Bought for the 2005 Booker Longlist challenge.

"The Hanburys of Egypt Hill are the last word in bohemian living - or so they like to think. Their parties are famous, their relationships confusing, their bravado immense. To Michael, a young student arriving at the house on the hill for Caris Hanbury's eighteenth birthday party, they represent the prospect of relief from the strictures of conformity, and of an enfolding exuberance to which he feels irresistibly attracted.
As an adult, Michael finds his own version of the Hanburys. The Alexanders are a wealthy, artistic family for whom moral abandon is almost a point of honour, and their fractious daughter Rebecca is now Michael's wife. While Rebecca struggles with questions of identity and self-expression, Michael becomes increasingly preoccupied with the idea of virtue. Why is his life with Rebecca and their son Hamish so destructive and tumultous? How has his existence become so tarnished, so without principle? When Michael is invited to spend a week with the Hanburys on Egypt Hill his illusions are startlingly confounded. The hill is being spoiled by development; the family are riven by jealousy and deceit; and as the days pass the rotten core of the Hanbury myth is gradually disclosed. "In The Fold" is a story of modern manners and past offences, of public morality and private property; and of how human beings can be undone by their yearning to belong."

Bookring order:

goodthinkingmax
miss-jo
Alectoness
Viola7
star-light
woosang
xoddam
puppymummy
Saki

Not bad. Most of the characters are vexing, though, and I had zero sympathy for Rebecca, in particular - she was unreasonable to the point of being mentally unwell IMO. The writing is very good, but I am just tiring of books that are all character description and minimal plot. The ending was pretty inevitable.
This is going to miss-jo now.

I skipped ahead of the queue when fleebo gave me this at the meetup.

I found this book very unsatisfying. As fleebo points out, the characters are vexing (and that's understating it.) I just did not care about characters, plot or setting. To her credit, Rachel Cusk's observations and portraits of her characters are very good. They must be to irk me so much. For me it was a boring and pointless read..very harsh of me!

I like this excerpt from a review in The Spectator:

"The book is suffused with meanness, and even its ambitions seem mean: to evaluate petty squabbles and find them hateful. The writer succeeds so well in evoking the claustrophobia of a close family, and in recording the super- ficial nature of its bickering, that the reading of it feels very much like being trapped in a small, packed car on a long journey through bad weather. I really wanted to enjoy this book — it was longlisted for the Booker Prize — but there was just too little to love."


Miss-Jo is going to join the "Booker book exchange" happening at The Archibald Fountain tomorrow, to claim this book.

After reading your comments I'm not entirely enthused! But lunch was good...

Ho hum. Why are none of these Booker books about *nice* people? The writing is great, but I couldn't have cared less if all the characters had been hit by falling objects halfway through. Except the sheep. I liked the sheep.

Crossing the ocean to Alectoness.

Thanks Fleebo - this arrived in the mail this morning just as I was beginning to wonder what to read next.

This book didn't have much appeal for me either - and a week after I finished it, I can't really remember what happened. I have a feeling this is because nothing much happened in the book, that the focus was on character rather than plot... as is the case for a lot of the Booker books I've read so far.

As others have said, while the dialogue and writing were great in places, the characters were generally weird and unlikable... and now I've read this book, I'm not rushing out to read others by this author.

Anyway, I've got Viola7's address so I'll be sending this back across the Tasman tomorrow. Thanks again Fleebo for organising this ring and the challenge overall.

RELEASE NOTES:

Mailed back across to Australia and Viola7 this morning. Hopefully it won't take more than a week or two to arrive.

Received today! Thank you, Alectoness. This looks a little bit like The Sea - another story of nostalgia as Michael visits the Hanbury's again. When he was a student he was a friend of this charming, Bohemian family. When he returns many years later it is only to find disillusionment.

How do the judges choose these novels? This was meant to be a tale of nostalgia and disillusionment but it fails. When Michael meets the Hanburys at the tender age of eighteen he is impressed by their Bohemianism and their 'magic quality'. Exactly why this is is not made clear. Except for Caris, they are a distinctly uncharming family. The father is like the nasty character in the television show which starred Tony Booth (I've forgotten its name) and the step-mother becomes drunk and tries to seduce Michael. They're certainly Bohemian, but they're also very unattractive.

When his marriage to his crazy wife, Rebecca, falls apart, he decides to return with his baby to see this weird family. He discovers their dark secret and becomes very disillusioned.

I found this book readable, unlike some of the others on this list, but the writing was fairly leaden at times and the characters weren't very well-drawn. Some sentences are like a politician's. Try to work this one out, for example (it refers to Rebecca's father's art gallery): "He liked to give the impression that a sort of precariousness was conferred on this enterprise, by a force that was conflated with creativity itself, but I never saw any sign of it." What on earth does that mean?

Her description of places is very good but her description of the characters, in spite of all the analysis, just doesn't match it.

This is an old plot device, also used in The Sea. I didn't think much of that either, but the story was more understandable. Neither of them, in my opinion, are nearly as good as J.B. Priestly's Bright Day or Elizabeth Jane Howard's The Beautiful Visit.

I have been away for a couple of weeks and found this waiting for me when I returned today. I haven't been doing a lot of reading lately (just felt like I needed a break from the Booker books) so I have fallen a bit behind. I'll try not to hold this one up for too long. Feel free to PM me if you want me to hurry up.

Nope, I didn't like this one. I found myself speed-reading so I could have it over and done with. Some of the writing was good, but I simply found no pleasure in reading about bitchy people and their squabbles. I really felt sorry for Hamish, the narrator's three-year-old son. If I were him I wouldn't speak either!

Received safely. It will be at least a week before I get to it. I just have too many books going at one time :(

can't believe it only took one day. :) I did really enjoy this book, that is not to say I liked all the characters, but I did thoroughly enjoy the story. As said prior in this book's journals, Rebecca is not a character that a reader can feel sympathy for. She is selfish and her actions were predictable. I adored Hamish, I felt for the little boy.

The family are totally mad, but I didn't feel they were being mean just for the sake of it. They are acting out their lives as they think is acceptable, even if we don't agree. Our core people, Alex, Lisa, Michael and Hamish, are likeable, and have redeeming features. None of these people are out to 'get' anyone and all seemed distressed by the events.

A great story, and I wil have to seek out this author's other works.

Off to the next person soon.

**Note I bought a new copy for release from the evil book shop. AT $2.95 I couldn't resist Release copy

Arrived at work today. Looks scarily similar to The Accidental in its theme. Cool! Thanks everyone!

Well this was very well-written, and paints a very accurate picture of the
social spheres it's set in. In fact I suspect it's more a documentary with
the names changed to protect the guilty, than a work of fiction. Of course
I felt very close to the narrator, but I almost wish it *had* been his son
shot in the last chapter but one, and that he'd had some honest cause to
feel guilty, the poor hangdog sod. At least that way the novel would have
had some action at first-hand, instead of everything of interest being at
the remove of a generation or a decade or a retelling.

"Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way
Time is gone, the song is over, thought I'd something more to say..."

I've PM'd puppymummy, will send when I have her address.

Posting today along with All for Love.

I'm greatly embarrassed. The books were not posted when I said they were. I found them again in the still-open post satchel last night, beneath an avalanche of papers and other books. Now they *have* been posted. My sincere apologies.

Has made it here, the delay was fortunate as it has stopped me from being buried under a deluge of books! Now I have just enough room to type.
I am reading as fast as I can...

I'm giving up. It's readable, but I don't like any of the characters and I have way too many other books to read. Reading the other reviews is not changing this decision :)
I'll post it as soon as I have an address.

RELEASE NOTES:

Saki no longer wanted to read this, and Fleebo didn't want it back - so I took it to meetup today to find its next reader.

This book's been received by The Warrandyte Neighbourhood House

We thought bookcrossing.com was a great way to share reading and books in the community. Some books we wild release around the Warrandyte area and others are upstairs in our centre where we have a real 'blue box'. Local Bookcrossers and the general community can use this box in the exchange of books. Please feel free to drop in and take or leave books.

This book has been reserved for release at the Warrandyte Festival in March.