So far, it has been a very skewered, or, rather, inconsistent, reading year. With my venturing into the fantasy realm, earlier, I feel I have been thrown off my literary game, never knowing what to expect, now, when I pick up a new book.
"Family Album," by Penelope Lively, had been highly recommended to me, and all was justified. In less than 300 pages, Lively manages to encompass the scope of a 500 plus page Victorian novel, in chronicling the Harpers, a family of six, headed by a mother, Allison, who had been a failed actress, which I wanted to know more about, and her offspring--Paul, the eldest, and the family's itinerant loser, Gina, the traditionalist, Sandra, the pretty one who goes into fashion, and then there is Claire,, who is not really a Harper, because........
The family gathers at a country estate calls Allersmead, the kind one can picture from having seen Merchant-Ivory movies. This would have been a perfect vehicle, for them, matter of fact. Teen-age clandestine sex, fulfillment on the ballet stage...oh, my God, you might think I was talking about "The Thorn Birds," or something, but Lively's style is beautifully understated and can accomplish more in a story than Colleen McCullough did in her florid, but wonderfully wrought, novel.
"Family Album" is a delightful literary divestment, dears!!!!!!!!!!!
Make sure it is read, during High Tea!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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