Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by
Gail Honeyman
This is a very accomplished debut novel
with a good balance of humour, sadness, darkness and light. There are not too
many surprises in the story, but the author does a good job making you believe
you found out what was happening on your own before it is revealed to you.
Nominated for awards and already optioned for a film.
‘Eleanor Oliphant leads a simple life.
She wears the same clothes to work every
day, eats the same meal deal for lunch every day and buys the same two bottles
of vodka to drink every weekend.
Eleanor Oliphant is happy.
Nothing is missing from her carefully
timetabled existence. Except, sometimes, everything…’
An interesting exploration into gender
and power and how a change in the balance could change everything (or nothing).
‘All over the world women are
discovering they have the power.
With a flick of the fingers they can
inflict terrible pain – even death.
Suddenly every man on this planet finds
they have lost control.
The day of the girls has arrived – but where
will it end?’
A quick read of this fine interpretation
of a classic tale of revenge and forgiveness.
‘Treacherously
toppled from his post as director of the Makeshiweg Festival on the eve of his
production of The Tempest, Felix retreats to a backwoods hovel to lick his
wounds and mourn his lost daughter. And to also plot his revenge.
After
twelve years, his chance appears in the shape of a theatre course at a nearby
prison, Here, Felix and his inmate actors will stage his Tempest at last, and
snare the traitors who destroyed him. But will it remake Felix as his enemies
fall?’
A fabulous read. Slow and sophisticated
it gently explores the changes in Russia from the Bolshevik uprising to the
Cold War, as viewed through the cultured eyes of a non-person trapped in a former
gilded cage.
‘On
21 June 1922 Count Alexander Rostov – recipient of the Order of Saint Andrew,
member of the Jockey Club, Master of the Hunt – is escorted out of the Kremlin,
across Red Square and through the elegant revolving doors of the Hotel
Metropol.
But
instead of being taken to his usual suite, he is led to an attic room with a
window the size of a chessboard. Deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a
Bolshevik tribunal, the Count has been sentenced to house arrest indefinitely.
While
Russia undergoes decades of tumultuous upheaval, the Count, stripped of the
trappings that defined his life, is forced to question what makes us who we
are. And with the assistance of a glamorous actress, a cantankerous chef and a
very serious child, Rostov unexpectedly discovers a new understanding of both
pleasure and purpose.’
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