Lady with a Laptop

by D.M. Thomas

A less-than-successful English novelist travels to a writer's colony on a Greek island where he confronts a group of new age hedonists

Genres: Fiction

246 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 1996

About the author

D.M. Thomas was born in Cornwall in 1935. After reading English at New College, Oxford, he became a teacher and was Head of the English Department at Hereford College of Education until he became a full-time writer. His first novel The Flute-Player won the Gollancz Pan/Picador Fantasy Competition. He is also known for his collections of verse and his translation from the Russian poet Anna Akhmatova.

He was awarded the Los Angeles Fiction prize for his novel The White Hotel, an international bestseller, translated into 30 languages; a Cholmondeley award for poetry; and the Orwell Prize for his biography of Alexander Solzhenitsyn. He lives in his native Cornwall, England.

Reviews

[Karla Huebner]

I had mixed feelings about this. On the plus side, it held my interest and made me laugh a certain amount. It's clever and an easy read. On the negatives... well, it satirizes New Age workshops and the people who teach at/attend them, and while this is fertile ground for satire, I wasn't drawn in by the satire. Perhaps the satire should either have been more biting (no remotely sympathetic characters?) or gentler? I'm not sure. I had trouble keeping track of the characters, few of whom remained important throughout the story, and the narrator was unlikable without being very amusingly so. Some of the comic bits (the botched burial at sea) failed to live up to their potential. Perhaps the most satisfying part involved the writing class's evolving attempt to collectively pen a novel begun by the lady of the title. The bizarre turns taken in their pursuit of Nat, Agnes, and Mildred provided some of the most comic portions of the book, although it was utterly implausible that the workshoppers all wrote in the same style and with a similar sense of the perverse.

[Mary · Rating 1 out of 5]

Sorry.. this book did nothing at all for me. Maybe I missed the 'satire', maybe my sense of humor is lacking- but this book just left me cold. There were several scenes that even offended me, and I am not of the easily offended type!

The short story within a story was actually more interesting. The main character was teaching a class about writing fiction and the assignment was to finish a story begun by one of the students who had committed suicide (or was it murder?) The tale written by the students was more interesting than the story surrounding it.

The memorial scene in which Ezekiel accepts the 'Spirit' of Lucinda into his body was disgusting and completely unnecessary. Ewww.. I still cringe at the thought. The language was vulgar and bordered on porn-

I really need to find something a bit more light hearted to read!

[Jane · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read The White Hotel and was so moved. This book seemed almost trashy. Satiric, yes, and I picked it up because it takes place at a writers colony in Greece. I was curious enough to keep reading, and it was funny in an annoying sort of way. But nothing I'd recommend to anyone.

[Angie Pascale]

Read The White Hotel and absolutely loved it. I've been meaning to read more Thomas for a while and just picked this up at a huge book sale.