Today

by David Miller

August, 1924: John Conrad arrives at his parents' home on the outskirts of Canterbury, where family and friends are assembling for the bank holiday weekend. His crippled mother has been discharged from a nursing home, his brother drives down from London with wife and child. But as the guests converge, John's father dies. Today follows the numb implications of sudden death: the surprise, the shock, the deep fissures in a family exposed through grief. But there is also laughter, fraud, and theft; the continuation of life, all viewed through the eyes of Lilian Hallowes—John's father's secretary—never quite at the center of things but always observing, the still point in a turning world. Today is a remarkable debut, an investigation of bereavement, family, and Englishness, beautiful in its understatement and profound in its psychological acuity.

Genres: Fiction, Literary Fiction

176 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 1, 2011

About the author

Librarian Note: There are more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Reviews

[Sara · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to love this book, but then we could say that about them all, couldn’t we? When did you open a fictional book for any other reason than that you wanted to love it? Authors really have that from us at the get-go. But, I did not “love” this book, and the reason might lie as much in me, in where I am in life, as in the writing of David Miller.

The story is very opaque, with skewed relationships that don’t ever come completely clear. A family is gathering for a son’s birthday, with friends invited for a party, when suddenly the patriarch of the family dies. We are carried through his death and his funeral and introduced to the people to whom he was important in life. However, I always felt at a disconnect. I did not have a single emotional tug. Perhaps the real emotions in my own life are too close to the surface to spare any for the fictionally dead.

In speaking of a cathedral lost in the fog, one of the characters says:

it rattled me–having something I know so well, know as part of my landscape–it simply wasn’t there. It made me think absence is sometimes so much more present than whatever we are looking at now,”

I have felt that kind of absence in the loss of a person.

It seemed alien. All John wanted was to talk with his father, just once more, and for him to say something back.

If you have lost a parent, you will know this feeling all too well. Just one more conversation, about anything, anything at all. But all any of us have is today, and sometimes today is the last thing we will ever have.

I will never know if the disconnect is in this book or in myself. The writing is crisp and terse, but it fits the subject it addresses. The writer is skilled and it seems obvious to me that he is dealing with a subject close to his own heart. Not a bad book or a huge disappointment, just not one that will sear itself into my heart.

[Roberta · Rating 3 out of 5]

Today, di David Miller, è il frutto di un grosso acquisto fatto durante una delle offerte di Amazon sui libri per Kindle in lingua inglese. Non so assolutamente perché l'ho comprato, a dire il vero. Si tratta del resoconto di tre giorni, tre 'today' che ruotano intorno alla morte di Joseph Conrad (sì, lo scrittore): il suo ultimo giorno di vita, il giorno della sua morte, il giorno del suo funerale. Il romanzo è denso di personaggi che ruotano intorno allo scrittore e alla sua famiglia, ma di nessuno viene chiarito nella narrazione il ruolo e il rapporto con JC (che del resto è un grande assente): per questo c'è un elenco iniziale di una quarantina di dramatis personae. L'autore non concede nulla ai suoi lettori, e spesso è difficile inquadrare i personaggi, anche quando abbiamo capito chi sono.

http://robertabookshelf.blogspot.it/2...

[Susan Kerr · Rating 3 out of 5]

David Miller is a local author, Atlantic Books a good press, and I like a slim, literary read so I took a chance on Today. It is most unusual, with short stiff sentences that fit the taut, constrained 1924 social setting. An EM Forster setting, but in comparison Forster flows. Miller is determined to make you puzzle out the many many people, their choppy dialogue, their tangled relationships, their places in this unusual (and it turns out famous) family. I wish he'd written it as a novel two or three times the length instead of working so hard to make it literary.

[Dave Morris · Rating 1 out of 5]

Dreadfully inept. The prose is so convoluted that the author might almost be attempting the literary trick of writing as if English was his third language.

"His dimmed, grey-green pupils..." Pupils? They're black. Miller means irises.

"She had not yet forgotten to buy John a gift for his birthday and planned to remedy that in Canterbury." What, so she planned to finally forget in Canterbury?

"She left her half-filled glass on the bar." Was it really half-filled? Awful pub, if so. But what Miller means is that she only drank half of it.

That's not the only problem. Miller just doesn't know what he's doing. He throws too much inconsequential detail at the reader, too many scenes with no control of pace or tone. "There is more than a hint of Penelope Fitzgerald's crisp classicism in the cool-water purity and freshness of Miller's prose," said the New Statesman's reviewer; "he does terrific things with language, but not blindly." Interesting that they were thinking of the blind use of language, because that's exactly what's going on here.

There are lots of other puff quotes from the Telegraph, the Guardian, the FT. Very likely those reviewers were all clients of the literary agency that Miller ran. Only the Spectator gets it right when they say, the novel "resembles a television drama" -- which, of course, even if they work on screen definitely do not work on the page.

[Elizabeth Carr · Rating 2 out of 5]

well written, but I found it all a bit disjointed and slightly confusing. I can't put my finger on it but some sentences didn't seem to finish amf there were some non sequiturs, I believe. I couldn't get a handle on the relationship between Miss H and John, nor John's age. what I did love were some of the sentences, sublime use of language on occasion, and the description of that murky downtome following a bereavement which is hard to capture in fiction, bringing as it does, less drama and less introspection than the death and the grieving. I am really ambivalent about this book. well written, yes, but also unsatisfied for my tastes. Could have so easily been 4 stars.

[Ali Miremadi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fascinating for the peripheral Conrad trivia. Also moving portraits of his amanuensis, younger son and Richard Curle. I'm glad I found it - sad that was in Miller's obituary in The Times. He was clearly a great Conradian.

[Ruth Walker · Rating 2 out of 5]

It is well written, but I didn't enjoy it, it was a book club read and I found it a struggle to get through it.

[Sandeep Ellawala · Rating 3 out of 5]

My rating is mostly based on the fact that I cannot relate to the story David Miller is trying to tell with his Today. I wish he would have stuck with a fewer number of sub-plots. Of course the life is not as simple as that. But hey, I am reading to experience a version of life that is easier to follow and understand. I thought this would allow me the opportunity to take a peak at a mind struggling to handle grief. Now after reading this I am left with too many questions and I it is kind of unsettling.

Why is Boris acting so cheap at his own father's funeral? Is he like that by nature, or is he really struggling to manage the finances of his family? What was that about him trying to imitate his father's signature before even the warmth leaves his body? Is John sexually attracted to Lilian? Is she? Both father and son? What is going on? The more I question the more ridiculous it sounds. The more ridiculous it sounds the more it allows me to think. I initially rated this with two stars then changed my mind to three stars because this is a story that did not end. It will simply flow till I get bored with my imagination.

[M M · Rating 3 out of 5]

Miller's debut novel is set in 1924 when Joseph Conrad died. His wife is an invalid who faces a life of increasing discomfort and loneliness. His elder son has returned damaged from the Great War and is enraged with his father for being distant, jealous of his younger brother for receiving Conrad's attention, worried about making ends meet for his own young family. The younger boy recalls his father's kindness and cannot imagine a life ahead without the shelter of that love. Conrad's secretary is in the book as well: her mind is not as sharp as it once was, and she has her own memories of the author; but did their intimate work relationship also become an affair? Conrad's great friend Curle, a journalist, is most moved by the passing, and tries to keep the family coherent. The book is strong on details of activity that ensue after the death, activity that wants to take the place of emotion. But emotion is above all in this book, in the fraternal rivalry, in the distance Conrad's wife feels from her own siblings, and in the desolation that Conrad's secretary faces.

[The Bookish Wombat · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't know anything about this novel when I bought it on a £1 shelf in my local branch of Waterstones, but was glad I'd made the purchase when I saw that it was set in Canterbury where I lived for a few years. I must admit that it took me a while to cotton on to the fact that the family portrayed were that of author Joseph Conrad, but in many ways it doesn't matter who it's about as the narrative looks at the events and emotions following a sudden death - a universal subject.

It's a very short novel, more of a novella really, and sometimes feels like something written as an exercise for a writing course. Each word has been chosen with care which can make it feel a little stiff in places, but overall it's a good study of how the individual family members react to the death, and how they interact with each other.

[Tatiana · Rating 2 out of 5]

Forse perchè le mie aspettative erano alte: un libro su Conrad, autore amatissimo, non poteva che
essere un bel libro.
Invece ... il linguaggio vuole essere conradiano, ma non lo è;
i personaggi sono troppi e troppo confusi e la legenda all'inizio non aiuta;
i sentimenti commoventi sì ma un po' banali, il dolore non si sente non si vive non si
percepisce.
Un vero peccato.

[Louise · Rating 2 out of 5]

This felt more like part of a book than an actual book.... a big cast of characters, that I did have to refer to the list at front of book to check who was who.
It didn't really go anywhere, there was no background and no conclusion really as to what happened to the family,just the death and the funeral....that was obviously the point, but it felt unfinished to me.

[Eke · Rating 2 out of 5]

There was so much Britishness in it, maybe a bit even too much for me. I only probably liked the idea of this book, what it's purpose was but the concept of it didn't intrigue me at all and that's probably why it sat on my bookshelf for so long.

[g]

Picking up because of this review http://theasylum.wordpress.com/2011/0...

[Alex Field · Rating 4 out of 5]

http://sophiawhitfield.blogspot.com/2...

[Magda · Rating 4 out of 5]

cold, slow, careful, beautiful as shadows can be

[Michael · Rating 2 out of 5]

At 155 pages, and with more than 35 characters oscillating around the plot, it was tricky through to follow what everyone was doing from sentence to sentence.

[Rakesh · Rating 1 out of 5]

Well, not my kind of book....

[Robyn · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was an interesting exploration of the response of family members and friends to the sudden death of a father and boss, John Conrad, and I felt that the understated responses of the characters, the mundane and the significant thoughts that crossed their minds, were depicted with some insight. However, the book was hard to get into, partly because of its wide cast of characters, partly because the relationships between these characters were somewhat confusing, and partly because of the general lack of warmth displayed throughout the book. The relationship between the son John and his father's secretary, Lilian, holds some interest, as does Lilian's background, and these aspects, together with the significance of the theme, were enough to keep me going till the end, yet if it had been a longer book I'm afraid that I may well not have made it.

[William Peace · Rating 4 out of 5]

Today concerns the gathering of friends and family of Joseph Conrad on a bank holiday weekend in 1924. Jessie, Joseph’s wife had recently been discharged from a nursing home. During the weekend, Joseph dies unexpectedly.

Today, it is written by a man who clearly admired Conrad and his work. But Joseph Conrad, as a living character, never appears in Today. Nonetheless, one feels his remote greatness by the way other characters react to him. Today is a short, historical novel (160 pages) about the passing of a great author in 1924. The setting and the culture of the time are accurately reflected. The writing is fittingly oblique but engaging. The characters, many of whom were real people – including Conrad’s son’s Borys (a disappointment to his father) and the younger, John; his wife Jessie, an ordinary, working-class, English girl, who was 16 years Conrad’s junior, and who was looked down upon by his friends, but was probably the supportive companion he needed. And there is the middle-aged Miss Lillian Hallowes, Conrad’s loyal secretary. At the end, Lillian receives not the typewriter on which she transcribed most of Conrad’s work, but, secretly, from John, the fountain pen by which the original manuscripts were written. Did it really happen? We don’t know: this is fiction.

I would certainly recommend Today. Though it’s subject is death, it is largely about life.