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Sto caricando le informazioni... Our Fathers (1999)di Andrew O'Hagan
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Iscriviti per consentire a LibraryThing di scoprire se ti piacerà questo libro. Attualmente non vi sono conversazioni su questo libro. This book made me buy a lot of Andrew O'Hagan's stuff. The prose flows very well and I find myself flowing through the pages. The story itself might be a little on the dull side, although it's worth a read. The other stuff I've read by O'Hagan other than his essays has been too focused on celebrity, or issues I'm not really interested in. If anyone can recommend one of his books to me give me a shout. I really liked 'Be Near Me,' and this was truly disappointing. It was lauded by reviewers, and it's easy to see why. It deals seriously with serious themes, and when it's just doing that it's actually very good. But the style... dear lord in heaven. As we look back on the worst excesses of romantic prose, so shall our grandchildren look back on the worst excesses of 'modernist' prose. And they're all here. Sentences without verbs. They’re the subject of the following sentence. Sometimes. No links between phrases, no temporal progression, no clauses. Each verbal unit stands alone. Short and 'powerful.' All this stated in a matter-of-fact manner. No excrescences. A sudden, unexplained torrent of emotion and sentiment is expressed in a nature metaphor. The emotion always grief. The metaphor seems fresh, insightful, stunning. The poetry of it is breathtaking. So are the descriptive passages full of color and life. But this is a lie. Only the sterility of the remaining prose gives this effect. The metaphor and the description are as hackneyed as anything the worst late romantic could erect. Let us remember the beauty of syntax every now and then, and the benefits of clauses. Perhaps, too, we could take a break from novels of self-pity masquerading as self-criticism- I'm looking at you, Netherlands, and you, Philip Roth.
When he was young, to escape his alcoholic father, Jamie Bawn ran away from his home in Berwick to live with his grandparents in Ayrshire. His grandfather, Hugh, “Mr Housing,” was the major driving force behind the building of tower blocks in Scotland and encouraged the taking of short cuts in the construction process to get as many as possible built for the money in order to remove people from slums. The generation before, Hugh’s mother Effie was a turn of the century socialist famous for leading a rent strike. Now (in 1995) Jamie has returned to Ayrshire to be with his dying grandfather. The ramifications of family relationships, how each succeeding generation reacts to - or against - the previous, are the theme of the book - though at one point it does seem that O’Hagan’s title may be more of a reference to the Lord’s Prayer. (Catholicism is a given in the two O’Hagan books I have read.) As in his later novel Be Near Me O’Hagan has a priest making sexual advances on minors and makes light of it. This is a very small incident in Our Fathers, mentioned in passing, treated as a matter of fact, and as a result it reads oddly after the scandals revealed in recent years. The meat of the novel is in Hugh Bawn’s unshakeable belief that what he did was for the best. This is something that is perhaps characteristic of those of a religious bent. The prose can be opaque at times, as if O’Hagan was trying too hard. It was his first novel after all. Not a lot happens in Our Fathers and the text does not quite live up to the claims made for it on the back cover. But O’Hagan can turn a sentence. Der Autor verfügt über die Mittel des modernen Erzählens. Der Roman wechselt souverän die Perspektiven. Er ist eine Mischung aus auktorialer und Ich-Erzählung. Die einzelnen Kapitel springen zwischen verschiedenen zeitlichen Ebenen, und erst nach und nach entsteht die Ahnung eines vollständigen Bildes. Gleichzeitig wird dadurch der Aspekt der Suche nach Vergangenheit und persönlicher Wahrheit unterstrichen. Die poetische Sprache lässt Farben und Gerüche unterschiedlichster schottischer Landschaften lebendig werden und fängt die Stimmungen in den verschiedenen Lebensbereichen ein. O´Hagan bringt uns einem Land näher, das wir bisher literarisch wenig bereist haben. Premi e riconoscimentiElenchi di rilievo
A novel on three generations of Scottish men. They are an idealistic civil servant who created affordable housing in Glasgow, his good-for-nothing son, and the sensitive grandson, a journalist who stays with him as he dies. Non sono state trovate descrizioni di biblioteche |
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Google Books — Sto caricando le informazioni... GeneriSistema Decimale Melvil (DDC)823.914Literature English & Old English literatures English fiction Modern Period 1901-1999 1945-1999Classificazione LCVotoMedia:
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Jamie recalls his torturous childhood and his enduring relationship with his mother Alice, who tortured her husband for years, while growing up under Robert Bawn, a nasty, raging alcoholic. Jamie eventually left home and lived in with his grandparents, Hugh and Margaret. Robert's father, Hugh, was a "visionary" urban planner who oversaw the development of public housing complexes in Glasgow in the 1970s, tall blocks of concrete and glass like those in the United States at the time. Hugh was an enthusiastic, ambitious father figure for young Jamie, and Margaret was a competent teacher.
Years later, when Jamie learns that Hugh is ailing, he rushes from England to help Margaret and Hugh. Robert has since vanished, but Jamie is happy to see Alice newly married and independent. Hugh's passing, however, is not without concern: a probe is looking into the elderly man's alleged misuse of funds while serving as "Mr. Housing," and his cherished buildings are being demolished to make room for the new. Which, Jamie discovers, includes glimpses of Scotland from Trainspotting, a dirty, historically rich, and obviously worn-out country. But Robert shows up at Hugh's funeral and then leaves right away. When Jamie catches up with him, he has calmed down and is now a contented, modest taxi driver. The story ends with a kind of reconciliation and cautious hope.
I enjoyed the novel and was moved tremendously by the emotional moments recounted as both memories of his early life and his experiences upon his return home for the final days of his beloved Grandfather. Most of all the author's gorgeous, almost poetic, prose engaged me in a way that few novels can. I would recommend this to all as I look forward to reading more from the pen of Andrew O'Hagan. ( )