Immagine dell'autore.

Jane Rogers

Autore di The Testament of Jessie Lamb

20+ opere 995 membri 49 recensioni

Sull'Autore

Jane Rogers has written five novels & the script for the BBC adaptation of "Mr. Wroe's Virgins," directed by Danny Boyle & starring Minnie Driver & Jonathan Pryce. Her "Living Image" won the Somerset Maugham Award, & "Promised Lands" won the Writers Guild Award for best novel. She lives in mostra altro Lancashire, England. (Bowker Author Biography) mostra meno

Comprende il nome: Rogers Jane

Fonte dell'immagine: Jerry Bauer

Opere di Jane Rogers

Mr. Wroe's Virgins (1991) 155 copie
Good Fiction Guide (2001) — A cura di — 152 copie
Island (1999) 75 copie
Promised Lands (1995) 67 copie
Conrad & Eleanor (2016) 30 copie
The Voyage Home (2004) 29 copie
The Ice is Singing (1987) 24 copie
Body Tourists (2019) 21 copie
Her Living Image (1984) 20 copie
New Writing 12 (2003) — A cura di — 14 copie
Separate Tracks (1983) 13 copie
Meiner Mutter Haus. (2001) 3 copie
Myrtle's Guest (1952) 2 copie

Opere correlate

Granta 52: Food : The Vital Stuff (1995) — Compositore — 146 copie
The New Uncanny: Tales of Unease (2008) — Collaboratore — 52 copie
Litmus: Short Stories from Modern Science (2011) — Collaboratore — 23 copie
Bio-Punk: Stories from the Far Side of Research (2012) — Collaboratore — 12 copie

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Discussioni

The Testament of Jessie Lamb by Jane Rogers in Booker Prize (Settembre 2011)

Recensioni

A book of two parts, interwoven. One is a traditionally written historical novel set in the late 1700s which is a third person viewpoint of a man, William Dawes, who is apparently an actual historical person. He served in the Royal Marines and was employed as a surveyor and overseer of convicts working in a British colony in Australia which eventually became the city of Sydney, but his real passion was astronomy. He is dissatisfied with his position, forced to obey orders of the capricious governor who presides over the gradual extermination of the native population of the area by a combination of smallpox - which William is unable to prove was deliberately spread among them and to which the Europeans were immune thanks to immunisation - and the destruction of habitat and overfishing, which wiped out their foodsupply. Any attempt he makes to stand out against these orders on the basis of conscience is condemned even by the clergyman as being due to the sin of pride: of thinking himself better than anyone else. He is tormented by guilt over sexuality, as he is attracted to one of the women convicts, and troubled by friendship with another marine who he discovers is homosexual which in those days would be a hanging offence.

The other part of the story is made up of the interwoven first person narratives of a woman called Olla who originates from somewhere in eastern Europe in the (present day at the time of publication) 1980s and the man she has married, Stephen. They have a total disassociation of viewpoints. Olla has known a lot of hardship, including an abusive home with a drunken father and a brother with breathing problems who she had to try to protect. Stephen is from a privileged middle class background but has become what was known at the time as a 'lefty' with Marxist views etc, which eventually lead him to disaster when he and another man try to run a school along egalitarian lines. The marriage undergoes total breakdown when they have a son who to everyone else is disabled but who Olla believes is a latent genius and messiah.

The historical part of the book was interesting but the 'present day' narrative didn't appeal and seemed a bit too self-consciously literary and a way of avoiding writing a true historical, which at the time of publication was a genre mostly out of favour and only rehabilitated by combining it with mysteries as in the Cadfael novels. The author wrote a much better true historical novel, 'Mr Wroe's Virgins', so I had expected better and really can only award this a 2 star 'OK' rating and that on the basis of the 18th century component.
… (altro)
 
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kitsune_reader | Nov 23, 2023 |
Very British, minimally post apocalyptic story about a sort of daft girl who thinks she can help save the world. I disliked the ending, due to my personal beliefs about pregnancy and children. I read this mostly from curiosity, since it got lots of good reviews.
 
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kwskultety | 32 altre recensioni | Jul 4, 2023 |
The narrator often annoyed me. I realize that’s because she rang mostly true, and I just don’t like her. Maybe I ended up respecting her by the end.

The SF premise is interesting and watching it play out kept me going.
 
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DDtheV | 32 altre recensioni | Jun 14, 2022 |
I'm a little surprised at the accolades that this book has received; I found it in the new book section of my public library, and thought it was misfiled YA apocalyptic fiction. I was interested to read at the beginning of the story that the disease which was attacking the population was a modification of Creutzfield-Jakob, which is part of the family of prion diseases that have fascinated me for a long time, but there was not much further discussion about it, since Jessie did not have much firsthand contact with anyone with the disease. Overall, I though the book was styled much more like a young adult novel than an adult science fiction novel. Perhaps the faulty genre is why I felt it rated lower than it might have otherwise.… (altro)
 
Segnalato
resoundingjoy | 32 altre recensioni | Jan 1, 2021 |

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Statistiche

Opere
20
Opere correlate
6
Utenti
995
Popolarità
#25,894
Voto
½ 3.4
Recensioni
49
ISBN
87
Lingue
6

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