![]() Peggy Frew has created a brilliant character study of someone at the end of her rope. You can’t help asking yourself, how will she make it through the next three hundred odd pages. The narrator, Nina, is clearly not coping and while she’s brilliant at bringing you into the story, the vivd way her world is brought to the page through all the senses, she seems bent on self-destruction. You can be forgiven for wondering what you’ve got yourself into a few pages in with Wildflowers. Book Review: Wildflowers by Peggy Frew: a haunting, witty and compassionate story about sisters A masterclass in storytelling and a five out of five from me. Some background information about the Irish convent laundries makes for sobering reading at the back of the book, but really Keegan has said it all with her story. ![]() It reminded me a little of those old stories by writers like O’Henry that let the story do the talking and pack a big emotional punch. It is no longer or shorter than it has to be and doesn’t try to be particularly artistic or modern. There is nothing to spare, no mucking about with subplots or extra scenes added for colour. Small Things Like These is an engaging story from the start and manages to convey a lot within its pages. But its viability relies on a fair bit of forelock tugging and respect towards the powerful, particularly the church. He has had to work hard from the ground up to become the owner of his own coal business. He never knew who his father was and was bullied about it at school. Bill himself is an interesting character, having been raised in the home of a wealthy woman, where his mother was housekeeper. This is the perfect Christmas story, quietly telling and moving about an ordinary man’s battle to do the right thing without thinking about the consequences. Always, Christmas brought out the best and the worst in people. But as soon as the thought came to him, he knew the thought itself was privileged and wondered why he hadn’t given the sweets and other things he’d been gifted at some of the houses to the less well-off he had met in others. People could be good, Furlong reminded himself, as he drove back to town it was a matter of learning how to manage and balance the give-and-take in a way that let you get on with others as well as your own. As the days pass Bill must decide if he will turn a blind eye to what goes on at the convent, as surely everyone else does, or step in and do a good deed. While delivering coal there Bill stumbles upon something he shouldn’t have seen, which as the father of daughters, leaves him troubled and absent-minded with his family. Up on the hill, the convent looms over the town, and it is here that the better-off send their laundry, the nuns running a well-respected business. You would think this is the 1950s, or earlier, but it is 1985. He sees a boy gathering sticks by the roadside and gives him the change from his pockets, even though he has little enough to spare. It’s a cold winter, and Bill draws our attention to the poverty of those around him who can’t afford their coal bill. Set during the weeks before Christmas in a small Irish town, we are with Bill Furlong, a coal merchant as he makes his deliveries and plans his holiday with his family – a wife and five daughters. I expected a small piece of perfection, and in many ways it is. After all it is a very small book – a novella really – and still it made last year’s Booker shortlist. 1821-1822, Vicesimus Knox, Remarks on the tendency of certain Clauses in a Bill now pending in Parliament to degrade Grammar Schools Esteem, lasting esteem, the esteem of good men, like himself, will be his reward, when the gale of ephemeral popularity shall have gradually subsided.Expectations were high when I picked up Small Things Like These.Synonyms: temporary, transitory, fleeting, evanescent, momentary, short-lived, short, volatile see also Thesaurus: ephemeral Antonyms: permanent, eternal, everlasting, timeless Something which lasts for a short period of time.Įphemeral ( comparative more ephemeral, superlative most ephemeral).From New Latin ephemerus, from Ancient Greek ἐφήμερος ( ephḗmeros ), the more common form of ἐφημέριος ( ephēmérios, “ of, for, or during the day, living or lasting but for a day, short-lived, temporary ” ), from ἐπί ( epí, “ on ” ) + ἡμέρα ( hēméra, “ day ” ).
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |