Ever After

by Graham Swift

Dazzling in its structure and shattering in its emotional force, Graham Swift's Ever After spans two centuries and settings from the adulterous bedrooms of postwar Paris to the contemporary entanglements in the groves of academe. It is the story of Bill Unwin, a man haunted by the death of his beautiful wife and a survivor himself of a recent brush with mortality. And although it touches on Darwin and dinosaurs, bees and bridge builders, the true subject of Ever After is nothing less than the eternal question, "Why should things matter?"

"Ever After is explicitly concerned with historical investigation, love, death, family affairs.... It moves quickly, and it vibrates with feeling and thought."--Wall Street Journal

Genres: Fiction, Novels, Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction, British Literature, Literature, Contemporary

275 pages, Paperback

First published March 10, 1992

About the author

Graham Colin Swift is a British writer. Born in London, UK, he was educated at Dulwich College, Queens' College, Cambridge, and later the University of York.

Reviews

[Chrissie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was told the book poses the questions "Why should anything matter?" and "Does life really matter?"

For me, these questions are not sufficiently well answered in this tale.

The start is confusing. Sentences are incomplete. Characters are thrown at the reader, and it is hard to keep straight who is who. You jump backward and forward in time. The story covers several generations of a family. The telling is not linear. It flips frequently back to Victorian times and the notebooks written then by a family ancestor. Then we are jogged forward again to the 1950s. There have been multiple deaths. Darwin and the conflict between religious beliefs and science are laid beside the trends, lifestyles and attitudes prevalent after the Second World War. Here bedhopping, multiple sex partners and licentious behavior are the norm. I am guessing those in the present are to learn from the past; this is why one is juxtaposed next to the other. I don’t find the connection clear!

Life and death, suicide, love, poetry and literature, science and religion are the topics around which the events circle. We observe over time and from different characters’ points of view. More questions are posed than answered. The reader is kept thinking and there are pretty lines, BUT I do not quite know what exactly the author wants said! The telling is too loose, too messy, too unclear. Three stars is my rating.

Alex Jennings narrates the audiobook. He is easy to follow. The different voices speaking are easily distinguishable, yet the performance is not exceptional. The narration I have given three stars too.

*****************************

*Waterland 4 stars
*Mothering Sunday 4 stars
*Here We Are 4 stars
*Last Orders 3 stars
*Ever After 3 stars
*The Light of Day TBR
*Tomorrow TBR
*Out of This World TBR
*Shuttlecock TBR
*Wish You Were Here TBR
*The Sweet Shop Owner TBR

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

Meet Bill Unwin. He’s a man in his fifties, English, a quasi-academic, and one who appreciates the art of language and the tenor of personal relationships. Unfortunately, he’s lost his dear wife, an esteemed stage actress named Ruth, to cancer. In addition, other events that prove that trouble comes in threes conspired to throw him for one hell of a loop. Prior to her death, Bill had a job managing Ruth's career. It was a career that more or less managed itself. His current post as a fellow at a prestigious university was due, in large part, to a substantial sum that his step-father had gifted the school. Bill did have an interesting project, though. It involved a set of notebooks that Matthew Pearce, an ancestor, had kept in Victorian times. Religion was ceding ground to Darwin. This brought on a very rapid evolution in Matthew; not a fortuitous one given his father-in-law’s position in the clergy. Though Matthew’s upheaval was more self-induced, it does tie in with Bill’s own. In the end, Bill has told much of his story from early days obsessing about pretty ballerinas onward. But it’s difficult to know what he’s truly sorted out. He’s better at asking questions than answering them.

Now meet Reader X. He’s a man in his fifties, American, a faux-aficionado of life, and one who appreciates several of the same things Bill does. Fortunately, Reader X’s dear wife is still very much alive and, among other things, supplies him with fine books. She knew, for instance, that Graham Swift had written one of his favorites, Last Orders, and wanted him to enjoy another one like it. A few chapters into this new one, Reader X was struck by how adept Swift is with language. Are the English simply better at it? Maybe his sample of classics and Booker Prize-winners biases him to think so. After a bit more of Ever After, though, Reader X became almost too aware of the literary garnish and began hoping for more meat. Last Orders was so good at varying time to back-fill the story of old friends. Ever After made effective use of the same device, but ended up wearing our reader friend out, what with Matthew’s ponderous struggle for meaning and Bill’s own contemplative load. While pat answers to difficult questions can stretch credulity, Reader X felt like a few more hints about reconciling harsh realities might have been nice. Then again, maybe Swift was less interested in self-help and more interested in existential angst. Reader X will just have to get over it.

3.5 stars rounded to 4.

[Bettie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bettie's Books

[Julian Lorr · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book hung around me like a quiet friend for the whole of the time it took me to read it. It has retained that status ever since. Beautifully crafted, it is how all writing should be.

[Casey · Rating 4 out of 5]

—"Look. The age of steam trains is already over — devoured by the ruthless age of ballerinas."—

Three weeks ago, Bill Unwin, fifty-two, tried to kill himself. Looking back at his life and paralleling it with that of a long-ago relative, Matthew Pearce, whose mid-nineteenth-century notebooks he possesses, Unwin attempts to answer the question we all wonder, "Why should anything matter?" and "Does it, does it really?" And oh, the bees, the poetry, the pear, and oh of course Love.

—"You have to picture the scene. You have to imagine these scenes in which for most people nothing changes, nothing is essentially different— all this drama and fuss, a passing storm, a twisted ankle—but for some people the world falls apart."—

This is a book that challenges its reader again and again and again and..... It demands almost more than you're willing to give, but if you give of yourself true, it rewards. That being said, you really do have to be in the right mood to find the door on this one.

—"And why there should be this stuff called poetry, to begin with, which strikes our hearts at such a magic angle. And why there should be certain things in this random universe which cry out to us with their loveliness. And why it should be poetry that captures them."—

I shouldn't really write a review, as I'm still lost in the swirl of whatever this is, and by "this" I mean... well, I mean something, that after reading, I'm not certain that what I thought "this" as "this" is.

—"But what true lovers were they who never learnt to speak in whispers or tread on tiptoe?"—

I'll be rereading shortly, maybe in a month or four.

—"And nothing is left but this impossible absence. This space at your side the size of a woman, the size of a life, the size — of the world. Ah yes, the monstrosity, the iniquity of love—that another person should be the world. What does it matter if the world (out there) is lost, doomed, if there is no sense, purpose, rhyme, or reason to the schemeless scheme of things, so long as—But when she is gone, you indict the universe."—

—"When you are out on an adventure, you want to be home by the fire, and when you're at home by the fire, you want to be out on an adventure."—

[Nick · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this expecting something similar to Last Orders, but it very much isn't. In place of the salt-of-the-earth characters of that novel, and the relatively straightforward plot (as I remember it), this is a work more akin to AS Byatt's Possession, with a narrative that interweaves the ambitions and obsessions of a bunch of contemporary academics with the lives of the nineteenth century figures they are studying. (I notice it was published just a couple of years after Possession.)

Like Possession, it is a very 'literary' novel, as concerned with themes and metaphors as with plot and characters. For example, the pear on the front cover is a multi-faceted symbol that unites various themes in the novel - man's changing relationship with nature and God as he discovers the secrets of genetics, temptation and lost innocence (the tree of knowledge), a certain nostalgic vision of England that mingles with the protagonist's recollections of his childhood. There are also reflections on the nature of history and narrative - the main character openly uses artistic licence to recreate various scenes from the life of Matthew Pearce, sometimes imagining two or three different versions.

The scenes involving Pearce are some of the book's most compelling, as he grapples with religious doubt following his exposure to Darwin and his accidental discovery of the bones of a dinosaur - doubt which eventually leads him to abandon his family. I was less interested by the story of the main character, who has been largely a spectator of others' lives, and is struggling to find a raison d'etre following the death of his wife.

An intriguing novel, but one I found intellectually stimulating rather than emotionally satisfying.

[Eleanor · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this, but found it a bit slow - possibly partly because I have been having a rather busy time and haven't had much reading time available. I like Graham Swift's books, but wouldn't rate this one up there with "Mothering Sunday" or "Last Orders".

[Nick Davies · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF at ~50%. This for me was much more like 'Waterland' (which I struggled through because it came recommended, and persisted with in spite of not enjoying it completely) than the serendipitous punt of 'Shuttlecock' (which had unpleasant characters but a narrative which interested me) - and I gave up at around half-way.

The novel follows an aged academic looking back on his life, as well as discussing family and other people in great biographical detail. A few of these vignettes were interesting and real, piquing my interest for a handful of pages, but the majority felt tedious and disconnected. There was just too little to hold together the various small tales told, too few of the characters held my interest, and epistolary sections about distant ancestors in 19th Century Britain were the final straw in breaking my fragile interest. Swift writes with beauty and no little talent of small description, I have no doubt the fragments did eventually pull together into some kind of plot... but there was just far far too little here to motivate me to continue.

[Dawn Marie · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book reminds me of visiting with a much treasured friend. You look forward to the stories, the easy wit and reminiscing about the old times. It's an enjoyable visit and so interesting even when the friend starts mulling over past facts and events, and mulls, and mulls and suddenly you realize that they've been mulling for hours - and you now want to go home. Very desperately. Pat the old friends hand and say "Gosh, I probably should be going now. They'll be worrying about me. Is it getting dark? Don't you have to go in for dinner now?" You'll escape to your car so thankful that you can leave. And a few months from now you'll think what a good storyteller that friend is and you really need to go and see him again.

[Sarag22 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nonostante la bella prosa di Graham Swift e nonostante le tematiche affrontate dal romanzo, tutte di estremo interesse per me, non posso dire di avere apprezzato fino in fondo questo testo. Il difetto principale del romanzo, è, a mio parere, che le due parti, quella che racconta della crisi del narratore e quella in cui il narratore racconta della crisi del suo antenato vittoriano, non mi sembra si integrino bene. Entrambi sono posti di fronte all'errore, alla morte, all'estinzione e alla domanda sul significato o sull'assenza di significato di questi eventi, è vero, ma in qualche modo non sembra che si parlino, non sembra che le loro vicende li accomunino così tanto che abbia senso vederle in parallelo. Inoltre, viene introdotto un tema, quello delle rivalità accademiche, che non ha attinenza con il resto del libro e devia l'attenzione dai punti fondamentali, per morire un po' lì, senza aggiungere granché al resto.
Ci sono pagine brillanti e altre intelligenti e anche poetiche, ma l'impressione finale è di una mancanza di un passo in più.

[leni swagger · Rating 4 out of 5]

Note to myself: Always trust the teacher with the old lady hair for book recommendations

[Johnny · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was introduced to Graham Swift at a Creative Writing practice class, where his book "Mothers Sunday" was discussed. I thought it was an impressive book, a genre I was not at all familiar with, and it greatly influenced my reading behavior.

During a second-hand book sale in the library of Dilsen-Stokkem I found his "Ever After". And actually I'm not so fond of it. It's the chatter of a 52-year-old man after a suicide attempt, and it reminds me a bit of the writing of Jack Kerouac. It's filled with long sentences, with not only many commas, but also dashes and parentheses. Sentences you almost have to read aloud to put the right accents on the words and get the essence out of it. But at least they are grammatically correct.

The I-narrator tells about his parents, a dad who died early, a stepfather with whom his mom already had a relationship, a wife of his own who he had to let go. In my view you could read the first chapters in almost any order. After a while, the big story finally becomes clear. The narrator links his own life during and after World War II with the publication of Darwin's theory in the mid-19th century. He studies the diaries of one Matthew Pearce as part of a research project into the spiritual crisis that took place at that time. Pearce lived in Darwin's time, and like the narrator was confronted with deaths and infidelity, and his life was turned upside down by the theory of evolution. He asks whether everything is a coincidence or whether there is a design behind it, noting that many people want them to be remembered by others after their death.

There are only a few active pieces with dialogue in it, the rest is told completely from a distance and long after the fact. And there is in my view no difference between the narrator's writing style and that in Matthew Pearce's diaries.

So it is a book about life and death, about the meaning of both, about parents and children, about the importance of our own individual, about secrets and discoveries. But the writing style kept me from fully appreciating the book.

[Al · Rating 4 out of 5]

I started this novel with no expectations and finished it with feelings of admiration and enrichment. Mr. Swift writes in the first person as Bill Unwin, a middle-aged person looking back on his life and struggling to find the meaning of it. Along the way we learn of his youth, his marriage, his research into a nineteenth century relative, and much more, all delivered with great insight and beautiful prose. Unwin’s sympathetic character is fully realized, and his insights strike responsive chords. Recommended.

[Elenore :) · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'll be honest ...
I didn't catch most of what he was talking about, but nevertheless, this was one hell of a read. I swear, this book is one of those books that made me realize what GOOD writing is.

I'll definitely read this again sometime in the future, because I'm sure I'll find more exceptional enlightenments in here than the ones I've caught.

[Talia · Rating 2 out of 5]

Maybe it hasn’t aged well. It reminded me a lot of other books I’ve read about lonely mediocre older men, and/or professors, and/or with mummy issues, and/or with mysterious/distant fathers.

[Michele · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is my second Swift novel. I read this one because it has historical elements to it that I think might be useful in my study of twentiety century British literature.

Bill Unwin narrates the events of his life, his research and muses on the correlations between the two. His wife recently committed suicide, and he tried to follow but survived. Thanks to his stepfather, a plastics manufacturer, he has a chair at a prestigious university (not sure which one) and is working on preparing the diary of a Victorian relative, Matthew, who left his wife and family after revealing to them (and his rector-father in law) that the theory of evolution had persuaded him to the point of losing his faith in creationism. His wife kept the notebooks, a love letter, and the clock that his father had built, passing the clock down to Bill and his wife Ruth (who died childless). Bill interprets this to mean that she still loved him when he died. Bill draws parallels between the family's sense of destiny and his own, and in particular, he wonders at his wife's profession of actress - a putting on of characters that other people see, but Bill thinks repeatedly of the woman he knew - the one who studied her lines by pacing through the backyard, smoking and gesticulating as she memorized and tried out out different versions of them.

Bill accuses/muses that his stepfather is guilty of a kind of reverse colonialism (Sam, his stepfather, is American, was carrying on an affair with his mother in Paris, when Sam's spy-father shot himself, either out of guilt caused by spying, or because his wife was having an affair).

Most of the narrative is a recollection, and in its telling, Bill seems to work through some of the parts of his grief. In other ways, the narrative seems to deny knowledge, such as when Bill tries to imagine why someone would kill themselves (even though he presumably should know why he tried). He frequently leaves words unsaid, represented by the "--" but it is always clear what word he has omitted. This activity does not introduce confusion or multiplicity into the text, it rather induces in the reader as sense of Bill's squeamishness in dealing with emotions and relationships - some of the more delicate parts of life.

In producing large parts of Matthew's 'diary', Swift introduces the inventor Brunel, the Victorian debates about God and evolution, and their attitudes toward nature and society, and it reproduces Victorian attitudes to life. In reading these passages, it is easy to forget that the did not exist outside this text, and the parallels with the angst that Bill is working through are frequently drawn. Some of the connections made are less clear. Bill grows up in Alderston, a town that had a reputation later for protest but the reason for the introduction of this parallel is not immediately clear.

Having just read Golding's The Paper Men, I find similar sentiments expressed by both protagonists - which begs an interesting question about the motivation/attitude of the author's writing the stories (Bill also sounds a lot like the narrator of Swift's Waterland).

[Jed Symonds · Rating 2 out of 5]

I picked this book at relative random from Pegasus book store in town, briefly flicking through and deciding to give it a shot, if nothing more than to read something I usually wouldn’t and broaden my literary horizons.

“Ever After” deals with two major themes, love and death. While at times these were clear to me, there were many times where they weren’t, the book spans a time period of 150 years, the narrator jumping in between present day and various points before, which again I found interesting when there was a clear parallel or juxtaposition, other times it was harder to spot.

The narrator himself is a middle aged man and I wonder if the themes in this book were directed at an older audience (an audience that has lots, or maybe just more experience with love and death), not a 24 year old (who does not). I looked forward to picking it up less often than I didn’t and while it was engaging at times and seemed to be picking up steam it would lose me by jumping somewhere on the 150 year timespan in the next chapter.

I think on a second read some of the themes and links would become clearer to me but I just didn’t relate or feel much towards any character in the book to warrant a second reading. A second reading would likely be worthwhile in terms of understanding the book more but like the 3 day old raw chicken I pulled out my fridge yesterday, I don’t think I’ll give it the chance.

2.5/5

[John Mccullough · Rating 4 out of 5]

You haven't finished the first page and you already know you are dealing with a major author. You finish the book and you guess this wasn't his best book, but it is still a good one that brings forth serious questions about life and a few that I think are stupid but many find important (like "Why me?" Well if it is you, it is you and that is that - deal with it somehow).

Bill Unwin is a failed academic at a major UK university (Oxford?) recovering from a failed - of course - suicide attempt. This recovery allows him time to dwell on his past and his project of analysing his great-grandfather's papers which detail the old gentleman's intellectual struggles with evolution in 1850's England. Through a series of flashbacks we find the Dr. Unwin was born to a wealthy and hedonistic mother and an emotionally distant military father. Just before the suicide attempt he has 3 deaths in his family - his wife (the major bright spot in his life), his mother and his wealthy Yank step-father.

The book is written in the first person and eventually creates a whole story - essentially two whole stories, of Unwin and his ancestor, Matthew Pearce - from bits and scraps as Unwin divulges his story and how he came to be where he is. It is a story of death, birth and love in about that order. We learn a bit about the ferocity of the argument concerning evolution in Darwin's time, about the ferocity of modern academic competition, about the effects of parental love and neglect, growing up surrounded by people but still alone, and alone for the rest of your life, and what love drives one to do - in a good way may I add.

I am slow-witted and will have to read the book again to really "peel the onion" in an intellectually constructive way. I think it will be worth it, as few books are.

[William · Rating 3 out of 5]

Because if its publicity, I was prepared to enjoy this novel more than Last Orders, and I was ready for the investment needed to "get into" a Graham Swift narrative (i.e., don't expect to get any returns before reading 100 or so pages). However rich the intricate intertwining of past and present narratives, the work disappoints me somewhat. Sometimes too contrived? Too formulaic?

[Martha · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a wonderfully rich book - about all the big things - life, love, knowledge and death. Swift , Ah, that name!, is not afraid to bring in some of the big thinkers, the ones who have made us pause lo these many years - Virgil, Shakespeare, Darwin, Dante - to help us muddle through those big things that cause the big thinkers to write.

[Rosanna Miranda o'leary · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hmmmm. This book received several great reviews. However, I just got bored and impatient after awhile. Too much waffling about into the meaning of life. We all ponder. We all ask questions about life, love, the universe and how we fit into it all. With this book, I was reading not only one diary but two. The writing was beautiful but too dense, too heavy, too long, too sad. Sorry.

[Liz · Rating 1 out of 5]

I think if I’d read this instead of listening to it I might have enjoyed it and even finished it. I got to over a quarter of the way through when I abandoned it. Nothing seemed to have happened apart from a lot about Paris post war, and someone’s dislike (jealousy?) of his young stepfather. I usually love a Graham Swift but not this time.

[Pamela · Rating 2 out of 5]

Despite the beautiful prose - I loved the writing - for the most part, the story did not entice me. Periodically I would find a compelling section, and the ideas were interesting, but for me the book did not come together as a fabulous read.

[Tricia]

first chapter started out a bit tedious, but it is blowing up now. it makes we want to eat crepes

[Juan Carlos · Rating 3 out of 5]

Novela densa, difícil, muy incardinada en la cultura inglesa. Cuenta la peripecia de un hombre de mediana edad (cincuenta y tantos años) que en la primera nos dice que acaba de volver de un intento de suicidio. Es a raíz de este regreso que nos vamos a ir enterando del universo que habitaba el personaje, Bill Undwin. Es él mismo el encargado de relatarnos en 22 capítulos la peripecia de su vida que le ha llevado hasta ese momento en que a punto estuvo de no regresar del otro lado.
En el momento en que se inicia el relato él es un estudioso humanista becado en una universidad inglesa en la que su jefe es un tal Potter al que Bill le ha mostrado unos cuadernos de Matthew Pearson que han llegado hasta sus manos por vía familiar que en ese momento estamos por dilucidar.
A partir de este momento, Bill irá mezclando en la novela estos cuadernos, una especie de Diario con su peripecia personal (hijo de un militar que en 1946? se suicidó) y de una mujer Sylvie, actriz y disfrutona de la vida, que al año o poco más se casa con Sam, casi veinte años más joven que ella y relacionado con la industria del plástico. Las relaciones entre Bill y su padrastro no serán muy buenas y en un encuentro en París revelará a Bill el auténtico motivo por el que su padre se pegó un tiro.
La anécdota de Matthew Pearce es interesante por demás. Transcurre en el siglo XIX y él es un agrimensor que tuvo mucha importancia en el desarrollo del primer o uno de los primeros ferrocarriles ingleses. Es un científico, un racionalista, aficionado a la paleontología. Conocerá a Elizabeth, hija de un pastor metodista?. Durante unos años todo irá bien. Pero surgirán disensiones irreconciliables entre ambos hombres a raíz de la teoría del Origen de las especies de Charles Darwin. Elizabeth se pondrá de parte del padre y Matthew abandonará el hogar. Es importante también la relación entre Matthew y su padre, John Pearce, al que cuidará con abnegación en el final de sus días, a pesar del mal trato que éste, alcohólico, le da.
Bill es hijo del George Rawlinson: A raiz de esto en la novela se nos cuenta el origen de dicho apellido que se remonta a Walter Raleigh, aventurero que combatió a los españoles, que hizo dinero en América y que al final de sus días se dedicó a la poesía.
La figura de Hamlet de Shakespeare y los personajes de esta tragedia con utilizados por el autor como referencias a los comportamientos de no pocos personajes de la novela. Esto unido a los paralelismos entre las distantes historias de Matthew y Bill componen una historia complicada y confusa en ocasiones. La complicación viene dada especialmente por la caída durante varias páginas en reflexiones filosóficas y teológicas muy acordes con el pensamiento del siglo XIX. Concretamente a mí me ha llevado la lectura de esta novela a recordar con frecuencia la filosofía naturalista propia de Emerson que tuve ocasión de leer en su obra titulada "Naturaleza" y que curiosamente luego recreé en mi memoria cuando leí la novela de Landero, "El huerto de Emerson".
No quiero decir más para no aclarar más la profusa vegetación contenida en esta narración, la primera que he leído de este escritor inglés al que no tenía el gusto de conocer.
Me ha parecido una novela que pretende mucho más de lo que alcanza y que se pierde en meandros de confusas reflexiones cuando al final vemos que la historia bien podría reducirse a una serie de duelos por la muerte de seres queridos, de personas amadas, y del deseo de trascender la finitud de la vida. Y al llegar aquí, para lograr al menos acercarse un mínimo a esta inmortalidad, a esta trascendencia, sólo queda la poesía, la literatura, el arte teatral pues sólo él es capaz de convertir cosas en personas y corregir el destino vital que conduce inexorablemente a convertir las personas en cosas.

[Glass River]

Swift – a worthy Booker winner – has published nothing undistinguished. This could be judged his best work, I think, but perhaps because the hero is one of my profession and the novel delicately probes the perennial angst of the professor’s career. Be warned, it is not, if you’re new to it, a ‘happy ever after’ novel. The narrative opens with a fifty-two-year-old don convalescing in an Oxford college garden. ‘These are, I should warn you, the words of a dead man’, we are bleakly informed. It is summer: he is in a chair with a blanket over his knees. Corpse-cold. Bill Unwin hates his ‘dodo’ profession (when so many other species are extinct, why has dodo-academicus, aka ‘the greater pointy-headed professor’ survived, he wonders). What he is convalescing from we shall not learn until the last chapter, although the frequent references to Hamlet are a broad hint.
What emerges from the narrative he is scrawling on a pad is a history of his doomed family and, in the background to that, a chronicle of the collective death of religious belief in England. Three people close to him have died over the last year and a half: his mother, his wife Ruth and his American stepfather, Sam, a businessman who made an obscenely large fortune in plastics. Bill hates the commercial world, even though it has endowed the fellowship he unprofitably occupies. His wife Ruth – an internationally famous actress – fell a premature victim to lung cancer. They first met when he worked, as a holiday job, in a smoky Soho club in the 1950s. Bill’s mother died of cancer of the larynx. It was a cruel affliction. She had been a ‘gifted’ singer.
The casualty list continues. Going decades back, his father, a serving army officer, committed suicide in Paris in 1946 – because, Bill has been given to believe, he had been cuckolded by the young American plastic merchant who later became his stepfather. With his mother’s death, a packet of his great-grandfather’s notebooks have come into Bill’s possession. He intends to edit and publish them. His ancestor, Matthew Pearce, was a geologist and surveyor who worked alongside Isambard Kingdom Brunel building the great Saltash Bridge, in 1855. The bridge was majestic, but financially it was a disaster and precipitated Brunel’s early death. The event coincided with Matthew’s spiritual crisis. On the West Country cliffs, he came face to face with a prehistoric ‘icthyosaurus’ (i.e. its skull and skeleton – fleshed out by his imagination):
The long, toothed jaw; the massive eye that stares through millions of years. He is the creature; the creature is him. He feels something open up inside him . . . and feels himself starting to fall, and fall, through himself. He lurches on to the path, as if outward movement will stop the inward falling . . . as if to stop himself falling he must get to sea level.
The vision converted him (a clergyman’s son) to Darwinism some years before Darwin. He took off alone for the New World, only to be drowned en route.
Finally the truth emerges about Bill’s own father. He did not kill himself for love, or out of mortification at his wife’s betrayal, but because he was deep into murky dealings, between Britain and America, on the development of Weapons of Mass Destruction – i.e. the extermination of the human species. His suicide was an act of ‘ideological anguish’. A series of yet more twists and discoveries lead Bill to an attempted suicide. It fails. But he is, nonetheless, ‘a dead man’. It’s a beautifully morbid novel.

[Brandon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Graham Swift has always given us books that deal with death and absence but this book takes the theme to it's fullest. Using another tool familiar to regular Swift readers - using personal history to explain how the protagonist got to where he is - Swift creates a familiar character but surrounds him with death. In the book we have the death of his parents, his stepfather, his wife, the brother of his step-father and even the fossil of a dinosaur all playing a part in the main character finding his place in the world. That's not to say that the book is bleak in any way because it is not. The ghosts of these many people do not haunt the protagonists but instead provide a pathway for him, leading him along as far as they could before their demise. This is a book not about the possibilities of life and the grand dance to success but more a book that says 'you get to were you are by getting there.' A simple understanding, maybe, but one that rings true to me.

The protagonist, Bill Unwin, is neither a great man or a game changer. His life is lived under the shadow of others. His adult hood begins under the guidance of his stepfather who wants him to be a big man in plastics but he forgoes this to instead become a manager for his actress wife. By his own admission he is little more than a prop as her star shines. An anonymous appendage on the arm of someone out of his league. Upon her death he ends up in academia under a fellowship granted to him by his stepfather that garners little attention from his fellow academics. He whiles away his time studying the diaries of a distant Victorian relative and soon gets over his head as he becomes obsessed with this man and his story. It these diaries that provide the confrontation in the book that leads to a seismic change in the peaceful minutiae of life that provide the fuel for Swifts novels. It is also a story that is not Bill Unwins and one that he is not qualified to approach from a scholarly viewpoint. Bill Unwin is a man whose history lead him to this point in his life but it is his passive meandering through his life that put him there. An absence of drive and passion has left him where he had spent most of his life - living vicariously through another.

Absence also features strongly in this book. Not only in the many deaths and career choices but also the absence of children and friends but Swift keeps the tempo upbeat. This is not a bleak treatise on absence but more a vigorous tale about how absence can lead a man somewhere he never thought he would be. The absence of children allow him to follow his actress wife in her nomadic career and the absence of parents keeps the check and balances of life to a minimum.

The energetic writing with a Victorian flair keeps the book more upbeat than my review may suggest and the alternating chapters means that the reader does not dwell to long as the many scenes unfold but all the usual themes that Swift is known for are present and brilliant executed. All parts are linked and inescapable and anonymity of the protagonist gives the story a lot of weight and that is where I believe Swift is at his best. Telling a large story with everyday characters and making the small details of life heavier than I ever thought they were.

[Anneliese Tirry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Een boek waarvoor ik niet genoeg culturele bagage heb, spijtig genoeg, en ik ben niet Engels, waardoor ik de finesses van de toch wel moeilijke taal in dit boek soms mis, waardoor ik het niet ten gronde kon appreciëren. Er zijn ook veel verwijzingen naar Hamlet, maar ik ken dat verhaal niet meer goed genoeg om hierin mee te gaan (en toch gelezen tijdens mijn studies, doch dat is al zeer lang geleden).
Bill Unwin, academicus, kijkt terug naar zijn leven en ondertussen vertelt hij, verzint hij voor een groot deel, ook het levensverhaal van één van zijn voorvaderen : Matthew Pearce.
Voor mij gaat dit boek vooral over de verbinding tussen het oude en nieuwe leven, het afschudden van het oude om naar het nieuwe te kunnen gaan, en dat op vele vlakken:
Dat is het leven van Bill zelf, hij leeft nog na een zelfmoordpoging, maar ook leeft hij, maar op wat voor een manier, alleen verder na de dood van zijn vrouw Ruth. Ook het verleden, hetgeen welke men denkt te kennen, wankelt nadat hij meer te weten komt over de dood van zijn vader.
Dat is het leven van Matthew die het geloof in God definitief afzweert na de dood van zijn zoontje, maar die al met vele vragen leefde nadat hij Darwin en het bestaan van fossielen ontdekte en dus weet dat hij niet leeft in een perfect geschapen wereld, en daardoor ook zijn oude leven moet achterlaten.
Dat is The Great Western Railroad die de oude wereld met de nieuwe verbindt (althans met de haven van waar men naar de nieuwe wereld vertrekt), maar ook alle levens die in het boek voorkomen.
Soms is het boek onuitstaanbaar, dat was voor mij vooral zo in het begin, waar de verteller nog zijn stem en taal zoekt en zich verliest in een opeenstapeling van bijzinnen en moeilijke woorden en zeer bitter overkomt, dan weer wordt het boeiend wanneer het gaat over het vinden van de notaboekjes van Matthew waaruit hij een heel leven construeert. Het is bij het verhaal van Matthew dat de verteller ook steeds tussenkomt met vragen of opmerkingen, over het schrijven van zo'n biografie, van wat kan en niet kan, of met filosofische vragen over bvb de ziel.
Maar de allermooiste delen zijn die delen waar hij vertelt over Ruth, over zijn liefde voor haar, over zijn grote verlies. Dat is werkelijk prachtig en eigenlijk had het voor mij niet meer moeten zijn dan dat, die schone ode aan het gemis en de liefde.
"It's not the end of the world. It is the end of the world. None of the arguments, none of the catechisms work. There was a time - don't you remember? - when you never knew her; you lived without her then. No amount of grief ever brought anyone back. You wring your heart out over the death of one woman; but thousands die every hour, every minute. Well, I'm sorry. I'm selfish, I'm feeble, I only have heart enough for one."

[Stephen · Rating 3 out of 5]

After the majestic island realm that is 'Waterland' (1983), Swift's remaining output from the 1980s and early 1990s appear as sharp reeds around it, as much slimmer, slighter, yet still nimble creations. They don't have anything like the same mass, beauty or complexity, but are nevertheless worth harvesting, and the process of gathering in won't take you long.

'Ever After' is another sparse tale of dysfunctional families, in this case broadened out from a single point in time to account for multiple generations where separation, extramarital affairs and divorce attest to these imperfect relations. A glass-domed ormalu clock watches over them from the 19thC through the 20thC, counting through their follies and representing just one of several momento mori found through the novel. The cover to my edition features a guttering candle flame, making much the same point.

The story hangs together and was more satisfying than most of Swift's other novels from this era that I've read, at least as a page turner. As a narrative, the threads keep being dropped and reassumed, as we switch between time periods and narrators. It's easy enough to follow for the plot, with a cache of papers, and conversations with the unreliable narrators of a mother and uncle, helping to keep us readers guessing about the reasons behind the relationships and breakups, and the lives and deaths, of those recorded and recounted.

Still, the characters (Matthew, John, Bill) are not entirely compelling, nor completely convincing at all moments. The speeding car scene is a case in point, where the circumstances and emotions (frustration, curiosity, disembodied fear) don't quite sit right. That scene in particular recalls Iris Murdoch in both its overwrought rendering and its narrative propulsion. On balance, Swift keeps interest in the 'why' of their lives - and to some extent the 'meta' why of knowability about these lives - yet never quite managed to make me care about the people themselves.

The book does make imaginative leaps into the lives of its historical and contemporary cast, as into their fidelities and infidelities. The chasm between data and answers is a postmodern observation very much of its time (doubly so given that the novel is set in an Oxbridge-like ivory tower). Like Murdoch, Swift gives us a novel of ideas, with a decent enough plot, but just not quite enough plausibility or conclusive punch for it to cast much light. The reedy taper, once blown out, palls into relatively thin smoke.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Our 52 year old narrator is in a mess. In such a mess that he messes up his own suicide. Why, when he has inherited great wealth from his stepfather that gave him a fellowship at one of the best universities. Graham Swift has made his narrator fiercely erudite (I'm beginning to sound like him) as he joins those elderly (if not ancient) dons: "A few dubiously nimble brains, in a few desiccated, enfeebled bodies". Swift's introduction in the first few pages is one of the best I have ever read.

So here he sits in the college garden, ruminating on what brought him here. "The gardeners giving him a wide, respectful birth". He has emerged from hospital "a fully reconditioned if fragile specimen". He is "a refugee from show-business and grief". I do think that the story of his marriage to his actress wife Ruth is the bast part of the book. Less so, the study of the notebooks of Mathew Pearce from 1854. Much less so.

Can I just sling in some of the vocabulary that is new to me? "my paradisaical surroundings" - "the auguries of happy-ever-afters" - "my stepfathers maledictions" - "Sam's annunciatory visit" - "purlieus of knowledge". And a note about Darwin: "I have dipped into Darwin. It's heavy going. The prose thick, grey and formidable, like porridge".

Our narrator (we don't learn his name until page 173) tells us about his childhood and his exotic mother. "But the past they say is a foreign country, and I fictionalise (perhaps) these memories". Then "It was my mother who first warned me ..... against the ruinous desire to outwit mortality". So this is quite a philosophical book, punctuated by events with those close to him. I preferred the latter. And we are left with the question from my first sentences ... why?