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An Awfully Big Adventure
It is 1950 and Stella has been taken on as assistant stage manager for a Liverpool rep company. She quickly becomes obsessed with their dissolute director, but when the celebrated O'Hara arrives to take the lead, a different drama unfolds. He and Stella are bound in a past neither dares interpret.
197 pages, Paperback
First published December 31, 1989
About the author
Beryl Bainbridge
67 books167 followersDame Beryl Margaret Bainbridge DBE was an English writer from Liverpool. She was primarily known for her works of psychological fiction, often set among the English working classes. Bainbridge won the Whitbread Award twice and was nominated for the Booker Prize five times. In 2008, The Times newspaper named Bainbridge among their list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945".
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 153 reviews
May 31, 2017
Another little gem from the 1990 Booker shortlist. Beryl Bainbridge was a perennial Booker bridesmaid - she never won the prize, but was shortlisted five times and also longlisted once. This is my first experience of her writing, and it left me wanting to read more.
This is a black comedy set in a provincial theatre in Liverpool shortly after the Second World War. The heroine Stella is a young woman living with her aunt and uncle in humble circumstances, whose love of make believe has persuaded them that she should try her luck in the theatre, where she finds a job as a lowly assistant stage manager, which makes her a dogsbody at the service of the array of wonderful theatrical caricatures that inhabit the place.
Stella is an almost fearless innocent, who manages to misconstrue almost everything, as the cast and management of the theatre manipulate each other ruthlessly. Darker elements are never very far from the surface, and the ending is cleverly constructed and genuinely surprising. Bainbridge has an eye for telling detail and is often very funny, making this a very entertaining read.
This is a black comedy set in a provincial theatre in Liverpool shortly after the Second World War. The heroine Stella is a young woman living with her aunt and uncle in humble circumstances, whose love of make believe has persuaded them that she should try her luck in the theatre, where she finds a job as a lowly assistant stage manager, which makes her a dogsbody at the service of the array of wonderful theatrical caricatures that inhabit the place.
Stella is an almost fearless innocent, who manages to misconstrue almost everything, as the cast and management of the theatre manipulate each other ruthlessly. Darker elements are never very far from the surface, and the ending is cleverly constructed and genuinely surprising. Bainbridge has an eye for telling detail and is often very funny, making this a very entertaining read.
September 1, 2020
Without ever realizing it, Beryl Bainbridge and Penelope Fitzgerald each wrote a novel serving as flip-sides of the same coin. Freddie's students from Penelope Fitzgerald's At Freddie's could very easily fill the roles of 'Lost Boys' in Beryl Bainbridge's production of Peter Pan, and in my head they do, making for an Awfully Bigger Adventure than either author ever intended. Sadly it is a production only I will ever enjoy, but from the rave reviews, written by me (obviously), the whole thing was a smashing success.
March 9, 2019
Revisited for the 2019 Mookse Madness tournament. One thing that I have been reflecting on is Beryl Bainbridge's literary descendants - and it struck me that a number of recent Up-lit books (most noticeable "Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine") have borrowed a crucial plot device from this book.
A slowly written, crafted book - full of the pathos of:
The post war struggles of the middle class;
The reality of the hard work and tensions of a dramatics company behind the seeming glamour of the production;
The dislocation of war (almost all the male characters refer back to their experiences);
Class aspirations (Vernon is always struggling to assert himself as a middle class business man, using his supplier of toiletries as a confidant; Stella struggles against her background and misjudges others - she assumes Merideth is upper class and his assistant Bunny working class when the opposite is actually the case);
Unrequited love and longing (despite their being natural pairings almost all of the cast has aspirations to another relationship: not least Stella's infatuation for Merideth who we eventually discover is homosexual and is instead fixated on Geoffrey who had originally made advances on her; even O'Hara used to seducing young starlets feels he is being used by rather than using Stella and seeks in her his lost love);
Tragedy (there are gratuitous scenes such as when a boy carrying a pane of glass slips and bleeds to death).
The book takes time to grip the reader - but the superb ending makes the book.
A slowly written, crafted book - full of the pathos of:
The post war struggles of the middle class;
The reality of the hard work and tensions of a dramatics company behind the seeming glamour of the production;
The dislocation of war (almost all the male characters refer back to their experiences);
Class aspirations (Vernon is always struggling to assert himself as a middle class business man, using his supplier of toiletries as a confidant; Stella struggles against her background and misjudges others - she assumes Merideth is upper class and his assistant Bunny working class when the opposite is actually the case);
Unrequited love and longing (despite their being natural pairings almost all of the cast has aspirations to another relationship: not least Stella's infatuation for Merideth who we eventually discover is homosexual and is instead fixated on Geoffrey who had originally made advances on her; even O'Hara used to seducing young starlets feels he is being used by rather than using Stella and seeks in her his lost love);
Tragedy (there are gratuitous scenes such as when a boy carrying a pane of glass slips and bleeds to death).
The book takes time to grip the reader - but the superb ending makes the book.
June 16, 2017
"she's at an impressionable age and she's mixing with some very odd people" (96)
So is Stella Bradshaw described, our sixteen year old innocent making her way in the thespian world.
Stella may be naive, but she possesses native cunning, and the necessary ambition to navigate 1950's Liverpool.
Beryl Bainbridge writes about a time in which people's foibles, and bad habits, are the stuff of local legend. A youngster needs to get street wise quickly.
An Awfully Big Adventure is a novel every bit as sinister as the underlying story of Peter Pan, from which the book's title is drawn.
Is our Stella a victim? Is Stella mildly precocious and deserving of our understanding?
Beryl Bainbridge writes a great book that masquerades as pure black comedy, while providing an enduring snapshot of life after the war as people of all persuasions lived on their wits to get by and get on.
A book much deeper than first impressions might indicate.
So is Stella Bradshaw described, our sixteen year old innocent making her way in the thespian world.
Stella may be naive, but she possesses native cunning, and the necessary ambition to navigate 1950's Liverpool.
Beryl Bainbridge writes about a time in which people's foibles, and bad habits, are the stuff of local legend. A youngster needs to get street wise quickly.
An Awfully Big Adventure is a novel every bit as sinister as the underlying story of Peter Pan, from which the book's title is drawn.
Is our Stella a victim? Is Stella mildly precocious and deserving of our understanding?
Beryl Bainbridge writes a great book that masquerades as pure black comedy, while providing an enduring snapshot of life after the war as people of all persuasions lived on their wits to get by and get on.
A book much deeper than first impressions might indicate.
March 4, 2011
I sat down and re-read this deceptively slim volume this afternoon and evening, as I'm going to do it with a class of mine. The story would be funny if it weren't so sad. Ms Bainbridge brings us a naive and desperately needy young girl who leaves disaster and death in her wake, but in spite of her streak of self-centred brashness, she really is not to blame for what has happened. Indeed no-one quite knows what has happened, least of all her, and each of the characters will put their own interpretation on events, will turn it into a private drama starring themselves in the main role. There's life for you. And all in a three hour read. Condensed and subtle and dark and witty.
December 4, 2018
This short novel was shortlisted for the Booker prize in 1990 and was inspired by Beryl Bainbridge’s own time at the Liverpool Playhouse.
It is 1950 and Uncle Vernon, who runs a Liverpool boarding house with Lily, has pulled some strings to get sixteen year old Stella a job at the theatre. Lily objects; “People like us don’t go to plays, let alone act in them.” However, Stella will be a lowly assistant at first – fetching and running errands for the cast. Although Uncle Vernon may feel that Stella is capable of great things, she is over dramatic and somewhat manipulative. Certainly she feels she is something special, but lacked the application necessary to do well at school and would agree with Uncle Vernon that she is not suited for a boring, lowly paid job.
Like many young girls, Stella feels she is much more grown up than she really is, but lacks the experience to negotiate the adult emotions around her. She has a crush on the director, Meredith Potter, but does not understand either him, or those of the other members of the cast – many of whom have feelings for someone who does not reciprocate their attentions. Indeed, Stella is oddly unresponsive to male attention, much of which is unwanted. As such, she is very much an innocent abroad, but also has a cunning streak. Those around her are wary, but, ultimately, intrigued. Worth reading for the ending alone, this is an interesting read, with much to offer book groups, as there is so much to discuss.
It is 1950 and Uncle Vernon, who runs a Liverpool boarding house with Lily, has pulled some strings to get sixteen year old Stella a job at the theatre. Lily objects; “People like us don’t go to plays, let alone act in them.” However, Stella will be a lowly assistant at first – fetching and running errands for the cast. Although Uncle Vernon may feel that Stella is capable of great things, she is over dramatic and somewhat manipulative. Certainly she feels she is something special, but lacked the application necessary to do well at school and would agree with Uncle Vernon that she is not suited for a boring, lowly paid job.
Like many young girls, Stella feels she is much more grown up than she really is, but lacks the experience to negotiate the adult emotions around her. She has a crush on the director, Meredith Potter, but does not understand either him, or those of the other members of the cast – many of whom have feelings for someone who does not reciprocate their attentions. Indeed, Stella is oddly unresponsive to male attention, much of which is unwanted. As such, she is very much an innocent abroad, but also has a cunning streak. Those around her are wary, but, ultimately, intrigued. Worth reading for the ending alone, this is an interesting read, with much to offer book groups, as there is so much to discuss.
November 21, 2023
(2.5) “Christmas in the provinces. It’s not everybody’s cup of tea, is it?” I thought this would be a pleasant confection for our book club’s December meeting, but it turned out as a bit of a dud, being much duller and darker than expected. In 1950 teenage Stella gets taken on as a volunteer assistant stage manager at a Liverpool theatre, working on productions of Caesar and Cleopatra and Peter Pan and falling for – or being sexually harassed by – various men. There are loads of secondary characters, none of whom I got a clear sense of, except perhaps Stella’s Uncle Vernon. (She lives with her aunt and uncle in the hotel they run; her mother is absent and there’s an Eleanor Oliphant-style secret about her.) The details of backstage life are reasonably interesting, I liked how the first and last scene are the same, and it’s notable that the aftereffects of the Second World War are still visible, with some offhand references to the war days that made me laugh out loud in shock, like a horse getting its leg blown off.
Rather like The Country Girls, another one we did for book club recently, this is a coming-of-age novel with a decidedly sexual component. However, because it was written in the late 1980s, as opposed to 1950 (when it is set), it’s more explicit than you might imagine, and there’s one particularly shocking/funny use of a curse word. I’ve read a couple of other Bainbridge novels I liked more, especially Master Georgie, and a similar book that was better was City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert. Something I’ve generally found with Bainbridge’s work is that the blurbs are really tempting but the narratives don’t live up to them because of the detached perspective and the low page count – it’s as if there’s not enough time to develop much interest in or sympathy for the characters.
Note: The title phrase has a surprising context, not relating to Stella’s work in the theatre at all: “Dying wouldn’t be such an awfully big adventure for Uncle Vernon – he was too old.” [Edit: I only just realized this quote that gives the title comes, appropriately, from Peter Pan.]
Rather like The Country Girls, another one we did for book club recently, this is a coming-of-age novel with a decidedly sexual component. However, because it was written in the late 1980s, as opposed to 1950 (when it is set), it’s more explicit than you might imagine, and there’s one particularly shocking/funny use of a curse word. I’ve read a couple of other Bainbridge novels I liked more, especially Master Georgie, and a similar book that was better was City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert. Something I’ve generally found with Bainbridge’s work is that the blurbs are really tempting but the narratives don’t live up to them because of the detached perspective and the low page count – it’s as if there’s not enough time to develop much interest in or sympathy for the characters.
Note: The title phrase has a surprising context, not relating to Stella’s work in the theatre at all: “Dying wouldn’t be such an awfully big adventure for Uncle Vernon – he was too old.” [Edit: I only just realized this quote that gives the title comes, appropriately, from Peter Pan.]
June 5, 2011
The more I read Beryl Bainbridge, the more I'm convinced that she is one of the most brilliant English novelists of the late 20th/early 21st century. She's utterly original, unafraid to dispense with unneeded novelistic conventions. She's like a tightrope walker, who doesn't just edge along the wire, but who positively dances.... Her prose is uncluttered, her storytelling assured.
This novel follows Stella's journey from Innocence to Experience when she joins a theatre company. At first the novel seems like a dark comedy. All the characters are in the grip of some kind of obsession, which causes them to misunderstand one another. Artifice and make-believe rule. Yet when a substitute actor - O'Hara - joins the company, and finds out the truth about Stella, tragedy looms....
This novel follows Stella's journey from Innocence to Experience when she joins a theatre company. At first the novel seems like a dark comedy. All the characters are in the grip of some kind of obsession, which causes them to misunderstand one another. Artifice and make-believe rule. Yet when a substitute actor - O'Hara - joins the company, and finds out the truth about Stella, tragedy looms....
September 29, 2024
I remember reading this book as a kid in the late 1990s. This is working from muscle memory.
This book began my first crush towards Alan Rickman as he played the central character O’Hara, a struggling and charismatic actor who’s been cast as Captain Hook in a production of Peter Pan- the book was adapted into the Mike Newell film costarring Hugh Grant and Georgina Cates.
This is the story of Stella Bradshaw, who is plucky and naive. She gets a job working behind the scenes of the Peter Pan production and falls for Meredith, the egotistical director not knowing he’s gay. O’Hara seduces her and her coming of age is one of both sexual gratification and confusion. She also mysteriously talks in a phone booth, calling her mother.
There’s a sinister link between O’Hara and Stella that is quite sad at the end that has always lingered. The book is heartbreaking and does not shy away from its depressed state, often wearing its heart on its sleeve.
As for the film version, it’s a rather somber film that is about backstage antics and loneliness during postwar Britain. I write this review because there are Goodreads friends out there for some reason are commenting on a review I made about Rickman’s memoir “Madly Deeply”- and it’s the film adaptation of this book is what made me love Alan Rickman.
This book began my first crush towards Alan Rickman as he played the central character O’Hara, a struggling and charismatic actor who’s been cast as Captain Hook in a production of Peter Pan- the book was adapted into the Mike Newell film costarring Hugh Grant and Georgina Cates.
This is the story of Stella Bradshaw, who is plucky and naive. She gets a job working behind the scenes of the Peter Pan production and falls for Meredith, the egotistical director not knowing he’s gay. O’Hara seduces her and her coming of age is one of both sexual gratification and confusion. She also mysteriously talks in a phone booth, calling her mother.
There’s a sinister link between O’Hara and Stella that is quite sad at the end that has always lingered. The book is heartbreaking and does not shy away from its depressed state, often wearing its heart on its sleeve.
As for the film version, it’s a rather somber film that is about backstage antics and loneliness during postwar Britain. I write this review because there are Goodreads friends out there for some reason are commenting on a review I made about Rickman’s memoir “Madly Deeply”- and it’s the film adaptation of this book is what made me love Alan Rickman.
October 7, 2014
Удивительная маленькая книжечка. В ней чтения на два часа, а мыслей - на две недели. Без перерыва на сон и на обед.
Замусоленная метафора про жизнь и театр в исполнении Бэйнбридж превращается в шикарную камерную пьесу, которую смотришь с замиранием сердца и стараешься не дышать. Все действия романа происходит вокруг подмостков небольшого провинциальн��го театра. В театре играют Шекспира и Джеймса Барри, но в жизни актеров драмы гораздо больше, пусть и не столь многословной. В мире недавно закончилась война. В Англии дорогое электричество. В доме с жильцами моются раз в неделю. В сердце шестнадцатилетней Стеллы дым без огня. В театре играют Шекспира и пьесу про детей, которые не хотят взрослеть.
Бэйнбридж удивительным образом в нескольких строчках удается передать и характер, и историю персонажа, и все его радости и горести; вызвать у читателя смех, скорбь и унизительное сочувствие, она - как Гоголь в "Шинели" и Хемингуэй со своими "baby shoes for sale, never been worn": все емко, просто и душевынимательно наглядно.
И еще из этой книги я вдруг узнала, что мистера Дарлинга и капитана Крюка исторически должен играть один актер. (Да, я неуч, простите.)
Пожалуй, это действительно пополнение полки best.
Замусоленная метафора про жизнь и театр в исполнении Бэйнбридж превращается в шикарную камерную пьесу, которую смотришь с замиранием сердца и стараешься не дышать. Все действия романа происходит вокруг подмостков небольшого провинциальн��го театра. В театре играют Шекспира и Джеймса Барри, но в жизни актеров драмы гораздо больше, пусть и не столь многословной. В мире недавно закончилась война. В Англии дорогое электричество. В доме с жильцами моются раз в неделю. В сердце шестнадцатилетней Стеллы дым без огня. В театре играют Шекспира и пьесу про детей, которые не хотят взрослеть.
Бэйнбридж удивительным образом в нескольких строчках удается передать и характер, и историю персонажа, и все его радости и горести; вызвать у читателя смех, скорбь и унизительное сочувствие, она - как Гоголь в "Шинели" и Хемингуэй со своими "baby shoes for sale, never been worn": все емко, просто и душевынимательно наглядно.
И еще из этой книги я вдруг узнала, что мистера Дарлинга и капитана Крюка исторически должен играть один актер. (Да, я неуч, простите.)
Пожалуй, это действительно пополнение полки best.
December 17, 2018
An Awfully Big Adventure by Beryl Bainbridge was the second book I'd read by this writer. The first one was The Bottle Factory Outing which I enjoyed, so I came to An Awfully Big Adventure with high hopes.
An Awfully Big Adventure is set in a 1950s Liverpool repertory company. Repertory and regional theatre can be a wonderful setting for a novel: all the petty feuding, the power struggles, the thwarted ambitions etc. It's society in microcosm. Sadly, I found An Awfully Big Adventure rather hard going. For the first half of the book I struggled to discern much of a narrative or indeed keep a track of who was who. Throughout the book the characters are all sketchily drawn. I would struggle to say much about any of them. So much so that I wondered if this was a deliberate technique by Beryl Bainbridge. Likewise, the events all felt at a remove, almost as if part of a play, again I was unsure if this was a conscious decision and, if so, to what end.
The story picks up in the second half of the book and there is a bit more to admire and appreciate, that said, overall, I was relieved to have finished An Awfully Big Adventure and found it all slightly unsatisfactory.
2/5
An Awfully Big Adventure by Beryl Bainbridge
An Awfully Big Adventure is set in a 1950s Liverpool repertory company. Repertory and regional theatre can be a wonderful setting for a novel: all the petty feuding, the power struggles, the thwarted ambitions etc. It's society in microcosm. Sadly, I found An Awfully Big Adventure rather hard going. For the first half of the book I struggled to discern much of a narrative or indeed keep a track of who was who. Throughout the book the characters are all sketchily drawn. I would struggle to say much about any of them. So much so that I wondered if this was a deliberate technique by Beryl Bainbridge. Likewise, the events all felt at a remove, almost as if part of a play, again I was unsure if this was a conscious decision and, if so, to what end.
The story picks up in the second half of the book and there is a bit more to admire and appreciate, that said, overall, I was relieved to have finished An Awfully Big Adventure and found it all slightly unsatisfactory.
2/5
An Awfully Big Adventure by Beryl Bainbridge
December 22, 2021
Мне роман и в первый раз чрезвычайно понравился, а при перечитывании, удивительное дело, он оказался еще лучше.
June 20, 2016
An Awfully Big Adventure is set in 1950s Liverpool, a landscape still filled with rations and other post-war deprivations and the theatre. What a mix for this coming of age novel through less than rose-tinted glasses. It is therefore no surprise that Bainbridge chose to borrow her title from the classic play by J.M Barrie, Peter Pan where Peter has a throw-away line:
‘To die would be an awfully big adventure.’
With the title borrowed from a story about a boy who doesn’t want to grow the protagonist, Stella of Bainbridge’s creation is sixteen, far from grown up, yet with her first job as a stage hand in the theatre thrust amongst grown-up lives, a world she struggles to understand.
The setting is brilliant, the boarding house (and its occupants) is easily pictured amongst the bomb scarred streets and the lodgers who bear their own scars from the war. It was Stella’s Uncle Vernon who first proposed working at the Playhouse. Here is a man who champions her to the hilt while she, as is so often the attitude of girls this age, is embarrassed by absolutely everything about him. Despite the way he brags to his boss he is also worried and exasperated by her:
“Debating anything with the girl was a lost cause. She constantly played to the gallery. No one was denying she could have had a better start in life, but then she wasn’t unique in that respect and it was no excuse for wringing the last drop of drama out of the smallest incident.”
Vernon’s wife Lily is a more shadowy figure, forever at the edge of Stella’s life although towards the end of the book she ponders that:
‘it was unjust of her to disregard those thumb-sucking years in which Lily had held her close’
But away from the prying eyes and ears of Uncle Vernon and Lily, Stella visits the phone boxes around the theatre to ring her mother. The reader hears Stella reporting to her mother, but we only get to know that mother says ���the usual things’
So it’s fair to say Stella is typical of her age, no more so when she develops a crush on the handsome director Meredith Potter, who at first pays her some attention but this is soon diverted by others. Ever the mimic Stella tries out a number of personas on him to try to recapture his interest, but it seems that her love is to go unrequited. In parallels to the play they are putting on at the Liverpool Playhouse when Stella arrive, one that Stella pronounces simplistically the plot is all about people loving someone who is in love with someone else, perfectly sums up the cast. There is much to love in the book as a whole, the symmetry being one of the biggest pleasures for me. The set-up at the beginning of the book which only becomes clear at the very end, is an example of the excellent structure that resounds throughout.
Although this reads a little more like a series of vignettes at first, the linking only truly becoming apparent at the end, individually as well as together each of these is vivid and simply fascinating. Fairly early on I realised that what is blatantly obvious to the reader has completely passed Stella by, and so only the sternest heart can’t overlook her slightly odd manner and have a little sympathy for the poor girl! But when she decides to make Meredith jealous, she sets in chain a sequence of events that slowly becomes apparent, making for a sublime ending.
I am now a firm Beryl Bainbridge fan, I love the darkness, the cleverness, the period details and the sardonic humour.
‘To die would be an awfully big adventure.’
With the title borrowed from a story about a boy who doesn’t want to grow the protagonist, Stella of Bainbridge’s creation is sixteen, far from grown up, yet with her first job as a stage hand in the theatre thrust amongst grown-up lives, a world she struggles to understand.
The setting is brilliant, the boarding house (and its occupants) is easily pictured amongst the bomb scarred streets and the lodgers who bear their own scars from the war. It was Stella’s Uncle Vernon who first proposed working at the Playhouse. Here is a man who champions her to the hilt while she, as is so often the attitude of girls this age, is embarrassed by absolutely everything about him. Despite the way he brags to his boss he is also worried and exasperated by her:
“Debating anything with the girl was a lost cause. She constantly played to the gallery. No one was denying she could have had a better start in life, but then she wasn’t unique in that respect and it was no excuse for wringing the last drop of drama out of the smallest incident.”
Vernon’s wife Lily is a more shadowy figure, forever at the edge of Stella’s life although towards the end of the book she ponders that:
‘it was unjust of her to disregard those thumb-sucking years in which Lily had held her close’
But away from the prying eyes and ears of Uncle Vernon and Lily, Stella visits the phone boxes around the theatre to ring her mother. The reader hears Stella reporting to her mother, but we only get to know that mother says ���the usual things’
So it’s fair to say Stella is typical of her age, no more so when she develops a crush on the handsome director Meredith Potter, who at first pays her some attention but this is soon diverted by others. Ever the mimic Stella tries out a number of personas on him to try to recapture his interest, but it seems that her love is to go unrequited. In parallels to the play they are putting on at the Liverpool Playhouse when Stella arrive, one that Stella pronounces simplistically the plot is all about people loving someone who is in love with someone else, perfectly sums up the cast. There is much to love in the book as a whole, the symmetry being one of the biggest pleasures for me. The set-up at the beginning of the book which only becomes clear at the very end, is an example of the excellent structure that resounds throughout.
Although this reads a little more like a series of vignettes at first, the linking only truly becoming apparent at the end, individually as well as together each of these is vivid and simply fascinating. Fairly early on I realised that what is blatantly obvious to the reader has completely passed Stella by, and so only the sternest heart can’t overlook her slightly odd manner and have a little sympathy for the poor girl! But when she decides to make Meredith jealous, she sets in chain a sequence of events that slowly becomes apparent, making for a sublime ending.
I am now a firm Beryl Bainbridge fan, I love the darkness, the cleverness, the period details and the sardonic humour.
January 16, 2011
I had heard a lot of good things about Beryl Bainbridge, and I wasn't disappointed by the quality of her prose - it's sparse, intelligent, insightful, and extremely unique. For pure writing skill, few can top her. Still, I read three of her novels back-to-back, and all three were ultimately rather unsatisfying. She takes some of the modern writing tendencies to the extreme, including a cynical tone and a cool distance from her characters that never really allows you connect to any of them. They are interesting enough, and often relatable, but fundamentally chilly and unlikeable. Her plots are the same way - they don't lack scope or believability, but there is something bloodless in the way everything fleshes out. I find myself failing to care. If I read any more of her books, it will be purely to be instructed by her quirky, perfectly apt metaphors, and her blunt dialogue.
December 10, 2018
I think this isn't for me. I got about 20%, but didn't really have a clue what was going on and didn't care. One of my friends told me I probably wouldn't like Bainbridge. I'll try another ... someday.
March 3, 2018
A lot of reviews reference the dark humor of this Bainbridge novel, later made into a film starring Hugh Grant and Alan Rickman. Moments were incredibly funny, but this is also a story suffused with sadness - people who don't acknowledge who they really are and who can't escape from their past and their provincial, circumscribed lives. Chief among them is Stella, a teenager smitten by the Liverpool theatre scene and the director, Meredith; she is self-centered but not at all self-aware, and finds herself in a drama set offstage that is partly of her own making, partly due to the machinations of the others involved in the production. Her naivete is alternately irritating and touching. Bainbridge shares many sad details that clarify the reality of post-war England for the lower middle classes, including food rationing, the sharing of the "family towel," and Stella's aunt's and uncle's consternation when she wants to bathe too often. It may seem dull at first, but read on, and you will see how skillfully Bainbridge pulls all the threads together at the end.
I read her novel The Birthday Boys a few years ago, a completely different tale about the 1912 Scott expedition to Antarctica. One of my reading goals this year is to read more from British female authors from the last century who are overlooked in the United States - Bainbridge, Elizabeth Taylor, Muriel Spark, Rosamond Lehmann, Olivia Manning, Iris Murdoch. Bainbridge is one to explore further just because of the breadth of her subject matter and the subtlety of her writing.
I read her novel The Birthday Boys a few years ago, a completely different tale about the 1912 Scott expedition to Antarctica. One of my reading goals this year is to read more from British female authors from the last century who are overlooked in the United States - Bainbridge, Elizabeth Taylor, Muriel Spark, Rosamond Lehmann, Olivia Manning, Iris Murdoch. Bainbridge is one to explore further just because of the breadth of her subject matter and the subtlety of her writing.
August 2, 2011
It took me a while to get into this book - I found it to be quite slow at first but it builds gradually and gets much better towards the end! What the author does really well is to convey the feel of the time in which it is set. I really felt as though I was watching the scenes take place in the austere, post-war 1950s - that feeling of drabness but also of change.
Stella is a naïve and somewhat disturbed individual who is on a voyage of self-discovery. She thinks she’s in love with Meredith but he is indifferent to her and eventually she forms a relationship with the much older O’Hara. It’s difficult to see whether he’s taking advantage of Stella or whether it is she who is taking advantage of him.
We don’t really know a lot about Stella’s past. She lives with her Aunt and Uncle in a run-down guest house. Although her relationship with them doesn’t seem quite ‘normal’, it is clear that they care for her a great deal. Stella’s mysterious mother is mentioned only once or twice by Vernon and Lily, and although Stella talks to her by telephone, we never hear what her mother has to say - it’s only ever “[i]Mother said the usual things”[/i].
The ending of the book is really quite sad. There was a twist that I didn’t see coming
Stella is a naïve and somewhat disturbed individual who is on a voyage of self-discovery. She thinks she’s in love with Meredith but he is indifferent to her and eventually she forms a relationship with the much older O’Hara. It’s difficult to see whether he’s taking advantage of Stella or whether it is she who is taking advantage of him.
We don’t really know a lot about Stella’s past. She lives with her Aunt and Uncle in a run-down guest house. Although her relationship with them doesn’t seem quite ‘normal’, it is clear that they care for her a great deal. Stella’s mysterious mother is mentioned only once or twice by Vernon and Lily, and although Stella talks to her by telephone, we never hear what her mother has to say - it’s only ever “[i]Mother said the usual things”[/i].
The ending of the book is really quite sad. There was a twist that I didn’t see coming
January 18, 2011
Part nostalgic backstage drama, part taut coming-of-age story, Bainbridge packs a great deal into this 200 page novel. Stella is 16, being raised by her aunt and uncle in a run-down Liverpool boarding house in 1950. Through a connection of her uncle's, Stella obtains a position as a backstage lackey and small-role player in a repertory company, where she promptly falls in love with the company's director, Meredith Potter. Only Stella, with her mix of 16 year old naivete and no small amount of self-delusion, is unable to see exactly why Meredith is entirely unsuitable for her. As the season progresses with heartbreaks, breakdowns, and all the big and small dramas of a theater company, a Christmas production of Peter Pan starring a returning actor ultimately takes a turn out of classical tragedy.
August 19, 2011
An extraordinarily witty, perceptive exploration of a young girl's initiation into the world of adulthood. Line by line, this slender novel builds a world that is at once full of possibilities and governed by limitations. A black comedy that ultimately persuades the reader to have compassion for the circumscribed lives of its characters and to consider the limitations of one's own life as disguised opportunities for sympathy and gentleness for oneself and others. Cogent, sardonic, quick and emotionally satisfying.
June 13, 2015
I've not read any of Beryl Bainbridge's books before and was given this one. It was an interesting setting, 1950's Liverpool. However for the first 190 or so pages out of 200, very little happens, and at the end, although an interesting and disturbing twist, you're still not entirely sure what has happened. The main character's past isn't fully explained either, in terms of her relatives, and why she is quite so cutting with Uncle Vernon. An easy, but not particularly interesting, read.
January 14, 2019
This is another book read in preparation for the 2019 Mooskie Madness. This short novel was shortlisted for the Booker award in 1990. It is set in Liverpool, England in 1950. Stella, a 15 or 16 year old girl, is the main character. She lives with her Uncle Vernon and his wife who own and run a boarding house. While she periodically calls her mother, her mother always says the same think. We are given no indication of why she does not live with her mother until nearly the end of the book. Uncle Vernon has gotten Stella a job interview at the local theatre and she gets to work as a trainee, and, after a bit, she gets to act in a couple of plays, while continuing to do the other tasks assigned to her. Stella is quite naïve but has a knack of being around when unpleasant things happen. She is embarrassed by her Uncle, who dearly loves her. She exhibits some typical teenager behavior.
After the lead actor for the theatre has an accident, a quite well-known actor - O'Hara - is hired to undertake his role in Peter Pan and is very good. O'Hara is a Liverpool boy who has done quite well but has history with some of the others at the theatre, especially with the director Potter, with whom Stella imagines she is in love (failing to appreciate that Potter is not interested in women). O'Hara finds himself attracted to Stella for some unknown reason.
This novel is pretty dark, although it does have its comedic moments. I did not like it at the beginning but it grew on me and I was absorbed in it by the end. And the ending is a doosy.
After the lead actor for the theatre has an accident, a quite well-known actor - O'Hara - is hired to undertake his role in Peter Pan and is very good. O'Hara is a Liverpool boy who has done quite well but has history with some of the others at the theatre, especially with the director Potter, with whom Stella imagines she is in love (failing to appreciate that Potter is not interested in women). O'Hara finds himself attracted to Stella for some unknown reason.
This novel is pretty dark, although it does have its comedic moments. I did not like it at the beginning but it grew on me and I was absorbed in it by the end. And the ending is a doosy.
January 22, 2018
"To die will be an awfully big adventure."
- Peter in Peter Pan
Set against the backdrop of a seedy theatrical company staging a production of Peter Pan in 1950, the quote from the play makes a fitting title for a novel exploring willful self-delusion.
Sixteen-year-old Stella Bradshaw, taken on as a theater assistant, has romantic notions about even the most grim and sordid realities. In Stella’s mind, she is the leading lady of every scene. She feigns a cough, hoping others will be solicitous of her imagined tuberculosis. She continuously plays out imaginary scenes in her mind and dons a bewildering wardrobe of accents and identities. Stella doesn’t know who she is, but she is so self-absorbed that she is, in essence, an utter innocent, albeit a soiled innocent, more cunning and manipulative than most. Stella lives with her kind but clueless uncle and aunt; it is something of a mystery as to what became of her mother and father. At times Stella secretly makes phone calls to someone she addresses as "mother," who replies "in her usual fashion." It's all very mysterious.
Like all good romantics, Stella needs an object for her affections, and she settles on the director of the play, Meredith. Whatever comedy there is in this tragicomedy stems from the fact that Stella is utterly unaware that Meredith is gay. He is also affected, cruel, and weak.
The novel brims with vividly-drawn characters – the actors of the troupe, Stella’s aunt and uncle, the stagehands, and others. These are succinctly and masterfully drawn, and it’s clear that Bainbridge must have been drawing from life in the small but indelibly-drawn details. She juxtaposes snatches of conversation and Stella’s inner thoughts with grim fragments of post-war Liverpool: a one-legged pigeon hopping about; a tramp in an army greatcoat sitting on a bench; the cold, threadbare boardinghouse that Stella’s uncle and aunt run. The novel is wonderfully evocative of post-war Liverpool, with its seedy deprivations, bombed-out buildings, and threadbare, makeshift improvisations.
I had come to the novel expecting it to be more comic, but, despite its laser-like probing and sudden swerves, it is not so much a tragicomedy as a tragedy with its glass-like shards of piercing home truths. Bainbridge’s prose is sparse, but there is much to read between the lines. This is a refreshing departure from over-lengthy novels which leave virtually nothing to the imagination as they belabor the point. However, I confess that I found myself admiring rather than liking this novel, with its unflinching truths and unvarnished sentiments.
It comes as no surprise, too, that An Awfully Big Adventure is a highly autobiographical work. Stella, like Bainbridge, is both sexually precocious and sexually exploited. (Bainbridge was raped at 19; young Stella is subjected to less harrowing but no less predatory male attentions.) Like Bainbridge, Stella doesn’t get along with and is misunderstood by her parents/guardians. Stella is prickly, high-handed, theatrical, and self-deluded, and one suspects this is very much how Bainbridge regarded herself during her own adolescence. In real life, Bainbridge converted to Catholicism (later lapsing); in the novel, Stella toys with the idea of becoming a Catholic after finding out that her adored theater director, Meredith is one. She secrets a crucifix into her knee-high socks and is clearly drawn to the dramatic potential of making a sensational Conversion.
Bainbridge's obituary in The Guardian (July 2010), noted:
“A sense of drama ran through her life and work. She was a young actor in Liverpool, where she was born, before she became a writer in London. In the whirligig of the literary world that became her home, she played the character of 'a character'. No one was sure quite who the real Beryl Bainbridge was.… She never told the whole story, in her novels, her interviews or her conversation…. Her intricately plotted, fiercely concentrated stories drew her readers into places, people and peculiarities they might have preferred not to visit, seduced by what the New York Times called ‘the dark dynamic of her siren voice’.”
What discomforted me most about the novel was how utterly truthful it stuck me. At times, I recognized myself in Stella. Who has not had the uneasiness of reflecting back upon one’s own youthful ignorance and the pains taken to disguise it? Most tellingly, there’s Stella misinterpretation of sex. I can recall being just as baffled, knowing that there was something to all the fumblings and kissings, but not quite sure what it was all about, yet being terrified of letting on that I was not in the know. It’s rather heartbreaking, when you think of it, how profoundly misinformed we are about so many things, not just in our youth, but throughout our lives. Like Stella, we become adept at pretending.
Many reviewers have called this a “coming of age” story, but I would disagree. In the end there’s little to indicate that Stella has grown up. She’s gained some sexual experience, but she is still as deluded about herself and others as she was at the beginning.
Most notably, she seems to believe that O’Hara, the older actor she “gives” herself to in order to “practice” sex (and, we also suspect, to try to make her adored Meredith jealous), has drowned himself after she breaks up with him. In truth, in the shattering last pages of the novel, O’Hara slips and hits his head on a boat's gangplank, falling into the water, albeit after just discovering that Stella is his own daughter, the product of a long-ago fling. For years he had assumed that he had a son from this liaison, but he is left literally reeling from the realization that he has just had an affair with his own daughter.
The closing paragraphs of the novel are as chilling and plot-twisting as any Shirley Jackson might have penned. Stella, once again, picks up the phone to call her mother, sobbing out her heart in guilt and confusion. And, for the first time, we get to hear the mother’s response:
“’The time,’ mother intoned, ‘is 6:45 and 40 seconds precisely.’”
Set against the backdrop of a seedy theatrical company staging a production of Peter Pan in 1950, the quote from the play makes a fitting title for a novel exploring willful self-delusion.
Sixteen-year-old Stella Bradshaw, taken on as a theater assistant, has romantic notions about even the most grim and sordid realities. In Stella’s mind, she is the leading lady of every scene. She feigns a cough, hoping others will be solicitous of her imagined tuberculosis. She continuously plays out imaginary scenes in her mind and dons a bewildering wardrobe of accents and identities. Stella doesn’t know who she is, but she is so self-absorbed that she is, in essence, an utter innocent, albeit a soiled innocent, more cunning and manipulative than most. Stella lives with her kind but clueless uncle and aunt; it is something of a mystery as to what became of her mother and father. At times Stella secretly makes phone calls to someone she addresses as "mother," who replies "in her usual fashion." It's all very mysterious.
Like all good romantics, Stella needs an object for her affections, and she settles on the director of the play, Meredith. Whatever comedy there is in this tragicomedy stems from the fact that Stella is utterly unaware that Meredith is gay. He is also affected, cruel, and weak.
The novel brims with vividly-drawn characters – the actors of the troupe, Stella’s aunt and uncle, the stagehands, and others. These are succinctly and masterfully drawn, and it’s clear that Bainbridge must have been drawing from life in the small but indelibly-drawn details. She juxtaposes snatches of conversation and Stella’s inner thoughts with grim fragments of post-war Liverpool: a one-legged pigeon hopping about; a tramp in an army greatcoat sitting on a bench; the cold, threadbare boardinghouse that Stella’s uncle and aunt run. The novel is wonderfully evocative of post-war Liverpool, with its seedy deprivations, bombed-out buildings, and threadbare, makeshift improvisations.
I had come to the novel expecting it to be more comic, but, despite its laser-like probing and sudden swerves, it is not so much a tragicomedy as a tragedy with its glass-like shards of piercing home truths. Bainbridge’s prose is sparse, but there is much to read between the lines. This is a refreshing departure from over-lengthy novels which leave virtually nothing to the imagination as they belabor the point. However, I confess that I found myself admiring rather than liking this novel, with its unflinching truths and unvarnished sentiments.
It comes as no surprise, too, that An Awfully Big Adventure is a highly autobiographical work. Stella, like Bainbridge, is both sexually precocious and sexually exploited. (Bainbridge was raped at 19; young Stella is subjected to less harrowing but no less predatory male attentions.) Like Bainbridge, Stella doesn’t get along with and is misunderstood by her parents/guardians. Stella is prickly, high-handed, theatrical, and self-deluded, and one suspects this is very much how Bainbridge regarded herself during her own adolescence. In real life, Bainbridge converted to Catholicism (later lapsing); in the novel, Stella toys with the idea of becoming a Catholic after finding out that her adored theater director, Meredith is one. She secrets a crucifix into her knee-high socks and is clearly drawn to the dramatic potential of making a sensational Conversion.
Bainbridge's obituary in The Guardian (July 2010), noted:
“A sense of drama ran through her life and work. She was a young actor in Liverpool, where she was born, before she became a writer in London. In the whirligig of the literary world that became her home, she played the character of 'a character'. No one was sure quite who the real Beryl Bainbridge was.… She never told the whole story, in her novels, her interviews or her conversation…. Her intricately plotted, fiercely concentrated stories drew her readers into places, people and peculiarities they might have preferred not to visit, seduced by what the New York Times called ‘the dark dynamic of her siren voice’.”
What discomforted me most about the novel was how utterly truthful it stuck me. At times, I recognized myself in Stella. Who has not had the uneasiness of reflecting back upon one’s own youthful ignorance and the pains taken to disguise it? Most tellingly, there’s Stella misinterpretation of sex. I can recall being just as baffled, knowing that there was something to all the fumblings and kissings, but not quite sure what it was all about, yet being terrified of letting on that I was not in the know. It’s rather heartbreaking, when you think of it, how profoundly misinformed we are about so many things, not just in our youth, but throughout our lives. Like Stella, we become adept at pretending.
Many reviewers have called this a “coming of age” story, but I would disagree. In the end there’s little to indicate that Stella has grown up. She’s gained some sexual experience, but she is still as deluded about herself and others as she was at the beginning.
Most notably, she seems to believe that O’Hara, the older actor she “gives” herself to in order to “practice” sex (and, we also suspect, to try to make her adored Meredith jealous), has drowned himself after she breaks up with him. In truth, in the shattering last pages of the novel, O’Hara slips and hits his head on a boat's gangplank, falling into the water, albeit after just discovering that Stella is his own daughter, the product of a long-ago fling. For years he had assumed that he had a son from this liaison, but he is left literally reeling from the realization that he has just had an affair with his own daughter.
The closing paragraphs of the novel are as chilling and plot-twisting as any Shirley Jackson might have penned. Stella, once again, picks up the phone to call her mother, sobbing out her heart in guilt and confusion. And, for the first time, we get to hear the mother’s response:
“’The time,’ mother intoned, ‘is 6:45 and 40 seconds precisely.’”
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 15, 2018
Set in a Liverpool repertory company in the 1950s, this is a darkly entertaining look at the details of human relationships and the collateral damage they leave in their wake.
Prickly teenager Stella is found a job at the theatre by her Uncle Vernon, with whom she lives in a shabby boarding house. She quickly develops a crush on the director, Meredith Potter, and finds her place among the eccentric characters and painful relationships of the theatrical company. Then, as rehearsals for Peter Pan get underway, a freak accident brings the famous O'Hara into the cast, and changes the path of Stella's life.
This is a brilliantly crafted novel with a great sense of time and place. WWII continues to cast its shadow over the characters as they suffer the pain of being in relationships with the wrong person. Each of them is pining for someone who ignores them, and each hides an important part of themself from those around them. Stella is a gem of a character, awkward and painfully naive, sharply observant yet always likely to misinterpret what she sees and hears.
Loved this and I would like to read more Bainbridge.
Prickly teenager Stella is found a job at the theatre by her Uncle Vernon, with whom she lives in a shabby boarding house. She quickly develops a crush on the director, Meredith Potter, and finds her place among the eccentric characters and painful relationships of the theatrical company. Then, as rehearsals for Peter Pan get underway, a freak accident brings the famous O'Hara into the cast, and changes the path of Stella's life.
This is a brilliantly crafted novel with a great sense of time and place. WWII continues to cast its shadow over the characters as they suffer the pain of being in relationships with the wrong person. Each of them is pining for someone who ignores them, and each hides an important part of themself from those around them. Stella is a gem of a character, awkward and painfully naive, sharply observant yet always likely to misinterpret what she sees and hears.
Loved this and I would like to read more Bainbridge.
March 28, 2024
Dark but hilarious!
August 31, 2011
This quirky novel is the first by Beryl Bainbridge that I have read. It is a model of concise, spare writing. Having said that, I should stress that one has to concentrate fully throughout the book's almost 200 pages to grasp the intricacies and the subtleties of the plot and of the characterisation. The action takes place in the 1950s in Liverpool and revolves around the activities of a professional repertory theatre company. The central character is 16-year old Stella Bradshaw, who lives with her uncle and aunt. Stella's mother is absent (and does not appear in the novel, other than as an offstage recipient of phone messages from her daughter: something that turns out to be a pivotal aspect of the plot). Stella has a literary bent - she loves poetry and, on one occasion, mentally quotes Louis MacNeice's "The Sunlight on the Garden". She also uses words such as 'salubrious'! So, she gets a job as an assistant stage manager at the repertory company. And, while there, she strikes up a relationship with one of the actors in the rep's Christmas production of "Peter Pan". That relationship, unknown to either, has repercussions that link with Stella's past. The novel is peopled by eccentric characters. The bitchiness of life in a repertory company is vividly portrayed, as is the anxiety and insecurity that I imagine most actors feel. This is an entertaining and often very funny book, which was apparently shortlisted for the Booker prize. My one reservation is that I am not entirely sure what the author's central message is. I have a nagging doubt that I have missed something or that the book is, in essence, an empty vessel. 7/10.
October 8, 2012
Beryl Bainbridge’s work is one of the gaps in my reading history, so I decided to join in with a Bainbridge Reading Week a few months ago. But I hope I was just unlucky with the book I chose, because I didn’t get along with An Awfully Big Adventure as well as I'd hoped to.
It’s Liverpool in 1950, and young Stella Bradshaw, who lives with her aunt and uncle, dreams of a life in the theatre, something that’s not typical of girls with her background (‘People like us don’t go to plays,’ says Aunt Lily, ‘[l]et alone act in them.’ ‘But she’s not one of us, is she?’ replies Uncle Vernon). Stella gets her wish, joining Meredith Potter’s repertory theatre company backstage; she develops an (unreciprocated) crush on Potter himself, and, as the months go by, gains acting work, but also the kind of attention she could do without.
In many ways, An Awfully Big Adventure is Stella’s novel – certainly its resolution hinges on revelations about her character – but, in terms of focus, the book is much more an ensemble piece, and our view of Stella is often distanced (necessarily so, but still). I wonder if these latter qualities didn’t prevent me from truly engaging with Bainbridge’s novel – I felt it was that bit too distanced, too broad, to work for me. But the ending is as powerful as I could wish, one of the strongest narrative jolts I’ve experienced in some time.
It’s Liverpool in 1950, and young Stella Bradshaw, who lives with her aunt and uncle, dreams of a life in the theatre, something that’s not typical of girls with her background (‘People like us don’t go to plays,’ says Aunt Lily, ‘[l]et alone act in them.’ ‘But she’s not one of us, is she?’ replies Uncle Vernon). Stella gets her wish, joining Meredith Potter’s repertory theatre company backstage; she develops an (unreciprocated) crush on Potter himself, and, as the months go by, gains acting work, but also the kind of attention she could do without.
In many ways, An Awfully Big Adventure is Stella’s novel – certainly its resolution hinges on revelations about her character – but, in terms of focus, the book is much more an ensemble piece, and our view of Stella is often distanced (necessarily so, but still). I wonder if these latter qualities didn’t prevent me from truly engaging with Bainbridge’s novel – I felt it was that bit too distanced, too broad, to work for me. But the ending is as powerful as I could wish, one of the strongest narrative jolts I’ve experienced in some time.
January 24, 2019
I first read this book after seeing the film when it was released in the 90s, and despite great performances from Hugh Grant and Alan Rickman, I remain convinced the book is much more successful than the film. Stella is a fascinating character--brilliant, erratic, and self-delusional. So she fits in brilliantly with the rep company for which she's acting as an assistant stage manger and bit player; her character's voice is the strongest aspect of this book, along with the humor derived from her often distorted view of the lives of the actors she admires. Bainbridge was an ASM for a rep company herself, and this portrait of a bygone era is harsh, but a must for all fans of British theater. This system made the actors so many of us know and love. As someone who has been involved in theater, I think its frank depiction of sexual exploitation of desperate young actors is honest and timely, as is its portrayal of the cruelty directed to aging actors (male and female) who never quite "made it."
The narrative is elliptical and the plot doesn't really get going until the final fifty pages. This is a very writerly book, its style reminded me almost of a Pinter play in that much is said by what is not said. But I'm such a fan of British theater, this is still, in my humble opinion, probably the most accurate depiction of life as an actor in a novel as I've ever read.
The narrative is elliptical and the plot doesn't really get going until the final fifty pages. This is a very writerly book, its style reminded me almost of a Pinter play in that much is said by what is not said. But I'm such a fan of British theater, this is still, in my humble opinion, probably the most accurate depiction of life as an actor in a novel as I've ever read.
May 10, 2012
(3.5 stars - very torn...) Dry wit, dark humor, sparse writing, twisted storyline that goes down smooth with a kick at the end. It's been a long time since I read Bainbridge and this was a good reminder of how she can be entertaining and disturbing all at the same time. Young Stella joins the somewhat seedy local theater group and falls in love with the director - the self-centered and apathetic Meredith. Stella is so unworldly that she has no idea that he is gay - her efforts to "practice" sex and make him jealous will only lead to heartache. Her innocence had me laughing out loud on one page and wanting to rescue her on the next. One encounter with a reporter in a movie theater had me particularly squirmy, wondering why someone wasn't looking out for this vulnerable girl. While I enjoy sparse writing, I must admit that I had trouble connecting with these characters as Bainbridge doesn't give you a lot to warm up to. But she delivers on a plot that made me rethink my impressions and go back to reread passages that I originally glossed over. This isn't a book to read passively. It's subtle and asks the reader to work to fill in gaps and draw connections.
December 24, 2021
An interesting, entertaining, upsetting tale of coming of age in post-war Britain, set backstage in a Liverpool repertory theatre. The film version is very true to the novel, but highlights the sordid aspects of the story more strongly, while the novel underplays and amuses more. The novel is also more nuanced and subtle about the true tragedy at the story’s core than the film. The undervalued Bunny is probably my favourite character.
August 6, 2011
The first Beryl Bainbridge I've read but just have to have more - NOW! Hooked on this book from the first page. The comedy is superb, but there was so much more tucked away in such a spare, compressed little book. The ending has the same stunning quality as the scratched recording in Brighton Rock.
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