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Dancing Backwards
Violet Hetherington has taken the rash step of joining a transatlantic cruise ship to New York to visit Edwin, an old friend. As she makes the six day crossing, she relives the traumatic events that led to her losing Edwin's friendship, and abandoning her career as a poet, for the safety of marriage and domesticity.
264 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2009
42 people are currently reading
508 people want to read
About the author
Salley Vickers
42 books353 followersSalley Vickers was born in Liverpool, the home of her mother, and grew up as the child of parents in the British Communist Party. She won a state scholarship to St Paul’s Girl’s School and went on to read English at Newnham College Cambridge.
She has worked, variously, as a cleaner, a dancer, an artist’s model, a teacher of children with special needs, a university teacher of literature, and a psychoanalyst. Her first novel, ‘Miss Garnet’s Angel’, became an international word-of-mouth bestseller. She now writes full time and lectures widely on many subjects, particularly the connections between, art, literature, psychology and religion.
Her principal interests are opera, bird watching, dancing, and poetry. One of her father's favourite poets, W.B.Yeats, was responsible for her name Salley, (the Irish for 'willow') which comes from Yeats’s poem set to music by Benjamin Britten 'Down by the salley gardens'.
She has worked, variously, as a cleaner, a dancer, an artist’s model, a teacher of children with special needs, a university teacher of literature, and a psychoanalyst. Her first novel, ‘Miss Garnet’s Angel’, became an international word-of-mouth bestseller. She now writes full time and lectures widely on many subjects, particularly the connections between, art, literature, psychology and religion.
Her principal interests are opera, bird watching, dancing, and poetry. One of her father's favourite poets, W.B.Yeats, was responsible for her name Salley, (the Irish for 'willow') which comes from Yeats’s poem set to music by Benjamin Britten 'Down by the salley gardens'.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 113 reviews
June 4, 2011
*I won this book from first reads.
I really wanted to like Dancing Backwards. Really. The story is intriguing, and I loved the flashback scenes, where the meat of the story takes place. It's very subtle and mellow and a nice change from thrillers (not that I have anything against those).
However, the characters were completely unbelievable. Violet, the main character, is on a trans-Atlantic cruise, and even before she's on the ship everyone - passengers and crew - are falling all over themselves trying to . . . impress her, I guess. I can't imagine why, they've barely met the women and it's not likes she's a celebrity or something. She also spends the first bit of the book thinking to herself that she just wants to be left alone, and it seems to me someone in that frame of mind would be sending out some rather off-putting vibes. But no, everyone wants to talk to her, everyone wants to please her, everyone wants to dance with her, and I just couldn't understand why. It distracted me during every scene set in the present. Couple that with the fact that most of the characters were rather bland, forgettable, and easy to confuse with each other and you have 264 pages of disappointed potential.
I really wanted to like Dancing Backwards. Really. The story is intriguing, and I loved the flashback scenes, where the meat of the story takes place. It's very subtle and mellow and a nice change from thrillers (not that I have anything against those).
However, the characters were completely unbelievable. Violet, the main character, is on a trans-Atlantic cruise, and even before she's on the ship everyone - passengers and crew - are falling all over themselves trying to . . . impress her, I guess. I can't imagine why, they've barely met the women and it's not likes she's a celebrity or something. She also spends the first bit of the book thinking to herself that she just wants to be left alone, and it seems to me someone in that frame of mind would be sending out some rather off-putting vibes. But no, everyone wants to talk to her, everyone wants to please her, everyone wants to dance with her, and I just couldn't understand why. It distracted me during every scene set in the present. Couple that with the fact that most of the characters were rather bland, forgettable, and easy to confuse with each other and you have 264 pages of disappointed potential.
February 11, 2014
This was a story about self-analysis - but a late and detached self-analysis. Vi seems to have spent her life taking what she thought was the easy route, only to find that the route she had chosen was not the right one for her. I suppose the cruise across the Atlantic was a metaphor for her life to that point, being taken along for the ride, coping with the rough and the smooth, without being in control. But it was during the cruise, with her flashbacks and the ability to be someone else with total strangers - or the ability to be oneself for a change - which enabled her to disembark at the other end and face herself, her own needs and wants, and to make decisions which suited her. At least that was the way it came across to me.
I like the way Salley Viickers uses language - she writes so well - and this kept me reading, but I think a lesser gifted author would have struggled to write this particular book. On the surface nothing really happens, yet underneath the surface monumental changes are taking place. I think, as we age, most of us would question our choices and the reasons behind them. Why did we do one thing instead of another? Why take that path rather than another? Why stay in a job which does not challenge you but offers stability. Life is a series of choices and the choices we all make are trade offs really against other unknowns.
I like the way Salley Viickers uses language - she writes so well - and this kept me reading, but I think a lesser gifted author would have struggled to write this particular book. On the surface nothing really happens, yet underneath the surface monumental changes are taking place. I think, as we age, most of us would question our choices and the reasons behind them. Why did we do one thing instead of another? Why take that path rather than another? Why stay in a job which does not challenge you but offers stability. Life is a series of choices and the choices we all make are trade offs really against other unknowns.
March 6, 2014
Eileen Atkins reads from Salley Vickers' acclaimed new novel, Dancing Backwards
Blurb - Violet Hetherington's husband has recently died. Alone, she decides to take a cruise-ship crossing to visit her old friend, Edwin, in New York.
As she journeys across the Atlantic the quiet Violet begins to blossom - learning to ballroom dance, taking up smoking again, befriending a famously seething theatre critic. And in her time alone she reminisces about her early adulthood as a student at Cambridge. It's at Cambridge that she meets Edwin. Edwin, it soon becomes clear, is someone she's betrayed and someone she's both terrified and desperate to see again. The story that unfolds about the young Violet holds the secret to that betrayal.
Category:
Drama
Produced by Kirsty Williams.
I found I didn't care enough what form the betrayal would take so didn't hanker after the denouement in the way the author would have wanted. Listened to it all but in a rather apathetic, doing-something-else-at-the-same-time way.
Blurb - Violet Hetherington's husband has recently died. Alone, she decides to take a cruise-ship crossing to visit her old friend, Edwin, in New York.
As she journeys across the Atlantic the quiet Violet begins to blossom - learning to ballroom dance, taking up smoking again, befriending a famously seething theatre critic. And in her time alone she reminisces about her early adulthood as a student at Cambridge. It's at Cambridge that she meets Edwin. Edwin, it soon becomes clear, is someone she's betrayed and someone she's both terrified and desperate to see again. The story that unfolds about the young Violet holds the secret to that betrayal.
Category:
Drama
Produced by Kirsty Williams.
I found I didn't care enough what form the betrayal would take so didn't hanker after the denouement in the way the author would have wanted. Listened to it all but in a rather apathetic, doing-something-else-at-the-same-time way.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 25, 2020
I cannot help but feel that British author Salley Vickers is somewhat underrated. I have not seen many reviews of her work online, or on platforms like BookTube, and her works tend to have rather low overall ratings on Goodreads. However, she is an author whose work I have very much enjoyed since first picking up Miss Garnet's Angel back in 2012.
I picked up one of her novels, Dancing Backwards, when my library first reopened for browsing, having been shut for four months due to the pandemic. Stuck in one place, with little opportunity to travel, I decided that I wanted to read as many books about journeys as was possible. Dancing Backwards, therefore, seemed perfect. The protagonist of the piece, a woman named Violet Hetherington, is travelling to New York by ship, to meet an old acquaintance. Her journey is as much an inner one as a physical one; thus, I was reminded of Virginia Woolf's early masterpiece, The Voyage Out.
As ever, Vickers' prose is remarkably vivid from the outset. Her writing is intelligent, and it has a lot of depth to it. She never loses the focus of Violet, but is astute at writing about her surroundings, and of the other characters who are taking the same journey. Violet feels wholly realistic; we learn about her past and present, and her hopes for the future, through the many vignettes which make up the novel's structure. She can be rather an acerbic woman, and I enjoyed her dark humour. Vickers wonderfully charts Violet's relationships, and deftly handles the way in which the narrative moves back and forth in time. Dancing Backwards is a wonderful novel about taking chances, and being true to oneself.
I picked up one of her novels, Dancing Backwards, when my library first reopened for browsing, having been shut for four months due to the pandemic. Stuck in one place, with little opportunity to travel, I decided that I wanted to read as many books about journeys as was possible. Dancing Backwards, therefore, seemed perfect. The protagonist of the piece, a woman named Violet Hetherington, is travelling to New York by ship, to meet an old acquaintance. Her journey is as much an inner one as a physical one; thus, I was reminded of Virginia Woolf's early masterpiece, The Voyage Out.
As ever, Vickers' prose is remarkably vivid from the outset. Her writing is intelligent, and it has a lot of depth to it. She never loses the focus of Violet, but is astute at writing about her surroundings, and of the other characters who are taking the same journey. Violet feels wholly realistic; we learn about her past and present, and her hopes for the future, through the many vignettes which make up the novel's structure. She can be rather an acerbic woman, and I enjoyed her dark humour. Vickers wonderfully charts Violet's relationships, and deftly handles the way in which the narrative moves back and forth in time. Dancing Backwards is a wonderful novel about taking chances, and being true to oneself.
July 27, 2021
I came into this knowing it wasn't going to be an incredible work of fiction, but that's bias, I want to fix my bias and expand the scope of what I read. It was a decent light holiday read, readable within a couple of days - a woman on a cruise (a setting I am unfamiliar with) examines her former life and loves, loses a diamond engagement ring. Often contrived, it was nothing special, but not unpleasant. Just not my cup of tea!
March 4, 2019
“Violet Hetherington is on a voyage across the Atlantic to meet Edwin, her estranged friend from the distant past. As she journeys across the sea she is carried back to the time when she and Edwin lived together as aspiring poets, until Edwin’s oldest friend arrived on the scene, bringing discord and havoc, and for Violet a betrayal of her ideals and a flight into safety.”
I’m all for writer’s using their experiences as starting points for a novel but although I enjoyed Dancing Backwards, I couldn’t shake the feeling of this story arising from the pages of a travel diary maintained by the author. I might be wrong but I felt that a lot of Violet’s observations were originally the author’s on perhaps a similar voyage across the Atlantic. This might seem mean-spirited on my part but there were several incidents that kept reminding me, such as this one:
“A summary of the dining regime had been including in the information sent in advance of the voyage. Vi was in the Alexandria Grill, one of the upper echelons of the ship’s hierarchical dining system. The ‘dress code for tonight in the Alexandria’, she read, was ‘casual elegant’, whatever that meant. She put on a sleeveless linen shift and a plain black jacket. Too bad if it was not sufficiently elegant, or casual.”
But perhaps I wouldn’t have been focussing on these scenes as much if the other storyline - in the past involving Violet’s life married life in England before the death of her husband and even earlier, meeting Edwin and then later his friend, Bruno - hadn’t struck me as slight.
Vickers is clever at keeping the mystery of Edwin and Bruno unresolved till the last and I must admit that I found the novel strangely healing despite the above reservations. It is soothing to embark on a much anticipated journey with a pleasant character who obviously deserves the holiday and the chance to put her life in perspective.
I’m all for writer’s using their experiences as starting points for a novel but although I enjoyed Dancing Backwards, I couldn’t shake the feeling of this story arising from the pages of a travel diary maintained by the author. I might be wrong but I felt that a lot of Violet’s observations were originally the author’s on perhaps a similar voyage across the Atlantic. This might seem mean-spirited on my part but there were several incidents that kept reminding me, such as this one:
“A summary of the dining regime had been including in the information sent in advance of the voyage. Vi was in the Alexandria Grill, one of the upper echelons of the ship’s hierarchical dining system. The ‘dress code for tonight in the Alexandria’, she read, was ‘casual elegant’, whatever that meant. She put on a sleeveless linen shift and a plain black jacket. Too bad if it was not sufficiently elegant, or casual.”
But perhaps I wouldn’t have been focussing on these scenes as much if the other storyline - in the past involving Violet’s life married life in England before the death of her husband and even earlier, meeting Edwin and then later his friend, Bruno - hadn’t struck me as slight.
Vickers is clever at keeping the mystery of Edwin and Bruno unresolved till the last and I must admit that I found the novel strangely healing despite the above reservations. It is soothing to embark on a much anticipated journey with a pleasant character who obviously deserves the holiday and the chance to put her life in perspective.
January 31, 2015
From BBC Radio 4 - Book at Bedtime:
Eileen Atkins reads from Salley Vickers' acclaimed new novel, Dancing Backwards
Violet Hetherington's husband has recently died. Alone, she decides to take a cruise-ship crossing to visit her old friend, Edwin, in New York.
As she journeys across the Atlantic the quiet Violet begins to blossom - learning to ballroom dance, taking up smoking again, befriending a famously seething theatre critic. And in her time alone she reminisces about her early adulthood as a student at Cambridge. It's at Cambridge that she meets Edwin. Edwin, it soon becomes clear, is someone she's betrayed and someone she's both terrified and desperate to see again. The story that unfolds about the young Violet holds the secret to that betrayal.
Written and abridged by Salley Vickers. Vickers is a critically acclaimed, best-selling novelist whose work includes Mr Golightly's Holiday, Instances of the Number 3, Miss Garnet's Angel and The Other Side of You. Miss Garnet's Angel and The Other Side of You were both popular Book at Bedtimes. Last year she dramatised her version of the Oedipus myth, Where Three Roads Meet, for Radio 4's Afternoon Play slot. Before becoming a full time writer she was a psychoanalyst.
Produced by Kirsty Williams.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00r9y3l
Eileen Atkins reads from Salley Vickers' acclaimed new novel, Dancing Backwards
Violet Hetherington's husband has recently died. Alone, she decides to take a cruise-ship crossing to visit her old friend, Edwin, in New York.
As she journeys across the Atlantic the quiet Violet begins to blossom - learning to ballroom dance, taking up smoking again, befriending a famously seething theatre critic. And in her time alone she reminisces about her early adulthood as a student at Cambridge. It's at Cambridge that she meets Edwin. Edwin, it soon becomes clear, is someone she's betrayed and someone she's both terrified and desperate to see again. The story that unfolds about the young Violet holds the secret to that betrayal.
Written and abridged by Salley Vickers. Vickers is a critically acclaimed, best-selling novelist whose work includes Mr Golightly's Holiday, Instances of the Number 3, Miss Garnet's Angel and The Other Side of You. Miss Garnet's Angel and The Other Side of You were both popular Book at Bedtimes. Last year she dramatised her version of the Oedipus myth, Where Three Roads Meet, for Radio 4's Afternoon Play slot. Before becoming a full time writer she was a psychoanalyst.
Produced by Kirsty Williams.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00r9y3l
July 28, 2019
Sally Vickers is an optimist
I am a great fan of Miss Garnets Angel. I have it on my kindle and use the mechanical voice as a reader. I have read it many times and loved Miss Garnet as a chacter she is reminiscent of a movie set in Venice with a love less woman played I believe by Katherin Hepburn. While Miss Garnett has the same prominent disappointment in romance with an Italian she is enriched by multiple unexpected friendships and the glory of the living museum she is dwelling in. She discovery lol her capacities her emotions and she is delighted and so are we. In Dancing backwards the heroine passes through a life of misunderstanding and pain to self knowledge and hope. Wonderfully portraits all along the way. This writing in brast by Christian values of the hard won nature. The is solas and compassion in these works thank you Miss Vickers
I am a great fan of Miss Garnets Angel. I have it on my kindle and use the mechanical voice as a reader. I have read it many times and loved Miss Garnet as a chacter she is reminiscent of a movie set in Venice with a love less woman played I believe by Katherin Hepburn. While Miss Garnett has the same prominent disappointment in romance with an Italian she is enriched by multiple unexpected friendships and the glory of the living museum she is dwelling in. She discovery lol her capacities her emotions and she is delighted and so are we. In Dancing backwards the heroine passes through a life of misunderstanding and pain to self knowledge and hope. Wonderfully portraits all along the way. This writing in brast by Christian values of the hard won nature. The is solas and compassion in these works thank you Miss Vickers
December 21, 2016
I actually stayed up to the early hours reading this and, after finishing it, when I next woke I thought I was on a cruise liner at sea! I can see where my brother - who read it first - was disappointed because not a lot was happening, and yet I felt immersed in the Atlantic in many moods
November 18, 2022
Best yet that I’ve loved by her, with a brilliant yet flawed female protagonist. Characters, dialogue, and plot are uniquely drawn. I shall keep working on the author’s backlist.
November 5, 2023
It began slowly and took a while to be interesting. However it was very readable and gave an insight into Violet’s personality. She was on a cruise to New York and her journey was both physical and mental. In the end she was her own person
February 11, 2022
Three stars is too low and four too high. I enjoyed it , but not gripping , just an easy read, for me at present. Interesting reflections by Violet on her life as she travels , cruises, across to NY, to meet Edward again . The story of her cruise and her previous life are intertwined to give an idea of how she has approached life and what she has learnt as she has become older.
July 28, 2021
Having thoroughly enjoyed "The other side of You" by Vickers, I approached this book expecting more of the same. While it was an OK read, I was disappointed.
Her main character seemed to be such an aimless person, I found it hard to have any empathy for her. Her husband has just died, she's got money and is on a cruise from England to the U.S. The story is told in the present, her experiences on the cruise, with flashbacks to tell us what happened in her life to get her to this point.
The writing is good, the story line OK. So 3/5 for me.
Her main character seemed to be such an aimless person, I found it hard to have any empathy for her. Her husband has just died, she's got money and is on a cruise from England to the U.S. The story is told in the present, her experiences on the cruise, with flashbacks to tell us what happened in her life to get her to this point.
The writing is good, the story line OK. So 3/5 for me.
August 18, 2011
This book had a very slow lead up to the story. I was about half-way through before I developed a real interest in the story. I felt relieved when it finally caught up with the expectation I had for it, an expectation I formed after reading the book jacket. It was after the first several of Vi's flashbacks, when the picture of her sordid past really started to come alive that I started to enjoy this book. I think the most interesting parts of most people's lives happen at a young age, when their path has not yet been established. It's an interesting time because it's full of promise, it's a time spent looking forward rather than looking back, or examining the present.
Another detraction that I couldn't get past was the lack of character development of the cruise passengers. Other than Violet and Dino/Des, I couldn't keep them straight. I was a bit disappointed that the story of Dino/Des didn't come into all that much play. His story seemed just as interesting as Vi's, if not more so. Perhaps because of his youth it's better left un-reflected upon.
The old cliches are proved true by Violet, youth is wasted on the young, and hindsight is 20/20. Even the idea of a magically lavish transatlantic cruise didn't sell me on the prospect of getting old.
What I had hoped to gain from reading the book was probably the same thing most people hope to get from learning about the lives of those who came before, insight into my own life. From Vi I learned that romantic relationships can be blinding to those in them, and the blame for the pain that occurs within them cannot be assigned unequally. I also learned that some dreams don't die, but people do. We don't have all the time in the world, so why not chase those dreams?
Perhaps the most important lesson came at the very end, allowing yourself the same "Grace and Mercy" that you have for others.
Another detraction that I couldn't get past was the lack of character development of the cruise passengers. Other than Violet and Dino/Des, I couldn't keep them straight. I was a bit disappointed that the story of Dino/Des didn't come into all that much play. His story seemed just as interesting as Vi's, if not more so. Perhaps because of his youth it's better left un-reflected upon.
The old cliches are proved true by Violet, youth is wasted on the young, and hindsight is 20/20. Even the idea of a magically lavish transatlantic cruise didn't sell me on the prospect of getting old.
What I had hoped to gain from reading the book was probably the same thing most people hope to get from learning about the lives of those who came before, insight into my own life. From Vi I learned that romantic relationships can be blinding to those in them, and the blame for the pain that occurs within them cannot be assigned unequally. I also learned that some dreams don't die, but people do. We don't have all the time in the world, so why not chase those dreams?
Perhaps the most important lesson came at the very end, allowing yourself the same "Grace and Mercy" that you have for others.
November 17, 2010
I enjoyed this light well written novel from the author of Miss Garnet's Angel (which I was totally underwhelmed by frankly) the characters are engaging and the pace of the novel is perfect. I have actually read four of Salley Vickers novels, the above as already stated I wasn't fussed by really, I loved Mr Golightly's Holiday and The Instances of Number Three, but hated (don't why) The Other side of You.
I have in fact had this on mnt tbr for a while as I wasn't sure if I would like it or not. It is certainly readable, and the character of Vi is quite engaging. I really felt for her younger self, as we flit back and forth over her life, and I appreciated the older, thoughtful Vi, and the delicacy with which she becomes involved with her fellow passengers on the cruise ship.The novel moves between the present and the past, to when Vi as a young student meets and becomes friends with the poet Edwin. In the course of the novel we discover what it was that came between Vi and her great friend Edwin, the betrayl of her friend has stayed with Vi throughout the intervening years, and she is on a journey to put that right. Her journey to New York by cruise ship has her meet a host of characters and gradually become involved in their own stories. This is an engaging novel about recovery, showing us that maybe it is never too late.
I have in fact had this on mnt tbr for a while as I wasn't sure if I would like it or not. It is certainly readable, and the character of Vi is quite engaging. I really felt for her younger self, as we flit back and forth over her life, and I appreciated the older, thoughtful Vi, and the delicacy with which she becomes involved with her fellow passengers on the cruise ship.The novel moves between the present and the past, to when Vi as a young student meets and becomes friends with the poet Edwin. In the course of the novel we discover what it was that came between Vi and her great friend Edwin, the betrayl of her friend has stayed with Vi throughout the intervening years, and she is on a journey to put that right. Her journey to New York by cruise ship has her meet a host of characters and gradually become involved in their own stories. This is an engaging novel about recovery, showing us that maybe it is never too late.
June 29, 2022
I wasn't quite sure where this story was going, but I was interested in Violet and her journey on the cruise. In the end, it was much deeper and darker than I was expecting, and I loved the surface level story skirting over the top of the deeper, darker undercurrents of Violet coming to terms with her past. I like Salley Vickers writing style, and I really liked Violet...Yes, you want to shake her sometimes during the story, but I was very fond of her, and I liked the slow, subtle reveal of the story behind her life.
August 31, 2019
I enjoyed this the best out of the Sally Vickers novels I have read. It had the ‘comforting’ feeling over the other books and I found this a great exercise in vocabulary. There is also an element of gentle humour and not at all twee.
The setting on the cruise ship made it an easy bedtime read, broken down into the days aboard. Coupled with the main character’s reveries into the past and stories of other guests and crew, it was engaging.
Not a great lot happens in the story except we learn about the main character’s past. I found this a satisfying read and was disappointed when I completed.
The setting on the cruise ship made it an easy bedtime read, broken down into the days aboard. Coupled with the main character’s reveries into the past and stories of other guests and crew, it was engaging.
Not a great lot happens in the story except we learn about the main character’s past. I found this a satisfying read and was disappointed when I completed.
May 4, 2024
Dancing Backwards is a novel about Violet, a women whose husband has recently died and is going on a cruise to visit an old friend. The novel transitions between the present day and the late 1960s.
I found the story became interesting once the story started to paint a picture of Vi's past with Edwin and Bruno, however I found the book slow to get into and the whole cruise ship narrative was an absolute bore!
Vi's chatacter is hard to describe as she was written in a way that made it difficult to connect with her. This book was, in my opinion, dull. I wouldn't recommend.
I found the story became interesting once the story started to paint a picture of Vi's past with Edwin and Bruno, however I found the book slow to get into and the whole cruise ship narrative was an absolute bore!
Vi's chatacter is hard to describe as she was written in a way that made it difficult to connect with her. This book was, in my opinion, dull. I wouldn't recommend.
October 23, 2013
Violet Hentherington (the name sounds straight out of Agatha Christie novels, doesn't it?) is going on a cruise to New York to visit an old friend. Most of the story takes place on the cruise ship, i.e. over 5 days.
This book was enjoyable enough to read but as I neared the end and realised nothing was going to happen, I felt that I'd wasted time on it.
Another side effect has been the demotion of my dream of cruising to New York. I think I'd rather a weekend in a tent in a wood.
This book was enjoyable enough to read but as I neared the end and realised nothing was going to happen, I felt that I'd wasted time on it.
Another side effect has been the demotion of my dream of cruising to New York. I think I'd rather a weekend in a tent in a wood.
September 17, 2017
This was a nice story. That's it. It was sweet but a little dull, and certainly not as captivating as I'd hoped. I never really got attached to any of the characters, and Vi was not exactly compelling. I don't remember much, to be honest. I'm sure it had some pretty language, but I never found myself immersed, that's for sure.
Perhaps the more romantically-inclined will enjoy this novel, but for me it was just a little to soft and ultimately pointless.
Perhaps the more romantically-inclined will enjoy this novel, but for me it was just a little to soft and ultimately pointless.
February 1, 2015
Altogether nothing much happened ... not on the cruise, not when we were granted flash backs to her past with her husband and former lover. None of it was captivating by any means. The relevation in the last chapters did not change how I felt about that book. It was forgettable, it helped passing the time, but I am happy that it is over.
next book pls
next book pls
November 23, 2014
Not normally my kind of book but it was a brilliant read
April 20, 2016
Gave up half-way. No interest in characters or plot. Very slow and tedious to read at times. Too many incidental characters and annoying flashbacks.
November 11, 2012
Disappointingly dull.
November 6, 2022
I have read a number of works by Salley Vickers this year and for me, this is the best so far, bringing Vickers' gift for psychological insight but worn more subtly and without - or at least with less of - the slightly preachy quality of some of her other novels.
In it, the main character, Violet Hetherington, goes on a voyage - or perhaps multiple voyages. Travelling by cruise ship to New York to renew her acquaintance with an old friend, she also reflects on her life to date, including her relationship with her old friend and her two marriages. I enjoyed the unfolding of the stories, including the retrospective stories and the story of her present-day experiences.
One of the things I enjoy about her writing is the way she doesn't shy away from the way life actually is. She writes of characters with human flaws and of lives that are not perfect, including subjects that are often taboo. In this novel, I also enjoyed the way she drew on her knowledge to write convincingly about the physical locations of the novel.
Despite her training as a psychoanalyst, however, I'm not sure her characters - even her main character - are entirely convincing, and I wondered in this novel whether there were, frankly, too many of them. Violet's wisdom towards the end of the novel as she responded to the news of her son's imminent marriage seemed at odds with the character drawn in the remainder of the novel, even if we were meant to see that she had grown in maturity over the years. There's a risk for Vickers that she uses character as a "coat hanger" for sharing wisdom and insight rather than developing her characters fully.
Nonetheless, I enjoyed this novel and felt it sat somewhere between a three and a four in rating. I'm interested to keep reading this author's work.
In it, the main character, Violet Hetherington, goes on a voyage - or perhaps multiple voyages. Travelling by cruise ship to New York to renew her acquaintance with an old friend, she also reflects on her life to date, including her relationship with her old friend and her two marriages. I enjoyed the unfolding of the stories, including the retrospective stories and the story of her present-day experiences.
One of the things I enjoy about her writing is the way she doesn't shy away from the way life actually is. She writes of characters with human flaws and of lives that are not perfect, including subjects that are often taboo. In this novel, I also enjoyed the way she drew on her knowledge to write convincingly about the physical locations of the novel.
Despite her training as a psychoanalyst, however, I'm not sure her characters - even her main character - are entirely convincing, and I wondered in this novel whether there were, frankly, too many of them. Violet's wisdom towards the end of the novel as she responded to the news of her son's imminent marriage seemed at odds with the character drawn in the remainder of the novel, even if we were meant to see that she had grown in maturity over the years. There's a risk for Vickers that she uses character as a "coat hanger" for sharing wisdom and insight rather than developing her characters fully.
Nonetheless, I enjoyed this novel and felt it sat somewhere between a three and a four in rating. I'm interested to keep reading this author's work.
March 12, 2017
Violet Hetherington, once divorced, once widowed, is heading to New York on a cruise ship to find an old friend who journeyed with her through the most troubled time of her life. This is the basic setting for Dancing Backwards, and while the ship plows through the vast expanse of blue, the story flashes back to this earlier period of Vi's life, as well as narrating the daily events that make up her cruise ship life. The book is an easy read, though the story does touch on dark themes at times, and the ending is more or less satisfying. Perhaps the most interesting part for me was the description of life on a cruise. Vickers clearly knows what she is writing about, and brings the world vividly to life, reminding me of my one cruise ship holiday, and the vast array of characters - both guests and staff - who are thrown together to spend a week on a huge luxury travelling hotel, and who each have their own stories, some more able to be spoken of than others. Vickers weaves in a story of one of the staff members, but in reality mostly these stories are hidden from guests, whatever joy and sadness may lie beneath the highly polished facades is revealed only to the point that it will not disturb the guests very much. Thus the story, unexpectedly, provides an interesting reflection on cruise ship life.
August 12, 2019
Vi Hetherington is a widow on a cruise, making the journey to visit an old friend who lives in New York. During her physical journey, where she learns to dance and attracts young and old cruisers to join her in ‘interesting’ conversations, she travels to her past life and struggles to understand why she married a control freak despite warnings from her inner voice. Vi’s analysis of her relationship with her first husband, Bruno, is what kept me reading; her friendships formed on ship were a little tiresome - too many similar sounding names and shallow conversations. Although the descriptions of the ocean were beautiful. The meeting with her old friend, Edwin, at the end of the novel tied up some loose ends but was, ultimately, an anti climax after the build up of mental anguish experienced when they were young and both involved with Bruno.
November 7, 2020
This is a gentle and beautifully written novel about Violet Hetherington, embarking on a luxury cruise to New York where she intend to catch up with Edwin, her former poetry tutor at Cambridge. Dancing Backwards refers to the ballroom dancing classes that are available onboard and play quite a big part in the story. The tale cuts between scenes on the boat - the other guests, the food and drink, Vi's love of the sea and her earlier life in Cambridge where she is involved with both Edwin (who turns out to be gay) and his best friend, the volatile poet Bruno. The three of them edit a poetry magazine and another theme in the novel is Vi's own poetry, which she returns to after many years, on the cruise. Although the characters are very well-drawn and the novel well-constructed, it did fail to engage me at times, but I would recommend as an easy and elegant read.
July 22, 2022
A Profound Shipboard Story
I love Salley Vickers' writing and have in past books. In this novel she does not disappoint. She tells the story of Violet, a one time poet, who gives up her good friend Edwin and her poetry in order to have a normal life: marry and have children. She takes this trip from England to New York and to visit Edwin and becomes my good friend. Really. I liked the way she spoke to people and about people and her beautiful descriptions of life on board and the weather that engulfs them. She becomes friendly with Des/Dino who teaches her to dance on board yet betrays her and how she gets back at him. I wished the story had gone on and on and on.
I love Salley Vickers' writing and have in past books. In this novel she does not disappoint. She tells the story of Violet, a one time poet, who gives up her good friend Edwin and her poetry in order to have a normal life: marry and have children. She takes this trip from England to New York and to visit Edwin and becomes my good friend. Really. I liked the way she spoke to people and about people and her beautiful descriptions of life on board and the weather that engulfs them. She becomes friendly with Des/Dino who teaches her to dance on board yet betrays her and how she gets back at him. I wished the story had gone on and on and on.
December 24, 2024
An enjoyable short novel from the writer of Miss Garnett's Angel, which I also liked. Vi Hetherington takes a liner to New York to reunite with an old friend she hasn't seen for 30 years. What seems at first to be a genteel tale of a recently widowed woman in her 60s travelling to find a lost love, turns out to be anything but, as her past relationships, issues with coercive control, wasted opportunities, her strengths and her integrity are unfolded for us, through flasbacks and current encounters, all in a voyage of only 5 days.
A well-written novel with understated power.
A well-written novel with understated power.
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