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Rosamund lies dying in her remote Shropshire home. But before she does so, she has one last task: to put on tape not just her own story but the story of a young blind girl, her cousin's granddaughter, who turned up mysteriously at a party many years ago. This is a story of generations, & of the relationships within a family.
User reviews
LibraryThing member gidders
The beautifully told story of a family blighted by destructive relationships, principally between mothers and daughters. Sentimental, though in my opinion never crossing the line in to maudelin, the story is told through a series of twenty photographs. In this it is reminisent of Beryl Bainbridge's
I love Jonathan Coe's writting and this really is a lovely read.
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"Master Georgie", and Stephen Poliakoff's television drama "Shooting The Past".I love Jonathan Coe's writting and this really is a lovely read.
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LibraryThing member hoot
I needed a day to process this book after finishing it. This is hands down, one of the most well-written novels I have read in a long time. The character depth is astounding! I felt as though I knew these people, that their story could have been in my family.
Jonathan Coe's highly acclaimed "The
Gill is unable to locate Imogen, so she and her daughters go ahead and listen to the tapes. What follows is a description of 20 photographs. How amazing! It was like looking through a photo album and having all the circumstances surrounding those photos told to you.
What unfolds is a story of inevitability. A series of events all seemingly linked, and tragic at their very core. What comes from those events is Imogen, a little girl that lost her vision in an awful accident when she was 3 years old.
This book is a must read! You will find yourself reading this book rather quickly. The emotions Coe evokes are strong, and you will be compelled to continue on.
Jonathan Coe's highly acclaimed "The
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Rain Before It Falls" is an epic tale of love, loss and above all family. When Gill finds out her Aunt has passed away she is left to deal with her estate. What she finds is a series of tapes that her Aunt Rosamond had recorded with instructions that they be delivered to a girl - now a woman- named Imogen. Gill vaguely remembers Imogen from her Aunt Rosamonds 50th birthday party, but aside from that occasion knows not much about her.Gill is unable to locate Imogen, so she and her daughters go ahead and listen to the tapes. What follows is a description of 20 photographs. How amazing! It was like looking through a photo album and having all the circumstances surrounding those photos told to you.
What unfolds is a story of inevitability. A series of events all seemingly linked, and tragic at their very core. What comes from those events is Imogen, a little girl that lost her vision in an awful accident when she was 3 years old.
This book is a must read! You will find yourself reading this book rather quickly. The emotions Coe evokes are strong, and you will be compelled to continue on.
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LibraryThing member laidbackreader
This was my first Jonathan Coe book and I'm led to believe it's not typical of his writing. I enjoyed it in an 'easy read on holiday' way.
The device of telling the story by describing photographs was engaging but the whole story seemed to drag itself to the conclusion. Will I read other books by
The device of telling the story by describing photographs was engaging but the whole story seemed to drag itself to the conclusion. Will I read other books by
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Coe? Maybe. This one hasn't sent me rushing out to find another. Show Less
LibraryThing member jayne_charles
A welcome return to form for Jonathan Coe - I thought the Rotters Club was a bit of a turkey, and avoided its sequel. A lot more conventional than a lot of his other work, this is a look back through the history of a family, and the effects of bad parenting down the generations. Rare, too, for such
Much of the narrative consists of descriptions of old photographs for the benefit of a blind character - I thought this was highly effective, firstly because the reader can no more see them than the intended recipient so we interpret the desceiptions just as she would. Secondly the sequence of photos, depicting significant events in the family's history, mean that the storyline can jump happily from one major event to another, skipping the less significant times in between.
The prose is accessible yet highly evocative of time and place. Part of the action even took place down the road from where I live, and whilst it's obviously a work of fiction there is something extra magical about a story that pitches up on your doorstep.
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a touchy-feely book to be written by a male author.Much of the narrative consists of descriptions of old photographs for the benefit of a blind character - I thought this was highly effective, firstly because the reader can no more see them than the intended recipient so we interpret the desceiptions just as she would. Secondly the sequence of photos, depicting significant events in the family's history, mean that the storyline can jump happily from one major event to another, skipping the less significant times in between.
The prose is accessible yet highly evocative of time and place. Part of the action even took place down the road from where I live, and whilst it's obviously a work of fiction there is something extra magical about a story that pitches up on your doorstep.
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LibraryThing member michaeldwebb
Wow! I really, really loved this book. I read this in the same week as Anne Enright's The Gathering, and my reaction between to the two couldn't have been more different - by the end of this book (which I read really quickly) I was a wreck, deeply moved, whereas The Gatherling just did nothing for
Maybe I'm shallow.
Whatever, this was the story of three generation of women in a family, told in a very orginal way, as the deceased narator leaves a recording describing twenty photos that summarise here life for a long lost blind younger relative.
I always find Coe an easy read, but sometimes a little slight. This though, really got to me, and I'll admit that by the end I was in tears. I really couldn't pin down why it affected me so much that it will mean more to you if you are a parent, maybe it plays on our fear of failure?
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more me.Maybe I'm shallow.
Whatever, this was the story of three generation of women in a family, told in a very orginal way, as the deceased narator leaves a recording describing twenty photos that summarise here life for a long lost blind younger relative.
I always find Coe an easy read, but sometimes a little slight. This though, really got to me, and I'll admit that by the end I was in tears. I really couldn't pin down why it affected me so much that it will mean more to you if you are a parent, maybe it plays on our fear of failure?
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LibraryThing member wilgils
This had amazing reviews but I found it rather disappointing. Everyone in it seemed oddly distanced. This may because of the way it was written as someone speaking on a tape recorder about long past events. I expected more of it.
LibraryThing member UrliMancati
The long account of the life of a woman. Not the best work of Coe, in my opinion. Not involving as "The house of sleep". Anyway, it's worth reading.
LibraryThing member Georg.Miggel
Difficult to rate and review. In the end I was a little bit disappointed. Big mysteries are announced but eventually not revealed. A lot of characters appear on the show and I recommand a written diagram for all the daughters, grand-daughters, uncles and aunts from several generations and decades.
So why four stars and not less? Because this is a wonderfully written book with an intelligent narrator and I liked to read this "cv in 20 pics" a lot. Not a book to love passionately, but a book to start a friendship with.
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Though I did not quite understand for what purpose Coe made it as complicated as he did. He could have dropped at least 50 % of his staff without spoiling the plot. But maybe this is not a solid argument. Many families ARE complicated and we meet thousands of people in our life who are not crucial fr our "plot". So why four stars and not less? Because this is a wonderfully written book with an intelligent narrator and I liked to read this "cv in 20 pics" a lot. Not a book to love passionately, but a book to start a friendship with.
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LibraryThing member rkstafford
Beautifully written, poignant, but somehow the plot left this short of great.
LibraryThing member gypsysmom
My bookclub chose this book for our April 2014 read based solely on the fact that a Book Club Kit was available and the title sounded nice. It turned out to be a serendipitous choice. I really liked this book which manages to cover the history of 3 generations of a family in less than 250 pages.
The
Every once in a while I am astonished at how well a male writer portrays females in a book. Richard Wright in Clara Callan did it and there have probably been a few more but it is rare. Jonathan Coe joins that esteemed group now.
The
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book starts almost at the end of a 60 year time period when Gill learns that her aunt Rosamond has died. But the main story starts at the beginning of World War II when Rosamond is sent to live with cousins in Shropshire. She forms a close bond with her cousin Beatrix who is a little older but badly needs love since she doesn't get it from her own parents. We learn about that time from a series of tapes that Rosamond created to pass on to Imogen, a cousin whom Gill hardly knows but has to try to find now. We meet Beatrix's own daughter, Thea, who was left with Rosamond and her lover for 3 years while Beatrix went to Canada to pursue a man she had met. When Beatrix returned to England with the man, now her husband, she abruptly takes Thea from Rosamond. Those 3 years may have been the happiest time in Rosamond's life. Slowly the whole story is revealed, including Imogen's part in it.Every once in a while I am astonished at how well a male writer portrays females in a book. Richard Wright in Clara Callan did it and there have probably been a few more but it is rare. Jonathan Coe joins that esteemed group now.
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LibraryThing member rolyat
how the author, a man, can write so well in a woman's voice is beyond me. the story unfolds as the main character takes us thru the years of her life by describing 20 photos. an excellent read!!!!!
LibraryThing member Nataliec7
The first book by Jonathan Coe that I've read and 'Wow' was I impressed. I had no real idea of what to expect even though I'd read the back of the book.
Rosamond tells us her story, as well as the story of others -her family etc. The story is recorded on tapes which are found or essentially 'left'
I really enjoyed this book a lot. It was well written with descriptions of 20 pictures over a period of time and I could actually picture them. It was fascinating to hear of Rosamond's youth and how she come to where she is now. And the ending, I thought I had it all figured out but I didn't and I was immensely surprised. I raced through this book wanting the conclusion but not actually wanting the book to end!
Rosamond tells us her story, as well as the story of others -her family etc. The story is recorded on tapes which are found or essentially 'left'
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post Rosamond's death. The tapes are meant for a girl called Imogen. Her niece Gill who is in charge of her estate essentially has to find this girl but after searching for sometime with no luck, she listens to the tapes. She then comes to discover many things about her family history, Rosamond's life, love, loss, happiness, sadness, mistakes and much more.I really enjoyed this book a lot. It was well written with descriptions of 20 pictures over a period of time and I could actually picture them. It was fascinating to hear of Rosamond's youth and how she come to where she is now. And the ending, I thought I had it all figured out but I didn't and I was immensely surprised. I raced through this book wanting the conclusion but not actually wanting the book to end!
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LibraryThing member thorold
Coe's publishers must have thought they were dreaming when they got this manuscript: possibly for the first and only time in publishing history, an author comes up with a book where a black-and-white photo of people in bathing-suits seen from behind actually plays an important role in the plot. So,
Sorting out her aunt Rosamond's affairs after her death, Gill discovers that there's a legacy and a message - recorded on a stack of C90 cassettes - for Imogen, whom she remembers only as a little blind girl she helped to look after at her aunt's fiftieth birthday party, more than twenty years ago. With the help of her internet-savvy daughters, Gill tries to track Imogen down, but there's no trace of her, and eventually the three of them decide to listen to the tapes themselves. And of course we get to hear them too.
Imogen has evidently been cut off from her family background, for reasons that aren't at first made clear, and Rosamond is trying to put this right by telling Imogen, via a series of family photos she describes to her, about the story of her own connection with Imogen, her mother Thea and her grandmother Beatrix, who was Rosamond's cousin.
The snapshot idea turns out to be a very effective way of conveying how incomplete and fragmented any sort of narrated life-story is, when compared to the complexity of the intersecting lives of all the people involved. I enjoyed this aspect of the book, and as usual Coe is very good at putting characters in their historical moment in interesting, understated ways. Good to see too that he managed to slip in a little bit of avant-garde music when no-one was looking.
I was disappointed, though, that he committed a major cheese-solecism by having "Shropshire Blue" on the table of a 1940s farmhouse - although it sounds as though it should be a traditional English cheese, it's actually a brand name for industrial not-Stilton, introduced in the 1970s (I only know this because I had a holiday in Shropshire recently and there was an argument about whether or not we should get this cheese...).
I was less comfortable with the other major theme of this book, the idea that there are connections between people that go further and deeper than the extent to which their actual lives intersect in the real world, and I think Coe might have been having doubts himself about how far to commit himself to this. It came over as a little bit too tentative.
What is clear, though, from this as from the other books I've read by Coe, is that he's someone who really enjoys writing about interesting female characters. In this book there are hardly any male characters at all, and they play only very marginal roles in the story: everything is carried by the women. And that seems to work extremely well.
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naturally, Penguin chose a picture for the cover that subtly but unmistakably fails to match any of those described in the story...Sorting out her aunt Rosamond's affairs after her death, Gill discovers that there's a legacy and a message - recorded on a stack of C90 cassettes - for Imogen, whom she remembers only as a little blind girl she helped to look after at her aunt's fiftieth birthday party, more than twenty years ago. With the help of her internet-savvy daughters, Gill tries to track Imogen down, but there's no trace of her, and eventually the three of them decide to listen to the tapes themselves. And of course we get to hear them too.
Imogen has evidently been cut off from her family background, for reasons that aren't at first made clear, and Rosamond is trying to put this right by telling Imogen, via a series of family photos she describes to her, about the story of her own connection with Imogen, her mother Thea and her grandmother Beatrix, who was Rosamond's cousin.
The snapshot idea turns out to be a very effective way of conveying how incomplete and fragmented any sort of narrated life-story is, when compared to the complexity of the intersecting lives of all the people involved. I enjoyed this aspect of the book, and as usual Coe is very good at putting characters in their historical moment in interesting, understated ways. Good to see too that he managed to slip in a little bit of avant-garde music when no-one was looking.
I was disappointed, though, that he committed a major cheese-solecism by having "Shropshire Blue" on the table of a 1940s farmhouse - although it sounds as though it should be a traditional English cheese, it's actually a brand name for industrial not-Stilton, introduced in the 1970s (I only know this because I had a holiday in Shropshire recently and there was an argument about whether or not we should get this cheese...).
I was less comfortable with the other major theme of this book, the idea that there are connections between people that go further and deeper than the extent to which their actual lives intersect in the real world, and I think Coe might have been having doubts himself about how far to commit himself to this. It came over as a little bit too tentative.
What is clear, though, from this as from the other books I've read by Coe, is that he's someone who really enjoys writing about interesting female characters. In this book there are hardly any male characters at all, and they play only very marginal roles in the story: everything is carried by the women. And that seems to work extremely well.
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LibraryThing member Lynsey2
Incredibly tedious and mind numbingly boring.
LibraryThing member Acia
I read this book because I was mostly interested in the inter-generational relationships mother-daughter. Although the book is framed around it it doesn't go deep.
LibraryThing member gpower61
Jonathan Coe is perhaps best known for his satirical, angry and very funny state-of-the-nation novels about England; The Rain Before It Falls is something rather different. It’s a short novel which spans over sixty years, from the Second World War to the early noughties, and three generations of
Septuagenarian Rosamond is found dead in her armchair, apparently of a heart attack, surrounded by photograph albums, four C90 cassettes, an old cassette recorder, and with a microphone still in her hand. She has no children and her longtime partner Ruth has died some years earlier. She has appointed her niece Gill as executor and left her with instructions to give the tapes, and twenty accompanying photographs, to a young blind woman called Imogen (to whom she has also left part of her estate) whom Gill has met only once, many years before at a party at Rosamond’s house when Imogen was a child. Unable to locate Imogen, Gill eventually listens to the tapes herself with her two daughters. The family revelations that emerge from them revolve around Rosamond and her cousin Beatrix and daughter Thea; and, of course, the mysterious Imogen.
Characteristically, Coe combines formal invention with easy readability, a gripping narrative and a strong emotional centre. Most of the book consists of Rosamond’s tape recorded descriptions of the twenty photographs taken at various stages of her life and from these an entire history emerges. Rosamond is an engaging and likeable narrator. Her personality emerges as caring and thoughtful, mixed with an irrepressible urge to tell the truth and an admirable lack of sentimentality. The narrative that unfolds from her memories stimulated by the photographs says much about the way the camera always lies, concealing rather than capturing reality, and conversely how human memory can remain true to events over the decades.
This is a novel which speaks powerfully, in a nicely understated way, about the experience of a lesbian in mid-twentieth century Britain. Rosamond is independent, unapologetic and open about herself, and she eventually has a successful career and fulfilling relationship with Ruth. There’s Rosamond, smiling in all the family photos; in the larger picture of the family, however, there is a sense in which her life is conveniently tucked away at the margins. The tragic irony of this story about dysfunctional and loveless families is that she is the most maternal character but, due to the legally sanctioned prejudices of the time, unable to have her own family or adopt children. When the book was written Britain was in the midst of heated debates about gay adoption and the reader gradually becomes aware of a political sub-text.
Jonathan Coe has long been one of my favourite contemporary novelists and this is one of his best novels. He has always struck me as a sort of literary magician and perhaps never more so than here. He creates a whole world, and an immensely moving narrative, from an elderly woman sitting alone in her living room describing old photographs into a tape recorder. He writes unflinchingly about the hurt we inflict on each other but with a rounded, mature and ultimately almost forgiving tone. The Rain Before It Falls is elegiac, upsetting and haunting. A book built out of memories which, I know, will continue to resonant in my own memory for a long time.
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a family. A novel about the relationship between mothers and daughters, and the damage we pass onto each other down the generations. A story of family secrets, abuse, hidden lives, the need for love and the denial of love; and one which reveals its own secrets stealthily, almost in the manner of a murder mystery. Septuagenarian Rosamond is found dead in her armchair, apparently of a heart attack, surrounded by photograph albums, four C90 cassettes, an old cassette recorder, and with a microphone still in her hand. She has no children and her longtime partner Ruth has died some years earlier. She has appointed her niece Gill as executor and left her with instructions to give the tapes, and twenty accompanying photographs, to a young blind woman called Imogen (to whom she has also left part of her estate) whom Gill has met only once, many years before at a party at Rosamond’s house when Imogen was a child. Unable to locate Imogen, Gill eventually listens to the tapes herself with her two daughters. The family revelations that emerge from them revolve around Rosamond and her cousin Beatrix and daughter Thea; and, of course, the mysterious Imogen.
Characteristically, Coe combines formal invention with easy readability, a gripping narrative and a strong emotional centre. Most of the book consists of Rosamond’s tape recorded descriptions of the twenty photographs taken at various stages of her life and from these an entire history emerges. Rosamond is an engaging and likeable narrator. Her personality emerges as caring and thoughtful, mixed with an irrepressible urge to tell the truth and an admirable lack of sentimentality. The narrative that unfolds from her memories stimulated by the photographs says much about the way the camera always lies, concealing rather than capturing reality, and conversely how human memory can remain true to events over the decades.
This is a novel which speaks powerfully, in a nicely understated way, about the experience of a lesbian in mid-twentieth century Britain. Rosamond is independent, unapologetic and open about herself, and she eventually has a successful career and fulfilling relationship with Ruth. There’s Rosamond, smiling in all the family photos; in the larger picture of the family, however, there is a sense in which her life is conveniently tucked away at the margins. The tragic irony of this story about dysfunctional and loveless families is that she is the most maternal character but, due to the legally sanctioned prejudices of the time, unable to have her own family or adopt children. When the book was written Britain was in the midst of heated debates about gay adoption and the reader gradually becomes aware of a political sub-text.
Jonathan Coe has long been one of my favourite contemporary novelists and this is one of his best novels. He has always struck me as a sort of literary magician and perhaps never more so than here. He creates a whole world, and an immensely moving narrative, from an elderly woman sitting alone in her living room describing old photographs into a tape recorder. He writes unflinchingly about the hurt we inflict on each other but with a rounded, mature and ultimately almost forgiving tone. The Rain Before It Falls is elegiac, upsetting and haunting. A book built out of memories which, I know, will continue to resonant in my own memory for a long time.
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Awards
Dublin Literary Award (Longlist — 2009)
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