Felicia's Journey

Rating:
Summary: Better than the movie
Review: " Felicia's Journey" is a departure for the Irish author in that the plot is driven by suspense more than character.

Felicia's character is pretty much unformed. A small town motherless Irish girl, just out of school and newly unemployed, she's trapped in a round of housekeeping and caring for her hundred-year-old great-grandmother. The old lady is famous as the widow of a hero, killed in the "Troubles" a month after their wedding.

An ordinary girl, with no particular talents or ambitions, Felicia's keenest awareness is of her lack of prospects. Not that she plans to do anything about it. But then a young man, older than herself and back on a visit from his job in England, flatters her with his ardent attentions. And leaves her pregnant, having "forgotten" to give her his address in the muddle of leavetaking.

After several months without a word (but he doesn't have her address either), Felicia takes her great-grandmother's savings and runs off to England, looking for the factory where he told her he worked.

The first night, she wakes, and thinks of returning. "If she goes back now she'll wake up again in that bedroom. There'll be another dawn breaking on the same despair, the weariness of getting up when the bell chimes six, another day beginning. The cramped stairs will again be cleaned on Tuesdays, the old woman's sheets cleaned at the weekend. If she goes back now her father's eyes will still accuse, her brothers will threaten revenge. There will be Connie Jo's regret that she married into a family anticipating a shameful birth. There will be interested glances, or hard looks, on the street....Only being together, only their love, can bring redemption: she knows that perfectly."

Mr. Hilditch, a fat catering manager, is among those she asks for directions. He discerns her predicament immediately and is attracted to her friendless, anonymous condition. Surreptitiously he follows her, awaiting his chance to befriend her and add her to his "Memory Lane."

The narrative moves between them. Hilditch plots, remembers happy times with previous girls he "helped," and finds Felicia's Johnny with ease, keeping the information to himself. He steals Felicia's money to hasten the day she will be utterly dependent upon his largesse.

Felicia, innocent but wary, angers Hilditch by escaping him. She falls in with a religious cult but, when it's time to move on, discovers the disappearance of her money. Trevor underscores the terror of homelessness with subtle portraits of the people she meets, their offhand kindness a contrast to the circus of grubbiness, insanity and drug addiction. Sights and sounds loom larger than life. Hilditch becomes a reasonable alternative.

Felicia is not a heroic character. Hilditch, pathetic, self-satisfied and crafty, with flashes of viciousness, is the more interesting. His greatest pleasure is sitting with Felicia in one fast-food restaurant after another, eating and imagining the other patrons noticing them, taking him for her lover. The tension builds, however, with a truly repellant scene at an abortion clinic and Felicia's subsequent disintegration.

As always, Trevor's prose is both subtle and sharp, with a distinct eye for detail. And the tone is both compassionate and pathological; tension heightens as the characters' shared world grows smaller and darker.

If there's any criticism it's the stereotypical psychological root of Hilditch's obsession, a monstrous mother added, it seems, as an afterthought. Nevertheless, a fine, dark novel from a thoughtful, eloquent writer.

Rating:
Summary: Better than the movie
Review: " Felicia's Journey" is a departure for the Irish author in that the plot is driven by suspense more than character.

Felicia's character is pretty much unformed. A small town motherless Irish girl, just out of school and newly unemployed, she's trapped in a round of housekeeping and caring for her hundred-year-old great-grandmother. The old lady is famous as the widow of a hero, killed in the "Troubles" a month after their wedding.

An ordinary girl, with no particular talents or ambitions, Felicia's keenest awareness is of her lack of prospects. Not that she plans to do anything about it. But then a young man, older than herself and back on a visit from his job in England, flatters her with his ardent attentions. And leaves her pregnant, having "forgotten" to give her his address in the muddle of leavetaking.

After several months without a word (but he doesn't have her address either), Felicia takes her great-grandmother's savings and runs off to England, looking for the factory where he told her he worked.

The first night, she wakes, and thinks of returning. "If she goes back now she'll wake up again in that bedroom. There'll be another dawn breaking on the same despair, the weariness of getting up when the bell chimes six, another day beginning. The cramped stairs will again be cleaned on Tuesdays, the old woman's sheets cleaned at the weekend. If she goes back now her father's eyes will still accuse, her brothers will threaten revenge. There will be Connie Jo's regret that she married into a family anticipating a shameful birth. There will be interested glances, or hard looks, on the street....Only being together, only their love, can bring redemption: she knows that perfectly."

Mr. Hilditch, a fat catering manager, is among those she asks for directions. He discerns her predicament immediately and is attracted to her friendless, anonymous condition. Surreptitiously he follows her, awaiting his chance to befriend her and add her to his "Memory Lane."

The narrative moves between them. Hilditch plots, remembers happy times with previous girls he "helped," and finds Felicia's Johnny with ease, keeping the information to himself. He steals Felicia's money to hasten the day she will be utterly dependent upon his largesse.

Felicia, innocent but wary, angers Hilditch by escaping him. She falls in with a religious cult but, when it's time to move on, discovers the disappearance of her money. Trevor underscores the terror of homelessness with subtle portraits of the people she meets, their offhand kindness a contrast to the circus of grubbiness, insanity and drug addiction. Sights and sounds loom larger than life. Hilditch becomes a reasonable alternative.

Felicia is not a heroic character. Hilditch, pathetic, self-satisfied and crafty, with flashes of viciousness, is the more interesting. His greatest pleasure is sitting with Felicia in one fast-food restaurant after another, eating and imagining the other patrons noticing them, taking him for her lover. The tension builds, however, with a truly repellant scene at an abortion clinic and Felicia's subsequent disintegration.

As always, Trevor's prose is both subtle and sharp, with a distinct eye for detail. And the tone is both compassionate and pathological; tension heightens as the characters' shared world grows smaller and darker.

If there's any criticism it's the stereotypical psychological root of Hilditch's obsession, a monstrous mother added, it seems, as an afterthought. Nevertheless, a fine, dark novel from a thoughtful, eloquent writer.

Rating:
Summary: "the chance that separates the living from the dead"
Review: A nowadays story about the chance that separates the living from the dead : a girl (Felicia) becomes homeless, a man (Mr Hilditch) kills himself, religion fails, through the hands of well intentioned people, to be the support and the healing force that people (Felicia, Mr Hilditch) badly need.
A book about an immense solitude : on one hand the blind belief in love, or the naivety of a young inexperienced girl, brings her to leave her uncaring family, where she feels out of place, in order to search her short time lover, of whose child she's pregnant. On the other hand Mr Hilditch, his empty regular and "not-disturbing-the-neighbours" life, desperately seeking comfort and company, but constantly failing to reach out of the ice box of his incapacity to care.
Nonetheless, a book that doesn't in the least judge. It doesn't either aim at explaining how things happen. Just tells the story, a story made by the chance, "the chance that separates the living from the dead".

Rating:
Summary: movie's better than the book
Review: book doesn't quite take off, unlike the movie itself, starring Bob Hoskins.Subject matter alone, however, makes it worth reading.

Rating:
Summary: A must read!!
Review: Brilliant Book. This is not about some creepy serial killer or the Bad jack the ripper versus poor girls book. The book has two central characters, both of them with some glaring weaknesses. Felicia with her naive trust and stubborn belief makes one feel that she deserves all that she is getting. But as the book progresses, her character gets better and better with the end leaving you gasping. At the other end, Hilditch's character is very nicely sketched too. As one reviewer said, here is an "evil" without being Wilful.

Don't miss it. The prose is exquisite, the suspense is chilling, the ending .. welll.. read it.

-Raj

Rating:
Summary: Clean, brilliant literary work
Review: Clean, spare, perfect prose and flawless psychological portraits. Trevor is one of the great literary writers: he's not showing off like some of the other Brit writers. He has far more negative capability than say Ian McEwan, and is far less ego-driven than say Julian Barnes--and he manages to have driving plot *and* depth of character, an unusual combo in a literary writer, which makes this much more taut than (say) William Maxwell. Each line is rich with reality. Loved every sentence.

Rating:
Summary: An excellent book, please don't watch the film
Review: Felicia's journey is an excellent novel. The background to both characters is well developed. Mr. Hilditch in particular becomes more sinister due to his overwhelmingly ordinary appearance. The intimations of his unusual childhood merely suggest that he may be more disturbed than his manner presumes. Mr. Hilditch's interactions with strangers in the presence of Felicia provide the most chilling insight into the purpose of his friendship with her. It is for this reason alone that the film fails so miserably. No reference is made at all to these brief conversations. As for Felicia herself, it must be said that her character is a little limp. There are few convent girls left in Ireland who show such naivety. However she does grow more likeable, but not enough to demonstrate why she should affect Mr. Hilditch so much.

Rating:
Summary: A most brilliant book
Review: He must be one of the greatest contemporary writers we have. William Trevor is one I most of all have admired for his short stories and essays, but with Felicia`s Journey he has written a novel with such energy, tension and a well-crafted plot, that it must surely be regarded as one of the absolutely best books of the 1990s. Every time I look back on Felicia`s Journey I happen to think of Charles Dickens at his best. This book belongs in every literature lovers bookshelf, next to Trevor`s collected short stories.

Rating:
Summary: TREVOR, A COMMANDER OF LUMINOUS PROSE
Review: Here he is again, that commander of luminous prose William Trevor. With this, his 13th novel, the master has some surprises in store as his unparalleled accounting weaves a psychological thriller.

Felicia, whose appearance is deemed "nun like" is the only daughter of an impoverished Irish gardener. She leaves the home where she cooks, cleans and tends to an elderly grandmother to find the boy she loves, Johnny. Knowing only that he works in a lawn mower factory somewhere in the English Midlands, she embarks on her fateful journey.

Unable to locate the factory, let alone Johnny, she is befriended by Mr. Hilditch, a portly catering manager with a penchant for pop tunes from the 50s, a portrait gallery of strangers decorating his walls, and a black past. Mr. Hilditch follows her, assures her dependence upon him by stealing her money, and eventually takes her into his home.

Trevor's brilliant narrative skills are showcased as he weaves the story with flashbacks, revelations of his characters' thoughts, and displays of their dreams. As always, he is articulate and compassionate, bringing his shuddery thriller to the zenith of a conclusion.

Rating:
Summary: TREVOR, A COMMANDER OF LUMINOUS PROSE
Review: Here he is again, that commander of luminous prose William Trevor. With this, his 13th novel, the master has some surprises in store as his unparalleled accounting weaves a psychological thriller.

Felicia, whose appearance is deemed "nun like" is the only daughter of an impoverished Irish gardener. She leaves the home where she cooks, cleans and tends to an elderly grandmother to find the boy she loves, Johnny. Knowing only that he works in a lawn mower factory somewhere in the English Midlands, she embarks on her fateful journey.

Unable to locate the factory, let alone Johnny, she is befriended by Mr. Hilditch, a portly catering manager with a penchant for pop tunes from the 50s, a portrait gallery of strangers decorating his walls, and a black past. Mr. Hilditch follows her, assures her dependence upon him by stealing her money, and eventually takes her into his home.

Trevor's brilliant narrative skills are showcased as he weaves the story with flashbacks, revelations of his characters' thoughts, and displays of their dreams. As always, he is articulate and compassionate, bringing his shuddery thriller to the zenith of a conclusion.