Tennyson's Gift
by Lynne Truss | Literature & Fiction | This book has not been rated.
ISBN: 1861977131 Global Overview for this book
ISBN: 1861977131 Global Overview for this book
Registered by drutt of Glasgow, Scotland United Kingdom on 3/7/2005
This Book is Currently in the Wild!
This Book is Currently in the Wild!
3 journalers for this copy...
Amazon.co.uk Review
Farce is one of the hardest literary forms to bring off: in Tennyson's Gift Lynne Truss manages the correct combination of inventiveness, planning and energy. All of her historical figures have fixed ideas that make them act against their own best interests--Tennyson is paranoid about reviews and photographs and Lewis Carroll is a snob fascinated by photography and small girls; the painter Watts agonises about past betrayals while ignoring his young actress wife Ellen Terry.
This is all the more a tour-de-force because Truss knows her material well enough to make much of the comic exaggeration come from things that were actually the case--the Tennysons spent their time on the Isle of Wight desperately hoping for a royal visit. She adds to the mix a phrenologist with an obnoxious child and a writer of anonymous letters, so that the sections of this novel continually build up comic intensity.
Most of the comedy here comes from excellent structure and timing and only in part from our preparedness to view eminent Victorians with the condescension of hindsight; this is an extravaganza with its roots in good sense and a fascination with the famous dead as they actually were.
-----------
18/4/05 - edited to add -
The book was caught and journalled before I'd got home to do release notes. The book was left in a telephone box at the junction of Great George Sreet/Byres Road on 18th April as part of the mass release of books for Book Aid.
Visit www.bookaid.org to find out how you can open up the world through books.
Farce is one of the hardest literary forms to bring off: in Tennyson's Gift Lynne Truss manages the correct combination of inventiveness, planning and energy. All of her historical figures have fixed ideas that make them act against their own best interests--Tennyson is paranoid about reviews and photographs and Lewis Carroll is a snob fascinated by photography and small girls; the painter Watts agonises about past betrayals while ignoring his young actress wife Ellen Terry.
This is all the more a tour-de-force because Truss knows her material well enough to make much of the comic exaggeration come from things that were actually the case--the Tennysons spent their time on the Isle of Wight desperately hoping for a royal visit. She adds to the mix a phrenologist with an obnoxious child and a writer of anonymous letters, so that the sections of this novel continually build up comic intensity.
Most of the comedy here comes from excellent structure and timing and only in part from our preparedness to view eminent Victorians with the condescension of hindsight; this is an extravaganza with its roots in good sense and a fascination with the famous dead as they actually were.
-----------
18/4/05 - edited to add -
The book was caught and journalled before I'd got home to do release notes. The book was left in a telephone box at the junction of Great George Sreet/Byres Road on 18th April as part of the mass release of books for Book Aid.
Visit www.bookaid.org to find out how you can open up the world through books.
This book kindly donated by drutt for a secret project.
I was walking from the bank to Woolworths and noticed the book in a phonebox as I was about to cross Byres Road. I am recovering from surgery and absent from work so the book really has brightened up my day as it will give me something occupy myself with while I'm waiting to get well. I'm moving to Canada in a couple of weeks. I'm not sure if I will have released the book by then or if it will come across the atlantic with me.
CAUGHT IN GLASGOW SCOTLAND U.K
CAUGHT IN GLASGOW SCOTLAND U.K
Released 18 yrs ago (5/20/2005 UTC) at
WILD RELEASE NOTES:
RELEASE NOTES:
It's been released rather hastily on the long table alongside the window that looks out onto College Street.
It's been released rather hastily on the long table alongside the window that looks out onto College Street.
