|
Journal Entry 1 by cats-eye from Bishop Auckland, County Durham United Kingdom on Wednesday, April 12, 2006
 Amazon.co.uk Review:
Zoe Heller juggles journalism and novel-writing successfully in Notes on a Scandal and manages to say something interesting and complex about moral panics and the people who get caught up in them.
Pottery teacher Sheba lets herself be talked into an affair with 15-year-old pupil Connolly; part of what is admirable about this novel is that there is no real attempt to extenuate this--it's wrong and she knows this from the start, enough to lie to herself and others about it. It's an abuse of her very limited power--he is one of the few of her pupils interested in art, not interested in perpetually disrupting her lessons.
Sheba is not alone in abusing power, though, and Heller forces us to confront this unpleasant truth about the moralising, managerial headmaster, the husband freed by Sheba's action to seduce his own very slightly older students, and the relatives who never liked her much and can now disown her. Above all, she devotes most of the novel to Barbara, the older colleague who becomes Sheba's confidante and slowly manipulates the situation to make Sheba entirely dependent on her. This is a brilliantly gloomy study in obsession--and the obsession in question is not actually Sheba's with her underage lover. --Roz Kaveney
|
|
Journal Entry 3 by cats-eye from Bishop Auckland, County Durham United Kingdom on Sunday, July 30, 2006
What a fabulously voyeuristic little book! I devoured this in 2 days, and spent little time judging Sheba because I was so facinated by Barbara in a "car crash" sort of way. I don't have much more to add, really - I think the first JE with the review from Amazon sums up the book far better than I could. I do think the ending drifted a bit...I think there was more to say, but I'm really not sure how else Heller could have ended it, to be honest - so I can't fault it for that. A thought-provoking book with an extremely well written protagonist.
I will be posting this off to TangledThreads shortly as part of a trade! Enjoy!
ETA: posted 04/08/2006 via first class.
|
|
Journal Entry 4 by tangledthreads from Derby, Derbyshire United Kingdom on Wednesday, August 23, 2006
Thankyou, cats-eye, for this trade - and sorry it has taken me so long to journal! I read it in one sitting, yesterday, finally...
This book is about a forty year old teacher, and her forbidden affair with a fifteen year old boy, a scenario that has been the subject of several news reports in recent years. Except that really, that isn’t what the story is about. It’s about the relationship between the narrator – an older teacher, Barbara – and the teacher having the affair, Sheba. It’s a story of obsessive love, how an unhealthy friendship with an unequal power balance develops. And by the end of the story, it’s necessary to question most of the character portraits that have been drawn, as the reader realises just how biased this attempt to ‘set the record straight’ actually is.
So there are several issues raised that need to be considered, the morality of the affair itself, the circumstances that might have led Sheba into that place, her responsibilities as teacher, adult, wife and mother, and then the nature of the friendship between Barbara and Sheba. Manipulation of people, and situations, and emotions plays an integral role within every aspect of this novel, and in most places it is difficult to apportion blame or responsibility solely to one character.
I expected to find the story more shocking, or controversial, than I did. Maybe I’m just not very easily shocked. I did find it interesting, mostly from the perspective of manipulation, and power struggles. Ultimately, though, I am relatively unmoved by the story, and I think that is because I didn’t particularly warm to any of the characters. They are well-drawn, three-dimensional, human characters, but not particularly likeable. That said, I still recommend it as a good read, that will give you something to think about.
I have two friends who love this book, and were really keen for me to read it, so we could discuss it. It's also one of my reading group's choices for later in the year. I will post again if listening to some more opinions helps me see something I have missed on first reading...
|
|
Journal Entry 5 by tangledthreads at on Thursday, March 17, 2011
Released 1 yr ago (3/17/2011 UTC) at WILD RELEASE NOTES:
Very sorry - I've not been BookCrossing for a while but thought I had better update my bookshelf. This was passed onto a friend some years ago, but I'm afraid I can't remember exactly when & where.
|
Notes on a Scandal
This Book is Currently in the Wild!
