Passing on

Rating:
Summary: The Sins of the Mother
Review: Helen and Edward Glover have just buried their mother, Dorothy. Dorothy, the manipulative and domineering woman that she was, raised two meek children who did her bidding and one child, Suzanne who escaped her, but understood the life her siblings had led. Penelope Lively has once again written a wonderfully literate book of characters, showing their foibles, yet the allowing the mysteries of life to unfold in real drama.

Helen and Edward live in a small town near the edge of Cotswold. Helen is 52 and a part-time librarian. Edward is 49 and a teacher at a girl's school. It appears that both of them have not made much of their life, under the eye of their mother who had a need to keep them under her thumb, while allowing them to think they were not worthy of much.

They live in a large, unkempt home Greystones, and have a piece of land known as the Britches, which Edward keeps as an environmentally safe place. After their mother dies, she stays with them in picture and soul. It takes a while before either of them can talk about her. It is while Helen is cleaning her mother's room and then cleaning the entire house that she finds the "nasty" things her mother had done to keep her two children at home. In the meanwhile, Helen has blossomed and has become good friends their solicitor, Giles, She falls in love with this wily man and feels like a school girl again.

Edward, in the meantime becomes more reserved and into himself. An incident occurs that rocks both of Helen's and Edward's lives. As it happens, Phil, their sister, Suzanne's son has moved in with them because he and his parents do not see eye to eye. Both Helen and Edward continue their daily life and seem to make a difference in Phil's life. Has Dorothy's death freed these two characters to pursue their own lives?

Both Helen and Edward appear to be accepting what has been lost in their lives because of their mother and moving on to a new and better life. Their next door neighbor wants their land and will use every wily trick he can muster. Are Helen and Edward smart enough to rebuff this man? What would new found money do to their life? Penelope Lively has introduced us to two characters that move our hearts and souls. She has been able to develop their personalities to such a degree that we can begin to understand how Dorothy, the mother has taken over their very thought and desires. How to break free of this tragic creature?
Can something be done, be retrieved of their lives. A poignant and personal look inside the minds and hearts of two people we come to care about. Penelope Lively has done it again! prisrob

Rating:
Summary: What a find! A terrific writer!
Review: I am amazed that this book is out of print, because it is a very entertaining and readable novel by a writer who consistently provides a good read. I recently came upon an English paperback copy of it in an English-language bookstore in Paris, and I found it to be one of this writer's better novels. It concerns the lives of a sister and brother after the death of their old dragon of a mother, with whom they had been living for most of their lives (they are both middle-aged). There are problems with the house and some adjacent property, as well as problems in new and old relationships, and Helen, the sister and the main character, realizes that the mother was even more awful that she had thought, and painfully also comes to realize her own connivance in the mother's viciousness and in her attempt to keep Helen and her brother under her thumb (even after death). Helen is a likable and admirable character, and one gets a good sense of what modern life is like in an English village.

Rating:
Summary: A very good read
Review: I am amazed that this book is out of print, because it is a very entertaining and readable novel by a writer who consistently provides a good read. I recently came upon an English paperback copy of it in an English-language bookstore in Paris, and I found it to be one of this writer's better novels. It concerns the lives of a sister and brother after the death of their old dragon of a mother, with whom they had been living for most of their lives (they are both middle-aged). There are problems with the house and some adjacent property, as well as problems in new and old relationships, and Helen, the sister and the main character, realizes that the mother was even more awful that she had thought, and painfully also comes to realize her own connivance in the mother's viciousness and in her attempt to keep Helen and her brother under her thumb (even after death). Helen is a likable and admirable character, and one gets a good sense of what modern life is like in an English village.

Rating:
Summary: Some good characters, patient story with kick, a bit preachy
Review: I realised about half way through this book that I had read it before (the first thing to really push my recognition buttons was a typically straw man attack on Creationists. I also remembered the technique she used of telling us early that one of her characters fiddled with their glasses when perplexed, and later just saying when they started fiddling). All the plot seems to happen in the last couple of chapters, whereas until that point we're just getting a picture of the main two characters. Our central character, Helen, is a 52 year old woman dealing with the death of her overbearing mother, who may have actually altered the whole course of her daughter's life by, for example, not handing on a potentially vital love letter Helen finds while sorting her mother's things. The issue for Helen is less whether things really would have been different if her mother hadn't have been involved than how much she is to blame for not taking a stand, for being too pliant.

Lively is good, you get to like and respect Helen. A major theme is linking nature to our lives: how do we deal with the fact that we really are just beasts with intelligence? (The conclusion manages to have some hope in this bleak outlook: 'They saw that there is nothing to be done, but that something can be retrieved.') This is the assumption - obviously I deal with it differently to Lively. And I suppose I put a minus after the A because I think her insight, while profound in some areas, doesn't extend to respecting anyone with alternate views. The novel is a bit preachy (in a relatively subtle way - it's not the only concern of the book), and does unapologetically reduce several characters to mere goodies and baddies (eg. Ron Plaget, Helen's mother, Giles Carnaby, Susan Wilmot). She also is pushing a pretty tough barrow: she wants us to feel sympathy for Helen's 49 year old brother, a repressed homosexual who gropes the neighbour's 14 year old, and to utterly condemn, in contrast, anyone in society opposed to homosexuality - including the father of the 14 year old (set up for a fall, of course, an utterly immoral opportunist). The way she tells the story, we are sympathetic, but it is such a contrived 'moral' that makes its point but undermines the universality of the story.

Plotwise, slow moving, sure, but a dynamite finish, with several things all happening at once, rather than conveniently pacing themselves throughout the drama. We reel with the characters with no time to wallow over major events as more major ones rudely jump in. The irony is thick as Helen's younger sister talks on about her daily crisis' assuming that her stick in the mud single older siblings will have had nothing to report - when actually they're going though much more that she probably will never give the chance to hear (shades of some conversations I've had with ' also reminds me of that ably presented scene in 'Pulp Fiction' where Bruce Willis' character, on the run from the mob, has to tread carefully around his girlfriend's potential tantrums about her nails or whatever).

Like I said, she's good - but she should read some Hornby and see it's possible to present characters that differ but are both respectable. It does surprise me when people like Lively or Adam Spencer (JJJ presenter/mathamatician) do just write off anyone who believes that the complexity and beauty of nature suggest there is a God. Not just disagree, but vehemently abuse. Surely somewhere they've come across someone they respect who holds to this idea? Maybe they have but can't put the two together. Christians with half a brain have known and made it clear for ages that some very intelligent people are atheists. How about some atheists with half a brain making it clear that some very intelligent people are theists?

Rating:
Summary: Powerful and Poignant
Review: Only an author of Penelope Lively's talent could present a story of two diffident, almost invisibly shy middle-aged people and make the reader not only care about them, but care deeply.

On the surface, nothing whatsoever happens in the very quiet country lives of Helen and Edward, a brother and sister caught in a time warp of old-fashioned Victorianism smack in the middle of the teeming 80s (when this book was written). Having lost their domineering old battle-axe of a mother as the book begins, both brother and sister are having trouble banishing her critical and strident voice from each of their minds.

As they go about their days--Helen as a part-time librarian, Edward as a schoolteacher--the reader senses that something horrific is about to happen. The very stillness of their lives portends something awful. It is the genius of the author that can portray that feeling without in any way discussing it or warning the reader...it's just there.

And when it happens, lives are shattered, and the reader simply must weep.

This is a tour de force. A brilliant piece of writing. And something that cannot be put down and forgotten.

Rating:
Summary: What a find! A terrific writer!
Review: Passing On was my introduction to Penelope Lively and now I'm looking for her other books to see if they're as good! Reading this novel was a much more pleasurable (and poignant) experience than any plot synopsis I could provide would indicate, so just try to get hold of a copy-and enjoy!

Rating:
Summary: A Heartbreaking & Deeply Moving Novel
Review: Reading this book broke my heart. And yet, when I finished it I turned back to page one and began again. The characters in this book are so complex and compelling, it was as if they were people who inhabit my day to day life. I recommend this book to anyone wishing to be haunted by perfect fiction.