Book Information
- Publisher
- Faber & Faber
- Published
- 2006-08-17
- Pages
- 288 pages
- Language
- 英語
- Size
- 14.3 x 2.5 x 22.3 cm
- ISBN-13
- 9780571216024
- ISBN-10
- 0571216021
- Price
- 1948 JPY
- Category
- 洋書/Literature & Fiction/Literary
Be near me when my light is low, When the blood creeps, and nerves prick And tingle; and the heart is sick, And all the wheels of Being slow. from In Memoriam A.H.H Alfred, Lord Tennyson When an English priest takes over a small Scottish parish, not everyone is ready to accept him. He makes friends with two local youths, Mark and Lisa, and clashes with a world he can barely understand. The town seems to grow darker each night. Fate comes calling and before the summer is out his quiet life is the focus of public hysteria. Father David looks back to find a Lancashire childhood. He remembers a lost father and a grand school for Catholic boys. He finds 1960s Oxford in the heat of student revolt and recalls a choice he once made in the orange groves of Rome. Be Near Me is a story of art and politics, love and change, and a book about the way we live now. Trapped in class hatreds, threatened by personal flaws, Father David begins to discover what happened to the ideals of his generation. Meanwhile a religious war is unfolding on his doorstep...
Andrew O'Hagan is one of this generation's most exciting and serious chroniclers of contemporary Britain. He has been nominated for the Man Booker Prize three times and was voted one of Granta 's Best of Young British Novelists in 2003. He has won the Los Angeles Times Book Award and the E. M. Forster Award from the American Academy of Arts & Letters.
Reviews
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Some lovely passages and thoughts. Not quite finished...about 75% done.
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Top! Schnell angekommen.
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I struggled with this novel at first. The writing was excellent but the subject matter was depressing as the narrator lets the reader know that events will not turn out well almost from the start. But I kept with it as I sensed that great things were coming. How right I was. This is an outstanding work written with great sensitivity. I recommend it without reservation.
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Nice story about a priest struggling his human side, confronting his religious beliefs with thw nowadays world. Don't expect a story focused on religion but in human beings.
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Did not enjoy this book. David, the main character, did not enjoy his life. He tried the priesthood as an escape - an escape from having loved. It didn’t work. I know that Andrew O’Hagan is a sublimely brilliant writer, but this book is a dud. The author was lost in the dreaming spires of Oxford, deep first love - class society of an Evelyn Waugh age. Combine thoroughly - you’ll get this book. Messy. Looking backwards - for a whole lifetime. David stopped participating in life. Life and social mores moved on, but he determinedly remained. Arrogant.