated at Newnham College, Cambridge. She is the author of eighteen novels including A Summer Bird-Cage, The Millstone, The Peppered Moth, The Red Queen, The Sea Lady and most recently, the highly acclaimed The Pure Gold Baby. She has also written biographies, screenplays and was the editor of the Oxford Companion to English Literature. She was appointed CBE in 1980, and made DBE in the 2008 Honours list. She was also awarded the 2011 Golden PEN Award for a Lifetime's Distinguished Service to Literature. She is married to the biographer Michael Holroyd.
Drabble famously has a long-running feud with her novelist sister, A.S. Byatt. The pair seldom see each other, and each does not read the books of the other.
Drabble famously has a long-running feud with her novelist sister, A.S. Byatt. The pair seldom see each other, and each does not read the books of the other.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 66 reviews
May 20, 2025
This book has a rather old-fashioned feel to it and apart from the odd topical reference it could pass for earlier than early 70s. It reminded me a little of Iris Murdoch - middle class eccentrics behaving strangely.
The book has two unhappy marriages at its heart.
For much of it events of greater significance seem to be about to happen but Drabble seems to like her characters too much to allow anything really nasty to happen to them. For all that I found this one enjoyable to read.
The book has two unhappy marriages at its heart.
For much of it events of greater significance seem to be about to happen but Drabble seems to like her characters too much to allow anything really nasty to happen to them. For all that I found this one enjoyable to read.
July 14, 2015
As implied by the biblical illusion in the title, this is about people uncomfortable with wealth and the practical and emotional hurdles they go through to try to find happiness.
The main character, Rose, is an heiress trying to dispose of her money and also fighting a custody battle against her ex-husband. Simon, the lawyer who befriends her (not her actual lawyer for the case) has a similar distaste for money, but for very different reasons. There is plenty of thoughtful pondering by both, and the complex dynamics between Rose, her ex, Simon and his wife is intriguing and often unexpected.
When I first read this, maybe 15 years ago, I was struck by the similarities between Rose and someone I know. Rereading it, but with a more mature eye, that still holds true and gives it an extra edge for me, but I'd still recommend it to those that don't know anyone so like Rose.
The main character, Rose, is an heiress trying to dispose of her money and also fighting a custody battle against her ex-husband. Simon, the lawyer who befriends her (not her actual lawyer for the case) has a similar distaste for money, but for very different reasons. There is plenty of thoughtful pondering by both, and the complex dynamics between Rose, her ex, Simon and his wife is intriguing and often unexpected.
When I first read this, maybe 15 years ago, I was struck by the similarities between Rose and someone I know. Rereading it, but with a more mature eye, that still holds true and gives it an extra edge for me, but I'd still recommend it to those that don't know anyone so like Rose.
August 28, 2016
I found this to be a rather strange book.
Continuous prose with the odd gap, I much prefer chapters!
Written in a Jamesian style which I found difficult to get in to but once I did it was a compelling read.
Although I found it hard to like any of the characters.
It's about ordinary life of people of different classes!
As to the ending, well it just stopped!
Continuous prose with the odd gap, I much prefer chapters!
Written in a Jamesian style which I found difficult to get in to but once I did it was a compelling read.
Although I found it hard to like any of the characters.
It's about ordinary life of people of different classes!
As to the ending, well it just stopped!
December 4, 2011
Our yearning for meaningful novels, for novels that will truly change us for the better, is so constantly thwarted that when we come upon the work of a contemporary who has written such a work our first reaction is astonishment. It is something we no longer expect. We have lost faith in many of our imaginative writers; we have begun to look elsewhere for the experiences that only the novel--when it is at its best--can really give us.
Margaret Drabble's "The Needle's Eye" is an extraordinary work: It not only tells a story deftly, beautifully, with a management of past and present (and future) action that demonstrates Miss Drabble's total mastery of the mysterious form of the novel, but it succeeds in so re-creating the experiences of her characters that we soon forget they are fictional beings (perhaps they are not. . . ?) and we become them, we are transformed into them, so that by the end of the novel we have lived, through them, a very real, human and yet extraordinary experience.
I feel as though Drabble was my mother's generation's Franzen. This was so deftly done - it is meticulous and exhaustive at times, reading about the mundane lives of the people who have clawed their way into wealth and those who have rejected and fallen from it. The characters are constantly floundering to express and articulate their ideals.
October 18, 2022
An extraordinary novel that takes the familiar cliche of an unhappily married middle aged barrister and his increasing affection for a divorcing woman into new territory.
Drabble uses this plot device to explore issues of faith, morality , language , power, class and psychology as the two protagonists find their lives more and more enmeshed. None of the characters are perfect and it's from these imperfections that a resolution of sorts finally emerges. We come to understand the relentless machinery of the law is seldom the best way to resolve conflict and that wealth, power and indifference can corrupt and stunt as much as poverty and impotence. Better to be surprised by the ability of humans to act with kindness and trust despite their inner hurts and turmoil.
It's a very English novel, pre Thatcher, when issues of public good, service, faith , sacrifice and duty were front and centre of individual concerns. A final emotional throw back to the post war aspirations of the chattering classes in the welfare state set in a London which, in part, had pockets of affordable and ordinary life. It's impossible to imagine these same people in today's world of neo capitalism , where the immediacy of social media and it's relentless facilitation of conflict would have shattered the fragile vessel within which some sort of answer was fashioned.
Above all it explores the limitations of words and language . Both protagonists are aware that words can be used as private and public weapons and that deep harm can come from apparently arbitrary moments when used legally or for profit by newspapers . A particularly disturbing episode where a complete misunderstanding in language results in assault is foundational to understand Rose's angst, distress and passivity . But as readers , we also come to realise at the novels climax , that language is an imperfect vehicle for describing the complexities of our adversaries and we do ourselves a disservice by stubbornly cleaving to comic book stories with ourselves as hero or victim and the other as villainous and degraded . Like the very best writers Drabble forces us to re-examine our own polarities and morals by bringing a forensic emotional intelligence to the table of this clichéd plot device and rendering it new .
My only quibble is that the dense self reflection of the two protagonists was relentless. I yearned from some light relief from their respective spouses or children.
Drabble uses this plot device to explore issues of faith, morality , language , power, class and psychology as the two protagonists find their lives more and more enmeshed. None of the characters are perfect and it's from these imperfections that a resolution of sorts finally emerges. We come to understand the relentless machinery of the law is seldom the best way to resolve conflict and that wealth, power and indifference can corrupt and stunt as much as poverty and impotence. Better to be surprised by the ability of humans to act with kindness and trust despite their inner hurts and turmoil.
It's a very English novel, pre Thatcher, when issues of public good, service, faith , sacrifice and duty were front and centre of individual concerns. A final emotional throw back to the post war aspirations of the chattering classes in the welfare state set in a London which, in part, had pockets of affordable and ordinary life. It's impossible to imagine these same people in today's world of neo capitalism , where the immediacy of social media and it's relentless facilitation of conflict would have shattered the fragile vessel within which some sort of answer was fashioned.
Above all it explores the limitations of words and language . Both protagonists are aware that words can be used as private and public weapons and that deep harm can come from apparently arbitrary moments when used legally or for profit by newspapers . A particularly disturbing episode where a complete misunderstanding in language results in assault is foundational to understand Rose's angst, distress and passivity . But as readers , we also come to realise at the novels climax , that language is an imperfect vehicle for describing the complexities of our adversaries and we do ourselves a disservice by stubbornly cleaving to comic book stories with ourselves as hero or victim and the other as villainous and degraded . Like the very best writers Drabble forces us to re-examine our own polarities and morals by bringing a forensic emotional intelligence to the table of this clichéd plot device and rendering it new .
My only quibble is that the dense self reflection of the two protagonists was relentless. I yearned from some light relief from their respective spouses or children.
January 22, 2012
In the '60s and '70s I read Margaret Drabble's novels over and over. Amazed by the gripping narrative where nothing much seemed to happen - how did she do it? Her characters seemed to be my people, my generation. There is one particular passage in The Needle's Eye when I really wondered if she was writing about me! (of course not .. but what a skill to make me feel that). Not sure what happened. Perhaps she just 'grew up'. But from The Radiant Way onwards I never managed to relate to her later books in the same way. I still re-read her early novels. Still love and admire them.
August 29, 2010
This is only the third Margaret Drabble novel I have read, and first published in 1972 it is also the earliest. At the centre of the story of The Needle's Eye is Rose Vassiliou a complex woman who has spent much of her adult life splashed across the pages of the country's newspapers. Renowned as an heiress who gave away her money and married a man against her parent's wishes, we meet Rose in her thirties, divorced, with 3 children and living in a run down house behind Alexandra Palace from where it is impossible to get a taxi. At a dinner party held by mutual friends while his wife is away, Simon Camish an unhappily married lawyer meets Rose and is asked to give her a lift home. It is during this journey that Simon becomes drawn into Rose's complicated world, when he agrees to look over some papers for her concerning the custody case brought by her ex husband. What Simon soon comes to realise is that Rose's relationship with her former husband is far from simple, and many of the decisions Rose makes in the course of the novel are rooted in her peculiar relationship with him. Ultimately many of the relationships are altered by Simon's involvement in Rose's life.
1970's London is one of the stars of this book, I felt I got a real sense of it - and I don't mean the smart trendy London, but the ordinary streets, the corner shops and the harrassed working class mothers. Margaret Drabble's sense of place is brilliant, as are her characters. Rose is often enormously frustrating and I never could decide whether I liked her or not, but I probably liked her more than I didn't.
July 5, 2014
A great read with fascinating psychological complexity and insight.
The story – as far as there is one – begins at a London dinner party where unhappily married Simon Camish meets Rose Vassiliou, notorious for a scandal Simon can’t quite remember. They strike up an uneasy friendship, based on her asking Simon for gradually increasing favours, many of them related to the fact her ex-husband is sueing her for custody of their three children.
For a novel where not much happens, custody battle notwithstanding, there are lots of interesting ideas about feminism, class, charity, parenting; but most of all this novel has wonderfully complex characters. Simon and Rose in particular are sometimes lovable, sometimes dull, often frustrating and frequently contradictory – very realistically. However, this isn’t entirely a realistic novel. There’s a lot of symbolism and patterns of structure, not least references to the needle’s eye of the title.
- See my full review at: http://www.noseinabook.co.uk/2014/07/...
The story – as far as there is one – begins at a London dinner party where unhappily married Simon Camish meets Rose Vassiliou, notorious for a scandal Simon can’t quite remember. They strike up an uneasy friendship, based on her asking Simon for gradually increasing favours, many of them related to the fact her ex-husband is sueing her for custody of their three children.
For a novel where not much happens, custody battle notwithstanding, there are lots of interesting ideas about feminism, class, charity, parenting; but most of all this novel has wonderfully complex characters. Simon and Rose in particular are sometimes lovable, sometimes dull, often frustrating and frequently contradictory – very realistically. However, this isn’t entirely a realistic novel. There’s a lot of symbolism and patterns of structure, not least references to the needle’s eye of the title.
- See my full review at: http://www.noseinabook.co.uk/2014/07/...
September 2, 2012
The Needle’s Eye by Margaret Drabble is at one level a story of two marriages, the Vassiliou and the Camish. Its focus is on two characters, Rose Vassiliou and Simon Camish who, even at their first meeting, find themselves inexorably drawn to one another.
Rose Bryanston was brought up in an upper middle class English family. The rambling country house in Norfolk figures large towards the end of the book when Rose and Simon make an unscheduled weekend visit to her parents. Rose has married Christopher Vassiliou, of Greek origin, and has settled near Alexandra Palace in north London. They have three children and have separated. Rose has also inherited and has given the money away, taking to heart the Bible’s advice on rich men and the eyes of a needle. Perhaps that’s why Christopher has left her. They are squabbling over the children, as one would expect when rational people, so capable in the area of analysis and reason, apply their powers selfishly.
Simon Camish is a specialist on labour relations and trade unions. He is also a writer and is co-authoring a book on aspects of his specialism. He is also resident in north London and also has three children of his own. He is married to Julie who, despite everything we are told, does not appear to be the kind of person who would fall for a man whose main interest was trade unionism. Her dismissive materialism is often tinged with a barbed anger.
These characters soon begin to develop their obvious penchant for thought and analysis. They seem to be capable of endless, un-paragraphed free association from almost any starting stimulus and leading to any imagined end. And it soon becomes a process apparently without end. Consciousness streams forth in long, unbroken flows, often appearing strangely directionless, sometimes almost repetitive. At times Simon and Rose seem to be so obsessed with themselves that they seek to analyse even the mundane, a process that always endows the mundane with deep, if passing significance. It seems that they seek implications in every catchable breath. Christopher, Rose’s husband, on the other hand, seems to be direct and largely pragmatic, while Julie, Simon’s wife, is often short tempered, dismissive, prejudiced and more inclined to worry about the curtains than the eternal.
By the middle of the book, we are completely engrossed with these people but, to be charitable, we can hardly associate with them. They dwell on every thought, meander through past and future, while apparently taking any present for granted. Rose and Christopher are fighting over the custody of their children, but we feel that they themselves are the only people in their thoughts.
Eventually, The Needle’s Eye does develop its own direction. But it is a long journey and, despite a drive from London to Norfolk, we feel we have travelled very little from where we started. But then life is like that, isn’t it? How many plots do we live? In The Needle’s Eye we share the lives of people, perhaps live them a little. We become participants, not mere observers, but we never really know the characters because they probably don’t really know themselves. I suppose we are different nowadays…
Rose Bryanston was brought up in an upper middle class English family. The rambling country house in Norfolk figures large towards the end of the book when Rose and Simon make an unscheduled weekend visit to her parents. Rose has married Christopher Vassiliou, of Greek origin, and has settled near Alexandra Palace in north London. They have three children and have separated. Rose has also inherited and has given the money away, taking to heart the Bible’s advice on rich men and the eyes of a needle. Perhaps that’s why Christopher has left her. They are squabbling over the children, as one would expect when rational people, so capable in the area of analysis and reason, apply their powers selfishly.
Simon Camish is a specialist on labour relations and trade unions. He is also a writer and is co-authoring a book on aspects of his specialism. He is also resident in north London and also has three children of his own. He is married to Julie who, despite everything we are told, does not appear to be the kind of person who would fall for a man whose main interest was trade unionism. Her dismissive materialism is often tinged with a barbed anger.
These characters soon begin to develop their obvious penchant for thought and analysis. They seem to be capable of endless, un-paragraphed free association from almost any starting stimulus and leading to any imagined end. And it soon becomes a process apparently without end. Consciousness streams forth in long, unbroken flows, often appearing strangely directionless, sometimes almost repetitive. At times Simon and Rose seem to be so obsessed with themselves that they seek to analyse even the mundane, a process that always endows the mundane with deep, if passing significance. It seems that they seek implications in every catchable breath. Christopher, Rose’s husband, on the other hand, seems to be direct and largely pragmatic, while Julie, Simon’s wife, is often short tempered, dismissive, prejudiced and more inclined to worry about the curtains than the eternal.
By the middle of the book, we are completely engrossed with these people but, to be charitable, we can hardly associate with them. They dwell on every thought, meander through past and future, while apparently taking any present for granted. Rose and Christopher are fighting over the custody of their children, but we feel that they themselves are the only people in their thoughts.
Eventually, The Needle’s Eye does develop its own direction. But it is a long journey and, despite a drive from London to Norfolk, we feel we have travelled very little from where we started. But then life is like that, isn’t it? How many plots do we live? In The Needle’s Eye we share the lives of people, perhaps live them a little. We become participants, not mere observers, but we never really know the characters because they probably don’t really know themselves. I suppose we are different nowadays…
September 26, 2014
I don't know what it is with Margaret Drabble and me. I keep reading her books, not finding anything wrong with them, but then also finding myself sliding right off the surface of them and into disinterest. I think it must be me.
This one is holding my interest better than the two I read previously, though weirdly I've been "reading" it forever whereas I ran right through the others quickly and without pausing to read like 20 other books in the interim. In fact, I find since I took it back up that it's been incredibly interesting; the descriptions of the characters (that's really all there is too it, actually) are finely wrought and fascinating, so now I'm wondering why I sort of put it aside to begin with.
Here's hoping I can finish today and move on with my life.
UPDATE: fell asleep a mere 25 pages from the end, so it's today that I finally finish. I find myself incredibly frustrated with Rose and her passivity verging on the self-destructive. And then, just when you think you don't get her, and maybe even a little that you'd like to smack some sense into her, you get a visit to her father complete with elaborate backstory of pyschological trauma dating from early childhood, and you feel bad for wanting to smack her.
All in all I guess I like the parts about class and class relationships better than the parts about Rose's extremely disfunctional marriage, which just made me impatient (at one point a lawyer says that they don't need a lawyer, they need a psychiatrist, and I could definitely indetify with his exhausted and frustrated attitude). Of course these two things overlap a little, but there are some aspects of their relationship which are just icky, and go well beyond any class boundaries.
It's a weird and weirdly involving book, better than the two other Drabble's I've tried.
This one is holding my interest better than the two I read previously, though weirdly I've been "reading" it forever whereas I ran right through the others quickly and without pausing to read like 20 other books in the interim. In fact, I find since I took it back up that it's been incredibly interesting; the descriptions of the characters (that's really all there is too it, actually) are finely wrought and fascinating, so now I'm wondering why I sort of put it aside to begin with.
Here's hoping I can finish today and move on with my life.
UPDATE: fell asleep a mere 25 pages from the end, so it's today that I finally finish. I find myself incredibly frustrated with Rose and her passivity verging on the self-destructive. And then, just when you think you don't get her, and maybe even a little that you'd like to smack some sense into her, you get a visit to her father complete with elaborate backstory of pyschological trauma dating from early childhood, and you feel bad for wanting to smack her.
All in all I guess I like the parts about class and class relationships better than the parts about Rose's extremely disfunctional marriage, which just made me impatient (at one point a lawyer says that they don't need a lawyer, they need a psychiatrist, and I could definitely indetify with his exhausted and frustrated attitude). Of course these two things overlap a little, but there are some aspects of their relationship which are just icky, and go well beyond any class boundaries.
It's a weird and weirdly involving book, better than the two other Drabble's I've tried.
May 30, 2017
A devastating and delightful read in equal measure and in a beautifully understated way. Drabble writes with clear insight into the human mind, both accepting of and concerned with the neuroses that we each carry within us. I loved the subjectivity that her writing style employed as she dipped in and out of the consciousness of Rose and Simon, describing social surroundings through their eyes while also getting lost in their reminisces and ruminations on their past and how it has affected their present. Drabble, a feminist writer who has been accused (by pressed male readers, no doubt) of creating one dimensional or reductive male characters, has proved her detractors wrong with the extraordinary characterization of Simon. Indeed the book has been compared to Henry James' "Portrait of a Lady" which also opens with a scene from the male perspective and continues exploring the fascinatingly unique character of Isabel Archer through the eyes of Ralph. I would say that "The Needle's Eye" is, among other things, a far less tedious and more transcendental version of "Portrait of a Lady". My only complaint with the book would be the change of tone after the trial (when Drabble recounts the events of the following year) because it feels rushed and makes the events sound very contrived in a narrative that is otherwise naturally flowing.
December 30, 2008
This is the first Drabble novel I've ever read, and at first I found her intricate, Jamesian style hard going. But soon I was hooked, and now I am so glad there are many other Drabble books lying ahead of me. Such a serious, meticulous writer. No cheap thrills -- she seems to deliberately steer away from the juicy denouements we *think* are coming. But you feel like you've been dipped in reality and have also been in contact with a first-rate mind. The characters are (exasperatingly) like real people; the scene is painted with the detail of one of those Northern Renaissance painters. There's also much humor, of a very dry, subtle kind.
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August 10, 2025‘Gone and lost, gone and lost. Yes, that was the way it had been. How easy it was to underestimate what had been endured. Oh, how happy now was every creature. For years of my life, Rose thought, I remember it now, I would have changed place with any living thing. One forgets the dreadful pain, the conviction that one is marked. I used to wake in the mornings, at the age of what- nine, ten? -and pray to fall asleep, pray to die in my sleep, pray to be utterly deprived of consciousness. The very stones I envied, for they were innocent, and could neither do nor suffer wrong. How slowly I learned to live, to make myself forget.’
June 26, 2013
Rose Vassilou inherited a fortune, and a family miserable enough to prove that love is more important than money. To make sure her children stay 'normal', she gives her fortune away and chooses poverty, only to have her own normality constantly questioned. When she meets overly-sensitive Simon, he instinctively understands her, and their relationship soon deepens. Yet Rose's selfish ex-husband wants his children back, and the one thing Rose can be sure to do is to put her own interests last.
By examining the ancient question 'Can you be both rich and good?', Margaret Drabble gives us a thoroughly modern and thoughtful look at money, love and marriage.
This is a book that does not date, whose odd characters and their stranger problems resonate through the readers' own life.
By examining the ancient question 'Can you be both rich and good?', Margaret Drabble gives us a thoroughly modern and thoughtful look at money, love and marriage.
This is a book that does not date, whose odd characters and their stranger problems resonate through the readers' own life.
August 27, 2011
I wanted so much to like this book but did not. It chronicled a bunch of stuck, contemptible people who were well aware of their stuckness, and while as disgusted about it as much as I was, utterly incapable of doing a thing about it. As if all was fate. I didn't feel sympathetic to any of them, I just wanted to smack them all. The only reason I'm being generous and giving it two stars is because it wasn't badly written and it certainly addressed the complexity of conflicting ideas and issues. But I kept thinking "so what?!" Drag to read it.
February 2, 2010
Certain Britishers are astonishingly neurotic about their social status and unhappy with their lot in life. But the novel grows on you as you continue and you get used to the nattering. Real virtues are very credible characters, a plot that surprises, and a big worthy theme - how are we to treat other people?
April 21, 2021
Tegelikult oli mul sellest raamatust mälestusi küll, näiteks kuidas eksrikkale, oma rahast loobunud naisele meeldisidki õhukesed paljukasutatud froteerätikud.
Lihtsalt mul ei olnud meeles, et see oli see raamat. Pealkiri ega autor toonud midagi meelde. Ja ma nüüdse lugemiskogemuse järgi ütleks, et see on ikka üsna mööda teos idee pealt "rikastele on asjad nii lihtsad, et nad ei oska kirglikud olla".
Ja mõtlevad liiga palju rahast ja liiga vähe päris asjadest.
Ma ei ole küll kunagi rikas olnud, aga rikkad inimesed, keda tunnen, on sajaga kirglikud (ja vahel kõige uskumatumate tobeduste suhtes - kuidagi blaseerunumad ja kaugemalt asju vaatavad kui vaesed, nad nüüd küll ei ole). (Ja ei, nende kirglikkus ei ole reserveeritud teemadele "õhtusöögi õnnestumine nii seltskondlikus kui kulinaarses plaanis").
Lihtsalt mul ei olnud meeles, et see oli see raamat. Pealkiri ega autor toonud midagi meelde. Ja ma nüüdse lugemiskogemuse järgi ütleks, et see on ikka üsna mööda teos idee pealt "rikastele on asjad nii lihtsad, et nad ei oska kirglikud olla".
Ja mõtlevad liiga palju rahast ja liiga vähe päris asjadest.
Ma ei ole küll kunagi rikas olnud, aga rikkad inimesed, keda tunnen, on sajaga kirglikud (ja vahel kõige uskumatumate tobeduste suhtes - kuidagi blaseerunumad ja kaugemalt asju vaatavad kui vaesed, nad nüüd küll ei ole). (Ja ei, nende kirglikkus ei ole reserveeritud teemadele "õhtusöögi õnnestumine nii seltskondlikus kui kulinaarses plaanis").
July 3, 2019
This book simply wasn't for me. It was slow moving with tedious characters who were just interesting enough for me to shove myself through the story. The ending was a disappointment for me. Perhaps if I was about twenty years older and from Britain this might have been a more compelling read.
December 19, 2022
3.5 ⭐
An elaborate tale of two people with the right feelings and wrong timing in life. The book feels like a saga, for it feels so long with rich characterization but somewhat excessive detailing too that could have been done away with. Nevertheless, it kept me bound till the end!
An elaborate tale of two people with the right feelings and wrong timing in life. The book feels like a saga, for it feels so long with rich characterization but somewhat excessive detailing too that could have been done away with. Nevertheless, it kept me bound till the end!
September 30, 2013
This is the earliest Margaret Drabble novel that I have read to date, (it was published in 1972). I didn't find the subject matter, a child custody case, particularly engaging. But the main characters, Simon Camish and Rose Vassiliou, were fully rendered and fascinating. And I greatly enjoyed the depiction of upper middle class life in London during this period. The scenes from various dinner parties were a fascinating window into a bygone era. There is one dinner party scene where the guests are discussing student radicals and they are faintly embarrased by their own slightly reactionary attitudes towards some of the excesses of the radical student movement. Drabble's writing was excellent as always. Early in the book she writes about past selves and wonders whether they are merely foundation stones for the present self. However, I must confess to preferring some of Drabble's later novels such as "The Radiant Way", "The Witch of Exmoor" and "The Peppered Moth" where I was more fully engaged by the novel's subject matter.
December 22, 2024
One of those books were not a lot happens except a lot of thinking and description - very early on there’s a very intricate description of a door knocker and I thought, this book is gonna be rough going, but it really came through. Simon is super dislikable in the beginning but that’s on purpose - he sorts and I softened to him throughout the novel. Rose is a lovely character and I noticed her ruminating on lots of the same things I’ve been thinking about recently. It took me longer to read than I expected it to but I really enjoyed it :)
October 6, 2014
Mostly good but not as captivating as the first of Margaret Drabble's books that I read, though I will certainly read more. Sometimes it was an interesting and pretty universal story of relationships and money and at other times it seemed like a tired period piece of the early 1970s. Often in books like this I find the everyday details as compelling as the story but somehow here the era just seemed to get in the way. It left me feeling like I'd missed the point really.
December 19, 2008
I honestly found this to be a rather strange book because I still don't know if I actually liked any of the main characters. I'm not even show how much I like the book. One could also say the book just stops. I think the book works because it is about life, about ordinary lives. Perhaps this is what makes the book compelling, or compels the reader though the book, despite the characters.
May 3, 2011
With exquisite dialogue and sheer genius, Margaret Drabble paints a road map of the ways in which our life choices, even the seemingly easy ones, can corrupt the human soul. She offers insights, a great story, and beautifully defined characters, leaving the reader in charge of the rest. Highly recommended. They don't write them like this anymore.
July 15, 2011
I had trouble getting involved with the various characters--they all seemed pretty self-centered and unnecessarily rude. The author makes it clear how Rose , Christopher, and others got the way they are--but it still seems they could have risen above the unfortunate background.
Perhaps she is making a true portrayal of middle-class British society, but it isn't very attractive.
Perhaps she is making a true portrayal of middle-class British society, but it isn't very attractive.
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October 5, 2011I love Margaret Drabble! But after wading through the first 50 or so pages, I had to stop! It rambles on in dreadful self-absorption by characters I want desperately to like and just can't. As it is an early work of Drabble's, I'll just let it go and remember all the great reads I have had thanks to her.
December 12, 2013
One of the few of Margaret Drabble's books that I didn't read when it came out. As always, I find her characters totally believable, and her plots consistent with these characters. Nevertheless, there were times when there was a lot of introspection by the characters, lasting pages. Warmed to both Rose and Simon.
November 6, 2014
I'm not sure about this book. it says a lot about wealth & its effects. about falseness and unhappiness & how much some people will explain bad behaviour away. Simon camish just came across as lazy. he did not love his wife but did nothing about it. he didn't get to know his children but again did not change his actions. he resented most people but i think he mostly resented himself.
March 20, 2016
How I dislike books with page long paragraphs and no chapters. It feels like force feeding or eating lots of dense bread with no water. I won't ever find out if the main character wins or loses the court case with her ex-husband, but the upside is that by then I will be well into reading another book whose characters interest me more.
May 6, 2008
Like all Margaret Drabble, about the minutia of day to day life, a social portrait of the time (1970s) touching on marriage, children, work. The characters experiences and inner lives all very deftly written.
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