Sarah Moss
Auteur de Ghost Wall
A propos de l'auteur
Sarah Moss is a lecturer in English at the University of Kent.
Œuvres de Sarah Moss
Spilling the Beans: Eating, Cooking, Reading and Writing in British Women's Fiction, 1770-1830 (2009) 4 exemplaires
Homeless Bodies 1 exemplaire
Oeuvres associées
These Our Monsters: The English Heritage Collection of Short Stories (2019) — Contributeur — 19 exemplaires
Étiqueté
Partage des connaissances
- Date de naissance
- 1975
- Sexe
- female
- Nationalité
- UK
- Lieu de naissance
- Glasgow, Lanarkshire, Scotland, UK
- Lieux de résidence
- Warwickshire, England, UK
Dublin, Ireland - Professions
- Associate Professor in Creative Writing at the University of Warwick
senior lecturer at the University of Kent from 2004 – 2009
Senior Lecturer in Literature and Place at Exeter University’s Cornwall Campus - Organisations
- University of Exeter
University of Reykjavik
University of Kent
University of Warwick - Courte biographie
- Sarah Moss was educated at Oxford University and is currently an Associate Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Warwick. She is the author of two novels; Cold Earth (Granta 2010), and Night Waking (Granta 2012), which was selected for the Fiction Uncovered Award in 2011, and the co-author of Chocolate: A Global History. She spent 2009-10 as a visiting lecturer at the University of Reykjavik, and wrote an account of her time there in Names for the Sea: Strangers in Iceland (Granta 2012).
Membres
Critiques
Summerwater par Sarah Moss
I really like how Sarah Moss writes in this book, it reminds me a bit of Jon McGregor - the detail and interrelationships of everyday life. This is a very typical British/Scottish holiday - endless rain, cabin fever. The plot and climax is fairly incidental - its more about the interactions and build up.
Although it is a sequel to [b:Bodies of Light|20329476|Bodies of Light|Sarah Moss|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1394318715l/20329476._SY75_.jpg|28179074], 'Signs for Lost Children' stands very well alone. It follows Alethea, now married and working as a doctor, and her husband Tom. Alethea's mother, the other protagonist of the previous book, barely appears. However she continues to haunt Alethea and thus the novel. Once her husband departs on a journey to Japan, the narrative splits to follow both halves of the married couple. This works extremely well, as the two sets of experiences are fascinating both in isolation and in contrast to one another. Alethea works with mentally ill women and has mental health struggles of her own, while Tom explores Japan and is transfixed by what he finds. The depiction of Alethea's anxiety and intrusive thoughts is very vivid and convincing, uncomfortably so in fact. She reflects upon madness in women and how it is treated in Victorian England, while struggling to find purpose amid the legacy of her mother's abusive strictness. Tom's adventures in Japan are pleasanter and more escapist to read, while also shedding light on cultural perceptions of sanity and inappropriate behaviour. His chapters are filled with wonderful visual and sensory details, as he keenly observes beautiful places and objects. After enjoying these wonderful parallel narratives, I was less pleased by the ending. Once they reunite, there is a distance and misunderstanding between Alethea and Tom. Rather than examining how this could be repaired, or whether the two have grown irrevocably apart, there is a brief epilogue which shows that they stay together and have a child. This didn't quite seem to do their relationship justice, given how sensitively characterised they each were as individuals while apart. It's unusual for me to comment that a novel could pay more attention to a marriage, rather than less! While it would inevitably shift the overall focus of the book to dwell further upon their reconciliation at the end, I did find the brevity of the epilogue unsatisfactory. Nonetheless, this is an involving, subtle, and beautifully written historical novel. On balance I preferred it to [b:Bodies of Light|20329476|Bodies of Light|Sarah Moss|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1394318715l/20329476._SY75_.jpg|28179074].… (plus d'informations)
'Bodies of Light' is an elegantly crafted narrative illustrating the intolerable mental and physical pressures placed upon women in Victorian England. Each chapter begins with a description of a painting or other artwork, a conceit that I frankly didn't think was necessary. The great strength of the book is its insight into the inner lives of the protagonists: Elizabeth, who marries an artist, and her first daughter Alethea. Elizabeth has a keen sense of social justice, specifically a determination to improve the lot of exploited women. While her devotion to this cause is laudable, when combined with evangelical Christianity, inflexible dedication to respectability, and untreated depression, she becomes a harsh and cruel mother. By showing her point of view prior to the birth of her daughters and her upsetting experience of postnatal depression, Moss makes her a tragic rather than evil figure. She is deeply unhappy and unfortunately this manifests in awful treatment of her children, especially Alethea. Her crusade against poverty and exploitation is entirely justified, but it stems from rage and sadness rather than love. She cannot or will not see that treating Alethea harshly helps nobody.
The majority of the book takes Alethea, or Ally, as the protagonist and follows her academic progress to qualification as one of the first female doctors in Britain. My favourite sequences in the book involve Ally's friendly debates with her fellow female medical students, as they consider what sacrifices are worth making for the progress of women's health and ability to practice medicine. Ally's upbringing has given her a keen understanding of social injustices, as well as an intense anxiety disorder and distrust of kindness. After leaving her parents home, she gradually learns to accept support, praise, and comfort. This is subtly and sensitively shown.I was less keen on where the relationship with her sister May went, or rather I expected some confirmation that she hadn't died but had run off. This did not eventuate, despite the possibility being specifically noted. This is mere personal preference for certainty over ambiguity, really. I thought the clear parallel drawn between Elizabeth and May's and Ally and May's sibling relationships was powerful. Moss certainly shows how families can repeat the same mistakes and cruelties down the generations, while also centring on someone who appears to break out of the cycle. I can also attest that the depiction of anxiety and panic attacks is very convincing. They must feel even worse while wearing a corset, I realised while reading this novel. No wonder I lost my taste for corsets.
'Bodies of Light' is a sad but powerful novel. I would only guardedly recommend it as a lockdown read, given the focus on mental illness, unhappy families, and Victorian medical practice. There is surprisingly little about art. Indeed, the subversive implication throughout is that men focus on aesthetic trivialities while women get on with the real work. Moss is an insightful and vivid writer who evokes the 1870s with great conviction. 'Bodies of Light' leaves the reader with much to ponder, none of it particularly cheerful.… (plus d'informations)
The majority of the book takes Alethea, or Ally, as the protagonist and follows her academic progress to qualification as one of the first female doctors in Britain. My favourite sequences in the book involve Ally's friendly debates with her fellow female medical students, as they consider what sacrifices are worth making for the progress of women's health and ability to practice medicine. Ally's upbringing has given her a keen understanding of social injustices, as well as an intense anxiety disorder and distrust of kindness. After leaving her parents home, she gradually learns to accept support, praise, and comfort. This is subtly and sensitively shown.
'Bodies of Light' is a sad but powerful novel. I would only guardedly recommend it as a lockdown read, given the focus on mental illness, unhappy families, and Victorian medical practice. There is surprisingly little about art. Indeed, the subversive implication throughout is that men focus on aesthetic trivialities while women get on with the real work. Moss is an insightful and vivid writer who evokes the 1870s with great conviction. 'Bodies of Light' leaves the reader with much to ponder, none of it particularly cheerful.… (plus d'informations)
This is the penultimate book of my fifteen novels found by keyword searching ‘dystopia’ in the library catalogue. And guess what? Like 75% of the others, it isn’t a dystopia! I would, however, classify it as ominously apocalyptic, with supernatural undertones. The setup is a bunch of PhD students going on an isolated archeological dig. They are all somewhat awkward and abrasive characters, which felt extremely realistic as doing a PhD certainly brought out the worst in me. It made the first person narrative a little trying at times, though, especially as the two main female narrators would go on about the men they loved and how much femininity they had to perform to keep them interested. Although the setting of carefully untouched Greenland was certainly atmospheric, the flashback interjections seemed unnecessary and interrupted the momentum of events. It would have been more to my taste had the narrative given more time to fear of events in the outside world and the inherent impossibility of leaving the site untouched. I also found the ending a let-down. In my opinion it would have been more powerful if they’d all died. Overall, I thought the dialogue and central concept were strengths; the flashbacks and supernatural stuff weaker. A fun train read, but not scary enough to be horror and definitely not dystopian.… (plus d'informations)
Listes
Overdue Podcast (1)
Netgalley Reads (2)
Winter Books (1)
Library ebooks (1)
Ghosts (1)
Walls (1)
Prix et récompenses
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Statistiques
- Œuvres
- 16
- Aussi par
- 1
- Membres
- 3,521
- Popularité
- #7,213
- Évaluation
- 3.8
- Critiques
- 242
- ISBN
- 142
- Langues
- 8
- Favoris
- 14