Last Orders
2 journalers for this copy...
Excellent! What a touching, funny, sad, thoughtful look into the inner lives of several characters. This one was slow going at first, but I really got sucked into the memories and the reflections of the characters as they go on their grim mission. I've been doing a lot of "inner inventory" or reflection myself lately, and I seem to keep reading books involving a lot of the same themes.
I'm so glad I found this audiobook at the dollar store—the only thing better than a good audiobook is a good audiobook for $1. :)
Unabridged, 6 cassettes, approximately 8.5 hours, read by Simon Prebble, Gigi Marceau Clarke, Jenny Sterlin, Ian Stewart, Gerard Doyle, Simon Jones, and Domonick Hawksley
Synopsis:
In a London pub called the Coach and Horses, four men gather. Most of them have been friends for half a lifetime, having fought in the same war, drunk in the same pubs, and bet on the same horses. Now they have come together to deliver the ashes of a fifth man, Jack Dodds, to the sea. Their journey, which will take them deep into their collective and individual pasts, lies at the center of Graham Swift's astonishingly moving novel of friendship, memory, and fate.
As Swift follows Ray, Vic, Lenny, and Vince on their errand—one whose solemnity is undercut by the participants' sheepishness and irrepressible humor—he braids their voices into a choir of secret sorrow and resentment, passion and regret. And what emerges is an elegy not only for Jack but for a vision of a changing England. Beautifully written, faithful to the rhythms of the human voice and the daily truths of human life and death, Last Orders is a triumph.
Graham Swift is the award-winning author of six novels, including Light of Day, Ever After, and Waterland, and a book of short stories, Learning to Swim. Last Orders won the 1996 Booker Prize for fiction.
I'm so glad I found this audiobook at the dollar store—the only thing better than a good audiobook is a good audiobook for $1. :)
Unabridged, 6 cassettes, approximately 8.5 hours, read by Simon Prebble, Gigi Marceau Clarke, Jenny Sterlin, Ian Stewart, Gerard Doyle, Simon Jones, and Domonick Hawksley
Synopsis:
In a London pub called the Coach and Horses, four men gather. Most of them have been friends for half a lifetime, having fought in the same war, drunk in the same pubs, and bet on the same horses. Now they have come together to deliver the ashes of a fifth man, Jack Dodds, to the sea. Their journey, which will take them deep into their collective and individual pasts, lies at the center of Graham Swift's astonishingly moving novel of friendship, memory, and fate.
As Swift follows Ray, Vic, Lenny, and Vince on their errand—one whose solemnity is undercut by the participants' sheepishness and irrepressible humor—he braids their voices into a choir of secret sorrow and resentment, passion and regret. And what emerges is an elegy not only for Jack but for a vision of a changing England. Beautifully written, faithful to the rhythms of the human voice and the daily truths of human life and death, Last Orders is a triumph.
Graham Swift is the award-winning author of six novels, including Light of Day, Ever After, and Waterland, and a book of short stories, Learning to Swim. Last Orders won the 1996 Booker Prize for fiction.
This looks great - thanks for sharing!
I listened to the amazing audiobook version of this (on cassette, no less). Multiple narrators helped to make the frequently-shifting perspectives easier to keep track of while listening. I don't know that one narrator could have really managed it. The book centers on a group of men (and a couple of wives given occasional voice) as they travel together to release the ashes of one of their own. The perspective shifts between the characters and the time frame shifts between the present-day journey with the ashes and various memories of the group and the deceased. The challenge is keeping the speaker straight so that the slowly revealed tale can be fully appreciated. This is my first Swift novel, but it won't be my last.
