Reviews

• Love it

  ...and love everything this guy writes!

• ... Peter Carey's early books and clearly one of his best, this historical fiction brings together two misfit characters ...

  One of Peter Carey's early books and clearly one of his best, this historical fiction brings together two misfit characters on the fringes of a colonial society who pursue a fantasy that changes their lives and helps forge a new antipodean society in a new world. One of the best of Australian contemporary fiction.

• Engaging Story. Wonderfully written. A little slow in parts

  Particularly liked references to early Sydney and NSW. Needlessly slow in parts and then the action happens so fast you have to flip back! The writing is very good.

• A fine book

  no spoilers; just synopsis a) don't see the movie unless you read the book...something gets really lost between the two b)Excellent, simply excellent!!! I would recommend this book to anyone who appreciates superlative writing and a quirky story. If every book were like this one, I would be in Heaven!!!! The prose is outstanding and these characters are simply so real I thought they'd float off the page. Oscar and Lucinda is set both in England and in Australia in the 19th century. In England, Oscar Hopkins is the son of a non-Anglican, religious fundamentalist who is also a naturalist, and up until he is about 15 Oscar grows up with the reassurance that he is among the saved. Oscar's mother died; he lives with his father in a little village called Hennacombe in Devon, in an austere house with no ornamentation; even the food is plain. One Christmas one of the cooks feels sorry for the boy and makes him a Christmas pudding, complete with raisins & a cherry; the ostentatiousness of the pudding leads Theophilus (Oscar's father) to lose it and he hits Oscar, who is then forced to cough up the pudding. Later, they are out wading in the ocean, and Oscar asks that God smite his father out of anger; just then, Theophilus has an accident that cuts him on the leg. Oscar realizes that he has to leave -- and the signs point to the Anglican Church. We next find him at Oxford, at Oriel College, where he discovers gambling. One thing leads to another and Oscar sets out to become a missionary in New South Wales but he has to go by ship...a problem since Oscar has this immense water phobia. It is on this voyage that Oscar meets Lucinda Leplastrier, returning to Australia, whose parents had died & whose mother, before dying, had their land subdivided and sold and Lucinda was now an heiress living off the profits. She is also the owner of a glassworks in Australia. Lucinda is obstinate, headstrong & like Oscar, she is a gambler. The lives of these two people come together on the ship, then meet again after Oscar discovers that there is no Missionary Work to be done in New South Wales, and that he is to be assigned to a posh vicarage instead. He meets Lucinda in a Chinese gambling house ... and things take off from there. I won't say another word... you really should read it for yourself. The writing is excellent; the story is excellent and there are so many themes that are explored without the author ever losing track. My only complaint: the end came so fast (it was a great ending but rushed) that after having savored the story for so long I felt cheated. However, the rest of the book was absolutely stunning and so rich so I can overlook this. Please try this book...I can totally see how it won a Booker.

• un pasticcio

  assolutamente sconclusionato

• A must read

  To be honest, I didn't expect to like this as the characters are rather odd. In fact it is so well executed that it is a riveting read and the twist at the end was totally unexpected. The story begins with two unprepossessing characters on opposite sides of the world. The fact that they meet at all is totally remarkable and the description of early Australian settlement life is rather uncomfortable. I still have no empathy for the characters or the situations but the quality of the writing was enthralling.

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