What do you think?
Pub Walks in Underhill Country
Pub Walks in Underhill Country
by Nat Segnit is a cunning, hilarious and heartbreaking novel that takes the form of a guide for walkers but is really a whole lot more . . .
'Start by turning right out of the main entrance of Malvern Link railway station . . .'
So begins Graham Underhill's guide to rambling in the West Midlands. But it is not many yards before Graham has gone completely off track, all but abandoning the route ahead to exult in his love for his beautiful if headstrong wife Sunita.
Along the way Graham treats us to his intemperate views on mountain bikers, litter louts, landscape photographers, and the Highways Agency, who are intent on building a bypass through his home. At least he has Sunita. Or does he? With each walk it becomes clearer that the paths of Underhill Country lead into treacherous terrain.
'If Vladimir Nabokov had written episodes of The Archers (with a little script advice from W G Sebald), then he might just have struck a note that chimed with the peculiar music of this beguiling first novel' Independent
'A metafictional escapade . . . has both Nabokov and Alan Partridge as its forebears' Daily Telegraph
'Has echoes of Mike Leigh's best films and Paul Torday's smash debut, Salmon Fishing in the Yemen' Daily Mail
Nat Segnit lives in London. His journalism and stories have appeared in several national newspapers, and his play, Dolphin Therapy, and two co-written comedy series, Strangers on Trains and Beautiful Dreamers, were broadcast on Radio 4. Pub Walks in Underhill Country is his first novel.
'Start by turning right out of the main entrance of Malvern Link railway station . . .'
So begins Graham Underhill's guide to rambling in the West Midlands. But it is not many yards before Graham has gone completely off track, all but abandoning the route ahead to exult in his love for his beautiful if headstrong wife Sunita.
Along the way Graham treats us to his intemperate views on mountain bikers, litter louts, landscape photographers, and the Highways Agency, who are intent on building a bypass through his home. At least he has Sunita. Or does he? With each walk it becomes clearer that the paths of Underhill Country lead into treacherous terrain.
'If Vladimir Nabokov had written episodes of The Archers (with a little script advice from W G Sebald), then he might just have struck a note that chimed with the peculiar music of this beguiling first novel' Independent
'A metafictional escapade . . . has both Nabokov and Alan Partridge as its forebears' Daily Telegraph
'Has echoes of Mike Leigh's best films and Paul Torday's smash debut, Salmon Fishing in the Yemen' Daily Mail
Nat Segnit lives in London. His journalism and stories have appeared in several national newspapers, and his play, Dolphin Therapy, and two co-written comedy series, Strangers on Trains and Beautiful Dreamers, were broadcast on Radio 4. Pub Walks in Underhill Country is his first novel.
ebook
First published March 1, 2011
About the author
Nat Segnit
3 books6 followersNat Segnit was born in London and educated at Lincoln College, Oxford, where he gained a first in English. His short stories and journalism have appeared in various magazines and newspapers including the Times and The Independent on Sunday. His comic play, Dolphin Therapy, was broadcast on Radio 4 in 2004, and a six-part comedy series, Strangers on Trains, in which he also performed, aired on the same channel in 2008. A new series, Beautiful Dreamers, was broadcast in autumn 2010.
His first novel, Pub Walks in Underhill Country, takes the form of a practical guide for walkers, and was published by Penguin / Fig Tree in February 2011.
His first novel, Pub Walks in Underhill Country, takes the form of a practical guide for walkers, and was published by Penguin / Fig Tree in February 2011.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
June 12, 2018
struggled this book thought it would been better had the potential
March 22, 2011
Nat Segnit frames his debut novel as a walking guide by one Graham Underhill, a guide notable for the extent to which its fictional author’s personal life intrudes on the text. In the very first chapter/ramble, we learn how Underhill met his second wife, Sunita Bhattacahrya – fifteen years his junior – at Malvern Library, where he gallantly offered to pay her overdue fines; and so it continues. As the novel progresses, we discover under just how much strain the couple’s marriage was – not that Graham seemed to notice – until eventually Sunita goes missing, and the rambler turns searcher, setting out to look for her.
The voice of Graham Underhill as revealed in his guides is well-meaning but overly earnest and long-winded, with a tendency to digress into a personal anecdote or some less-than-relevant piece of trivia; one soon begins to see why Sunita might have begun to tire of him. Much of the humour in Segnit’s book comes from the incongruous juxtaposition of the rambler’s-guide and novelistic idioms, and Graham’s apparent inability to take a hint; even as early as the second chapter, when Sunita announces, ‘I’ve had enough,’ there’s an undercurrent which suggests she is not just talking about this particular ramble – yet Graham can’t see this or any of the other signs which become increasingly plain to the reader.
Amusing as all this is, it would wear pretty thin over the course of an entire novel if that were all there was to it – particularly as it’s intrinsic to the book’s affect that Graham’s narration tries one’s patience at times – but what carries Pub Walks in Underhill Country home for me is how Segnit uses its very structure as a means of characterisation. Graham’s framing of episodes from his life as walking routes can be seen as his attempt to impose order on the world; this is ‘Underhill country’, after all, and rambling is the fulcrum of his life. As the pages turn by and the life Graham knows falls apart, his insistence on retaining the stylistic conventions he has established – the maps, the trivia, noting the character and strength of every beer he samples along the way – stops feeling like an amusing joke and starts to seem increasingly desperate, the action of a man grasping for any kind of stability. Still, in later chapters, Graham‘s narration becomes more and more straightforwardly novelistic (his control of the world slips); by the end, the distinction between life and pub walk comes to the verge of collapsing altogether, with the result that...
Well, it depends on what kind of man Graham Underhill is. He comes across as a bumbling, rather naive, ultimately rather tragic figure; but then again, our impression of Graham is filtered through both his subjectivity and the structures of the rambling-guide format. There are enough hints peppered throughout that weren’t not seeing everything of the real Underhill, and that a darker interpretation of the novel might be valid. Pub Walks in Underhill Country could have been too one-note and gimmicky, but touches like that ambiguity transform it into something far richer.
Yet Pub Walks is more than a fine read – it’s also an intriguing start to a literary career, because it makes one excited to read whatever Segnit writes next, whilst leaving a sense that he could go in just about any direction. Start reading him now, I’d say.
The voice of Graham Underhill as revealed in his guides is well-meaning but overly earnest and long-winded, with a tendency to digress into a personal anecdote or some less-than-relevant piece of trivia; one soon begins to see why Sunita might have begun to tire of him. Much of the humour in Segnit’s book comes from the incongruous juxtaposition of the rambler’s-guide and novelistic idioms, and Graham’s apparent inability to take a hint; even as early as the second chapter, when Sunita announces, ‘I’ve had enough,’ there’s an undercurrent which suggests she is not just talking about this particular ramble – yet Graham can’t see this or any of the other signs which become increasingly plain to the reader.
Amusing as all this is, it would wear pretty thin over the course of an entire novel if that were all there was to it – particularly as it’s intrinsic to the book’s affect that Graham’s narration tries one’s patience at times – but what carries Pub Walks in Underhill Country home for me is how Segnit uses its very structure as a means of characterisation. Graham’s framing of episodes from his life as walking routes can be seen as his attempt to impose order on the world; this is ‘Underhill country’, after all, and rambling is the fulcrum of his life. As the pages turn by and the life Graham knows falls apart, his insistence on retaining the stylistic conventions he has established – the maps, the trivia, noting the character and strength of every beer he samples along the way – stops feeling like an amusing joke and starts to seem increasingly desperate, the action of a man grasping for any kind of stability. Still, in later chapters, Graham‘s narration becomes more and more straightforwardly novelistic (his control of the world slips); by the end, the distinction between life and pub walk comes to the verge of collapsing altogether, with the result that...
Well, it depends on what kind of man Graham Underhill is. He comes across as a bumbling, rather naive, ultimately rather tragic figure; but then again, our impression of Graham is filtered through both his subjectivity and the structures of the rambling-guide format. There are enough hints peppered throughout that weren’t not seeing everything of the real Underhill, and that a darker interpretation of the novel might be valid. Pub Walks in Underhill Country could have been too one-note and gimmicky, but touches like that ambiguity transform it into something far richer.
Yet Pub Walks is more than a fine read – it’s also an intriguing start to a literary career, because it makes one excited to read whatever Segnit writes next, whilst leaving a sense that he could go in just about any direction. Start reading him now, I’d say.
April 4, 2011
This very funny book features an unreliable narrator of one of the lesser-known types: the incorrigible naif. It purports to be the most recent of numerous self-published walking guides written by Graham Underhill, rambler, nature lover, beer enthusiast, and relentlessly cuckolded husband of the ravishing Sunita.
The book is organized into a series of numbered treks though the Malvern region of England, during the course of which small cracks slowly begin to appear in Underhill's obliviousness. His ecstasies over the beauty of the countryside are frequently punctuated by throwaway remarks that almost accidentally illuminate the environmental degradation to be seen everywhere. The twin themes of the despoiled English landscape and Underhill's crumbling marriage might be very affecting if you allowed yourself to think about them, which I didn't; and they could make Underhill out to be a very poignant character indeed if he weren't so invincible in his pompous good cheer.
PUB WALKS reminds me a good deal of John Lanchester's THE DEBT TO PLEASURE, only in reverse: the malign Tarquin Winot is a master manipulator, whereas Underhill is a hapless manipulatee. The narrative's a little uneven, and toward the end the structure begins to fall apart, but who cares? This book is loads of fun to read.
The book is organized into a series of numbered treks though the Malvern region of England, during the course of which small cracks slowly begin to appear in Underhill's obliviousness. His ecstasies over the beauty of the countryside are frequently punctuated by throwaway remarks that almost accidentally illuminate the environmental degradation to be seen everywhere. The twin themes of the despoiled English landscape and Underhill's crumbling marriage might be very affecting if you allowed yourself to think about them, which I didn't; and they could make Underhill out to be a very poignant character indeed if he weren't so invincible in his pompous good cheer.
PUB WALKS reminds me a good deal of John Lanchester's THE DEBT TO PLEASURE, only in reverse: the malign Tarquin Winot is a master manipulator, whereas Underhill is a hapless manipulatee. The narrative's a little uneven, and toward the end the structure begins to fall apart, but who cares? This book is loads of fun to read.
February 21, 2011
had to order this (well reserved at the library) after reading a review at the weekend because it's a novel about walking (between pubs) which Clare and I do a lot of, plus it's set around Birmingham, the city itself and also the Malvern Hills etc. ...well I did order it because I couldn't wait and started reading immediately: it's hilarious
..I’m really an urbanite, a city bloke now, but I was born and brought up in a country town (Tewkesbury), ten miles or so down the road from where the main character, Graham Underhill lives (Ledbury). I didn’t miss the countryside until I hit 50, but now try to get out at weekends for walks, and it is like re-living my childhood and youth (when we wanted to get stoned/trip we headed out to the hills). I do love my walks, even though I’m not cut out for it: I’m scared of horses, bulls, cows and, especially, dogs. I have the same prejudices against ramblers that many have, I quite understood the lad in ‘God's Own Country’ ( http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/... ) who despises them: 'Daft sods in pink and green hats' and try not to resemble them. I do not for instance wear a ‘tri-climate’ luminescent jacket like Graham, or have a compass around my neck, or a map in polythene, or a walking ‘stick’ (although that would come in handy now and again). Of course my muddy boots give me away when I get to the pub, and my rucksack (here called pedantically a ramblesack). Nor am I a real ale freak, I’m more of a lager man of the Becks/Peroni type (bland palate obviously). Graham of course loves real ale and describes many brews in the book: (I drank) three and a half pints of Wickwar’s moreish Cotswold Way (4.2%), whose upfront maltiness, followed by figgy, pruney notes reminiscent of Moroccan tagines, only added to its intense drinkability.
Anyway I'm trying to tell you how deeply I understand this character and how he’s not like me, well he is a bit, I’m a librarian and must have some of the geek in me. This bloke is geek x 100, pompous, boring, a man with a personality bypass, and wilfully blind to all that goes on around him (or is he? Sometimes you wonder). The book is set out as a series of walks (15 in all), with maps and watercolour illustrations and rating for the pub and difficulty. I’ve walked most of them, (although I tend towards the 5-6 mile walk, Graham would find that pitiful): Stratford, Snitterfield, the Long Mynd, Birmingham, Bourton on the Water and the Slaughters (in the Cotswolds), been to many of the pubs, so I suppose it holds special interest for me: eg I was fascinated to learn about the origins of Pitville Park in Cheltenham where I spent many Sundays as a child. It has the jaunty/pompous style of a guide book: Turn right and walk up the busy main road for half a mile, passing a newsagent, where you might like to stock up on water or something from proprietor Iqbal’s mouth watering range of self packaged sweets. There’s nothing like a well-timed Fruit Pastille to propel you up that mid-ramble incline!
But then personal notes creep in:Pass this ‘ruin with potential’ on the right, and ascending a steep path to climb a stile into High Wood, call out your companion’s name at the top of your voice. It becomes a tale of a man desperate to hang on to his beautiful but (probably) promiscuous Bengali wife, Sunita, and the walks are relegated (in one case becoming just a footnote) to their story as she finds excuses not to come on walks or disappears when on them. Graham is painfully obtuse, making excuses for her behaviour, but the reader is also alerted to a possible latent violent streak in him. It becomes quite Nabokovian in style – all those deceptions/the elusive object of beauty and his love rivals/the footnotes/the butterflies/Graham’s amazing erudition – he knows his history, architecture, literature, biology, natural history (all of which seem fine, but I did wonder about his knowledge of popular culture, eg that Tony Iommi of Black Sabbath invented the power chord because he lost the tips of his fingers in an industrial accident, and that – a footnote – interesting to note the centrality of rambling to early Led Zeppelin). In many ways it’s a kind of a cross between Lolita and Pale Fire. ().
I’m not sure in the end if it all added up, but I enjoyed the ramble through this book, its dead ends - alternative routes - and natural beauties. I laughed and read bits out to Clare all the time. Mark of a good book I think.
..I’m really an urbanite, a city bloke now, but I was born and brought up in a country town (Tewkesbury), ten miles or so down the road from where the main character, Graham Underhill lives (Ledbury). I didn’t miss the countryside until I hit 50, but now try to get out at weekends for walks, and it is like re-living my childhood and youth (when we wanted to get stoned/trip we headed out to the hills). I do love my walks, even though I’m not cut out for it: I’m scared of horses, bulls, cows and, especially, dogs. I have the same prejudices against ramblers that many have, I quite understood the lad in ‘God's Own Country’ ( http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/... ) who despises them: 'Daft sods in pink and green hats' and try not to resemble them. I do not for instance wear a ‘tri-climate’ luminescent jacket like Graham, or have a compass around my neck, or a map in polythene, or a walking ‘stick’ (although that would come in handy now and again). Of course my muddy boots give me away when I get to the pub, and my rucksack (here called pedantically a ramblesack). Nor am I a real ale freak, I’m more of a lager man of the Becks/Peroni type (bland palate obviously). Graham of course loves real ale and describes many brews in the book: (I drank) three and a half pints of Wickwar’s moreish Cotswold Way (4.2%), whose upfront maltiness, followed by figgy, pruney notes reminiscent of Moroccan tagines, only added to its intense drinkability.
Anyway I'm trying to tell you how deeply I understand this character and how he’s not like me, well he is a bit, I’m a librarian and must have some of the geek in me. This bloke is geek x 100, pompous, boring, a man with a personality bypass, and wilfully blind to all that goes on around him (or is he? Sometimes you wonder). The book is set out as a series of walks (15 in all), with maps and watercolour illustrations and rating for the pub and difficulty. I’ve walked most of them, (although I tend towards the 5-6 mile walk, Graham would find that pitiful): Stratford, Snitterfield, the Long Mynd, Birmingham, Bourton on the Water and the Slaughters (in the Cotswolds), been to many of the pubs, so I suppose it holds special interest for me: eg I was fascinated to learn about the origins of Pitville Park in Cheltenham where I spent many Sundays as a child. It has the jaunty/pompous style of a guide book: Turn right and walk up the busy main road for half a mile, passing a newsagent, where you might like to stock up on water or something from proprietor Iqbal’s mouth watering range of self packaged sweets. There’s nothing like a well-timed Fruit Pastille to propel you up that mid-ramble incline!
But then personal notes creep in:Pass this ‘ruin with potential’ on the right, and ascending a steep path to climb a stile into High Wood, call out your companion’s name at the top of your voice. It becomes a tale of a man desperate to hang on to his beautiful but (probably) promiscuous Bengali wife, Sunita, and the walks are relegated (in one case becoming just a footnote) to their story as she finds excuses not to come on walks or disappears when on them. Graham is painfully obtuse, making excuses for her behaviour, but the reader is also alerted to a possible latent violent streak in him. It becomes quite Nabokovian in style – all those deceptions/the elusive object of beauty and his love rivals/the footnotes/the butterflies/Graham’s amazing erudition – he knows his history, architecture, literature, biology, natural history (all of which seem fine, but I did wonder about his knowledge of popular culture, eg that Tony Iommi of Black Sabbath invented the power chord because he lost the tips of his fingers in an industrial accident, and that – a footnote – interesting to note the centrality of rambling to early Led Zeppelin). In many ways it’s a kind of a cross between Lolita and Pale Fire. ().
I’m not sure in the end if it all added up, but I enjoyed the ramble through this book, its dead ends - alternative routes - and natural beauties. I laughed and read bits out to Clare all the time. Mark of a good book I think.
March 28, 2013
It's funny that almost all the reviews on here by women hated 'Pub Walks'. On the whole I really enjoyed it and found myself liking enormously rambling ubernerd Graham Underhill and his literary pretensions. Quite aside from his obsession with walking and his meticulous detailing of the hills he loves and the invariably 'well-kept' ales he refreshes himself with, he has a remarkably wide breadth of knowledge and a commendably broadminded attitude towards everything from heavy metal and recreational drugs to gay relationships. Then there's the unswerving devotion to his selfish, attention-seeking and less than faithful wife Sunita, whom he may or may not have 'bumped off' in a crime passionel by the final chapters. There's something rather heroic about Graham, bore and pedant though he is.
'Pub Walks' is highly original, expertly crafted and at times very funny. Some of Graham's observations and turns of phrase are hilarious. Personally, I could have done with more of the fake walking guide, which contain most of the cleverest and funniest passages, and rather less of the Sunita saga, which I found rather more obvious and a bit laboured. The initial concept of a walking guide in which the narrator's private life intrudes was fascinating but became less believable the more Graham cracked on about his wife and his ghastly 'friends'. Nevertheless, in Graham Underhill Nat Segnit has created a memorable and very British character. 'Pub Walks' will more than repay your attention with its full-bodied characterisation and striking notes of humour. And yes, I know I'm writing like Graham Underhill. The worrying thing is, I think I do anyway!
'Pub Walks' is highly original, expertly crafted and at times very funny. Some of Graham's observations and turns of phrase are hilarious. Personally, I could have done with more of the fake walking guide, which contain most of the cleverest and funniest passages, and rather less of the Sunita saga, which I found rather more obvious and a bit laboured. The initial concept of a walking guide in which the narrator's private life intrudes was fascinating but became less believable the more Graham cracked on about his wife and his ghastly 'friends'. Nevertheless, in Graham Underhill Nat Segnit has created a memorable and very British character. 'Pub Walks' will more than repay your attention with its full-bodied characterisation and striking notes of humour. And yes, I know I'm writing like Graham Underhill. The worrying thing is, I think I do anyway!
April 11, 2013
'Pub Walks in Underhill Country' is based on a wonderful comic conceit. Just the idea of it made me smile. I have rarely tapped the 'Purchase' button with such expectation of pleasure.
What makes the idea lovely is that almost all 'walking' books - and there are many - seem to have a hidden text: the story of the walker. Why is he walking? (The walker is invariably male, and Anglo.) What is he walking from? A love of walking and of nature often seems to be associated with a discomfort with the rest of life.
This book comically teases out the under-text, allowing it to poke embarrassingly through its gentle and witty parody of 'nature' writing. It owes a little, perhaps, to John Lanchester's 'The Debt to Pleasure' (also a debut novel), which used cooking rather than walking as its metaphor, but is really all its own. A bonus is that the 'nature' writing is very enjoyable on its own terms, despite its 'Pooterish' qualities.
(By the way, by googling the route of the first walk, I discovered a rather remarkable walker's website and blog which could well have been an inspiration for the main character...)
What makes the idea lovely is that almost all 'walking' books - and there are many - seem to have a hidden text: the story of the walker. Why is he walking? (The walker is invariably male, and Anglo.) What is he walking from? A love of walking and of nature often seems to be associated with a discomfort with the rest of life.
This book comically teases out the under-text, allowing it to poke embarrassingly through its gentle and witty parody of 'nature' writing. It owes a little, perhaps, to John Lanchester's 'The Debt to Pleasure' (also a debut novel), which used cooking rather than walking as its metaphor, but is really all its own. A bonus is that the 'nature' writing is very enjoyable on its own terms, despite its 'Pooterish' qualities.
(By the way, by googling the route of the first walk, I discovered a rather remarkable walker's website and blog which could well have been an inspiration for the main character...)
August 28, 2019
I took a while to warm to this, I'm not sure why but I initially put it down after the first chapter and didn't come back to it for a couple of months. But I'm glad I did!
This is a strange mix of travel guide and darkly comic novel, at times reminiscent of an older 1930s or 40s comic novel. We follow the main character through his walking guide, almost a book within the book, but one that very often diverges into the personal relationships and trials of his life, most notably with his often absent wife. And from these snippets a story arc reveals itself, and shows a man dealing with the potential loss of his home to a planned bypass, and the potential breakdown of his second marriage to a woman it is clear from the outset is only interested in herself.
This is a novel that grows on you and gets better the further in you read, definately worth a go if you find a copy at your local charity shop!
This is a strange mix of travel guide and darkly comic novel, at times reminiscent of an older 1930s or 40s comic novel. We follow the main character through his walking guide, almost a book within the book, but one that very often diverges into the personal relationships and trials of his life, most notably with his often absent wife. And from these snippets a story arc reveals itself, and shows a man dealing with the potential loss of his home to a planned bypass, and the potential breakdown of his second marriage to a woman it is clear from the outset is only interested in herself.
This is a novel that grows on you and gets better the further in you read, definately worth a go if you find a copy at your local charity shop!
June 7, 2023
I honestly thought this was a travel book. Instead, we get a humorous look at a man who hasn’t got a clue what’s going on and digresses too much. Each chapter starts with a map and has the odd illustration, but it’s a shame that there’s no landscape photographs which would make it more real (though Underhill does focus on other undegraded items). Some of the destinations are a bit extreme, but at least they’re well-researched. He comments on both the good and bad landmarks, and can be portrayed as a little snobbish at times, kind of like an ageing Adrian Mole. He’s supported by an ageing cast of similar intellectually minded people, each of their own problems who are referenced to in different chapters. Some of his accidents are quite horrific, and the narrative fails to address how he is rescued. Perhaps he’s too embarrassed. The full result is a tragic, yet comical, adventure.
August 22, 2018
Join Graham Underhill as he takes you on walks in the West Midlands. This is Grahams guide to rambling with information on the pubs along the way thrown in.
This is an account of Graham and his second wife Sunita's life told in fifteen rambles.
I found this novel to be a bit of a slow burner but it was very funny in parts.
This is an account of Graham and his second wife Sunita's life told in fifteen rambles.
I found this novel to be a bit of a slow burner but it was very funny in parts.
October 8, 2011
A funny and cleverly written book that brilliantly portrays its central character - a knowledgable but pedantic local government officer - with convincing accuracy. The story starts with prosaic country walks and becomes increasingly bizarre as the protagonist's wife realises how boring her husband is and starts to look for entertainment elsewhere. Although her husband's faithfulness and refusal to recognise her errant behaviour seem extreme,in fact it is not difficult to identify with his touching naivety and faithfulness, even when the 'pub walks' extend to India and even Antarctica. An unusual and funny book - light reading, but certainly entertaining. It will be interesting to see what this first novelist writes next.
April 20, 2011
I found this hard going - it's written in the main character's voice and since his a pompous pedant it's quite hard going. It gets better as you go along and more of his own personal life creeps into the walking guides but still...I know it's had some good reviews, I just didn't really like the character very much and it felt like it was much too long to string out the idea.
March 9, 2012
So far - a hilarious romp of geek country.
But not entirely sure what exactly I think of this book, quite confused. Will have to discuss it with myself and post the results on my blog http://writingaboutbooks.wordpress.com but it was definitely an emotional trip through a lot of (some very unexpected) countryside.
But not entirely sure what exactly I think of this book, quite confused. Will have to discuss it with myself and post the results on my blog http://writingaboutbooks.wordpress.com but it was definitely an emotional trip through a lot of (some very unexpected) countryside.
May 14, 2012
I think if I had persevered with this book I might have decided on three stars. It certainly has some merits. The main character though is meant to be boring and that is exactly how he came across. I was bored and although I would have liked to discover how his wife coped with him,- deceived him? - I moved on to another book instead.
April 22, 2013
A bit of a slow burner, but if you are tempted to retire this to the bookshelf in the sky, don't! Well worth putting up with his early rambling about rambling. Strangeness is afoot in the background, becomes the foreground, and the book goes from 2* to 4*! I like his style!
April 3, 2012
Man talking about country walks and his relationship with his wife. just couldnt get into it and gave up after the first section.
July 11, 2014
I only got half way through this. The basic idea is good but doesn't develop in an interesting way. I gave up half way through so maybe the second half improves.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews