Dunmore, Helen: A Spell of Winter

This book won the Orange Prize in 1996. It tells of Catherine and her brother Rob who have been abandoned by their parents and are living with their grandfather, in relative opulence but with many limitations. We follow Catherine as she "fights free of the past" and breaks the "spell of winter that has held her in its grasp" (words in parentheses from the backcover of the book).

Frankly, I was disappointed. It was shocking in its way, which in itself was a disppointment, but I didn't get it. Perhaps there was a hidden meaning I didn't get, as with some of the prizewinners I've read, but really, there wasn't much point to the story. I ended up despising Catherine for her ways - seducing and sleeping with her brother, getting pregnant, trying to get rid of the lovechild in a backward manner and then having to bear the consequences. And in all this, the brother remained very 2-dimensional, while the grandfather was more 1-dimensional, almost never there.

It was a very weird indulgent story, it was as if she wanted to write this just because she wanted to write a story about a brother and sister who fall in love with each other. Read only if you want to be grossed out. LoL

Rating: *out of 5

Hollinghurst, Alan: Line of Beauty

This book won the 2004 Man Booker Prize. I don't think it deserved it. Perhaps, like one of the reviews on Amazon.com, I'm not a sophisticated reader.

But what's to like about it? It's a story of a young gay man in the England of Margaret Thatcher. The story moves slowly, as if he's trying to tell us about each second of the day, and after all the plodding along through so many pages, I didn't feel any closer to, or that I knew any of the characters any better. He may do a good job of portraying gay life in the 1980s England, but I'd much rather read about the general life in 1980s England, which he puts in the passenger seat here. This whole focus on the gay life put me off, really. Comparing it to Sarah Waters' lesbianism writing, I prefer her book, because she's more subtle with it, focusing more on their feelings as a person, rather than a lesbian; Hollinghurst's gay activities are more physically described. Maybe that's how it is in real life, I won't know, but I think he could approach it with more finesse.

Maybe I need to read the book again to appreciate the subtler points of the supposed genius writing that deserved the Booker Prize (over people like Susanna Clarke and Colm Toibin), but I don't think that time will ever come. There are so many better books to read that can be appreciated at first flip.

Rating: *out of 5