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Chargement... The Life to Come (2017)par Michelle De Kretser
Chargement...
Inscrivez-vous à LibraryThing pour découvrir si vous aimerez ce livre Actuellement, il n'y a pas de discussions au sujet de ce livre. Stages of life portrayed through sveral short stories but all connected by one character who appears in each. Is there a point or main time to the stories? Hard to say. They were ok, but not terribly gripping. ( ) The Life to Come was my first novel by Michelle de Kretser, who is emerging as one of Australia's leading writers. This book, after all, won the Miles Franklin Award, the second time that de Kretser has claimed this honor. That achievement alone puts her in some rare literary air indeed. There are some brilliant moments in this book, my favorite being an early passage in which de Kretser skewers the ignorance of the Australian reading public, as well as the ideological rigidity of the educational establishment, about the history of Australian literature: "Asked to name a contemporary Australian novelist, responses were more or less equally divided between 'that Oscar and Louise guy' and Stephen King. Most declined to 'Name a novel by Patrick White,' although one student recalled Riders on the Storm." What didn't work for me about this novel, however, was de Kretser's habit of creating characters and then simply dropping them. Yes, there are recurrent characters - the writer Pippa being chief among them - but the narrative itself meanders along without any great sense of purpose or direction. The Life to Come thus left me feeling torn. The themes and details of de Kretser's novel are skillful and beautifully rendered, but the narrative vehicle that carries them seems like it is simply wandering around, with no clear destination in mind.
The Life to Come is an excellent demonstration of what Christabel thinks of at one point as ‘the power and strangeness of novels: at once removed from and more vivid than life’. De Kretser is an ironist without peer in contemporary Australian writing. Prix et récompenses
"Set in Australia, France, and Sri Lanka, The Life to Come is about the stories we tell and don't tell ourselves as individuals, as societies, and as nations. Driven by a vivid cast of characters, it explores necessary emigration, the art of fiction, and ethnic and class conflict. Pippa is an Australian writer who longs for the success of her novelist teacher and eventually comes to fear that she "missed everything important." In Paris, Celeste tries to convince herself that her feelings for her married lover are reciprocated. Ash makes strategic use of his childhood in Sri Lanka, but blots out the memory of a tragedy from that time and can't commit to his trusting girlfriend, Cassie. Sri Lankan Christabel, who is generously offered a passage to Sydney by Bunty, an old acquaintance, endures her dull job and envisions a brighter future that "rose, glittered, and sank back," while she neglects the love close at hand. The stand-alone yet connected worlds of The Life to Come offer meditations on intimacy, loneliness, and our flawed perception of reality. Enormously moving, gorgeously observant of physical detail, and often very funny, this new novel by Michelle de Kretser reveals how the shadows cast by both the past and the future can transform and distort the present. It is teeming with life and earned wisdom-- exhilaratingly contemporary, with the feel of a classic."--Provided by publisher. Aucune description trouvée dans une bibliothèque |
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Google Books — Chargement... GenresClassification décimale de Melvil (CDD)823.914Literature English & Old English literatures English fiction Modern Period 1901-1999 1945-1999Classification de la Bibliothèque du CongrèsÉvaluationMoyenne:
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