Nigeyb’s Reviews > The Ice Age > Status Update

Loved it. Margaret Drabble articulates the anguish of thwarted hopes, the disappointment and spiritual hangover of the late 1970s in Britain with a rare and deft mastery. Consistently readable and frequently surprising. What a book. What a writer.

He cannot evade the idea that God has given him the chance to work out the first causes and the last causes... He should have concentrated harder but was too distracted by the memories of the living, by the immediate future, by Alison, Jane, Molly, Tim, Len Wincobank, Maureen, Babs, Giles Peters. Also, he was not then sufficiently uncomfort-able. Now he is often bitterly cold, usually hungry, and frequently afraid.

I might as well accept that I belong to the world that has gone, reared in the shelter of a cathedral built to a faith that I have sometimes wished I could share, educated in ideals of public service which I have sometimes wished I could fulfil, a child of lost empire, disinherited, gambler, drinker, hypocrite: and who am I to resist an appeal to a chivalric spirit that was condemned as archaic by Cervantes?

And that was how Anthony Keating became a British spy 🤯

The more I read this the more I love it. Five juicy stars await. I’ll be sad to finish despite the novel’s downbeat and maudlin content. Every one of the flawed characters is totally credible.

I wonder if Jane, Alison‘s daughter, is a metaphor for England during the late 1970s?

Thoroughly enjoying this. Plausible in its low key matter of factness

This feels like a really convincing and authentic look at England in 1977. Needless to say, I am loving every page so far.

Surprisingly relaxed, even positive, attitude to bring groped by the boss in an office. In keeping with the character but even so it feels unusual as this is written by a female author. That was the seventies I suppose

Cholesterol awareness already in existence in 1977