{"id":34870,"date":"2017-12-11T06:30:16","date_gmt":"2017-12-10T17:30:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=34870"},"modified":"2017-11-22T13:26:15","modified_gmt":"2017-11-22T00:26:15","slug":"what-im-reading-something-old","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2017\/12\/11\/what-im-reading-something-old\/","title":{"rendered":"What I’m Reading: Something Old"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>To lead into the holiday season, and quite possibly to bridge the old and new years, I thought I\u2019d take a look at some of the more interesting books I\u2019ve read in 2017, encapsulating them in a series titled \u201cSomething Old, Something New, Something Borrowed\u201d \u2013 and yes, you guessed it, I\u2019ll have a stab at \u201cSomething Blue\u201d for the last installment of the post quartet.<\/p>\n

My entry for \u201cSomething Old\u201d is The Sea Change<\/em> by Elizabeth Jane Howard, first published in 1959 by Jonathan Cape. I\u2019ve always been captivated by the title but until now never quite got around to reading the novel, which I have to say, did not disappoint.<\/p>\n

I would term the genre \u201cContemporary Realism\u201d, as it was that for its time and still stands the test of time (nearly sixty years) very well, in my humble opine (imho.) The length is 349 pages, which while nothing to a contemporary epic fantasy novel, still satisfies in terms of a novel-length work.<\/p>\n

But what about The Sea Change<\/em> itself: what\u2019s it all about?<\/p>\n

The story follows four characters: Emmanuel, a successful actor and producer, and his wife, Lillian; Jimmy, who is Emmanuel\u2019s manager and aide-de-camp; and Alberta (not her real name) who comes on board as Emmanuel\u2019s secretary. Or more correctly, the events that form the story are observed and experienced from the perspective of these four characters.<\/p>\n

In some ways the story may seem predictable, with both Emmanuel and Jimmy falling for Alberta, and her part, together with Lillian\u2019s reaction, forming the crux of the book. However, The Sea Change<\/em> is not so much a story about what happens as a character study of the four people to whom it happens. And because the reader is drawn deep into the four characters and their interaction, a story that is very slow-paced in terms of plot is nonetheless very absorbing.<\/p>\n

No, I\u2019m not going to tell you \u2018what happens in the end.\u2019 The delight of any story, but particularly one of this kind, is not so much the destination, but the journey that leads the reader there. Like most journeys, to \u201cget\u201d it, you have to experience it for yourself.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo read the book for yourself,\u201d say I, \u201cand make up your own minds.\u201d In terms of my mind, I enjoyed The Sea Change<\/em> very much and recommend it to anyone who likes an in-depth focus on character and realistic stories. I suspect it will be enjoyed by readers of more contemporary authors such as Kate Atkinson, Anita Shreve, and Ann Patchett.<\/p>\n

Oh, where did I acquire my copy? From the \u2018book fridge\u2019 that popped up on the site of an inner city earthquake demolition, that\u2019s where. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To lead into the holiday season, and quite possibly to bridge the old and new years, I thought I\u2019d take a look at some of the more interesting books I\u2019ve read in 2017, encapsulating them in a series titled \u201cSomething Old, Something New, Something Borrowed\u201d \u2013 and yes, you guessed it, I\u2019ll have a stab […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34870","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-what-im-reading"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34870","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34870"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34870\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34885,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34870\/revisions\/34885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}