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Summary: Wonderful!
Review: As always, Maeve Binchy writes with tenderness about ordinary, appealing people leading ordinary lives. She weaves a number of characters all taking an evening class in Italian into a tapestry of juxtaposed stories and emotions. You want to keep turning pages to see what happens to everyone and to share Binchy's view of Dublin, Ireland and its denizens. More than a few tears here... touching people that you care about. I've read a lot of Maeve Binchy's books and my favorite, though, is LIGHT A PENNY CANDLE, about a child who is sent to live in Ireland during the bombing of London during World War II. I adored that book and read it several times. Binchy even managed to make the dog seem like a living, breathing, animal with personality. Try out her books if you haven't. They are great
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Summary: Irish Love Affair with Italy
Review: What on earth possesses 30 Irish people to attend an evening class in Italian?This was the first Maeve Binchy novel I've read, and it won't be the last. This meaty book tells the story of Nora, a Irish woman who has lived in Italy for 30 years. Nora returns home and begins to teach an evening class to 30 or so eager adults. The book covers Nora's life, her reasons for living in Italy, and her reasons for returning. It seems that everyone enrolled in the class does so for a variety of excellent reasons--loneliness, self-improvement, boredom, ambition, etc. Binchy skillfully and gracefully intertwines the lives of the characters, and displays a rather generous, and forgiving view of human nature at the same time.
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Summary: A good Binchy, but not her best
Review: EVENING CLASS by Maeve Binchy Here's a book that revolves around an Irish expatriate who left her home in Ireland to live in Italy for many years, and a night class where learning Italian is the goal of it's students. EVENING CLASS by Maeve Binchy is yet another novel in which Binchy introduces us to a large cast of characters, and the reader gets to know each and every one of them in detail. The book starts off with the story of Aidan Dunne, a very unhappy husband and father of two young adult women, who is waiting to hear if he is going to receive the promotion of school principal that he feels he most certainly deserves. When the position goes to a rival, he is instead offered the task of setting up a new nighttime adult education school, where he is allowed carte blanche. Aidan chooses to start with Italian language classes. It is a revolutionary idea, but he decides he wants to take a stab at it, and his love of Italy is obvious as he tries to make his dreams of living the life of Italy come true. In the mean time, he needs someone who could teach the class, as well as enough pupils to keep the classes going. Enter "Signora": an Irish woman who now calls her home Italy, because many years ago the love of her life decided to return home to Italy, and she followed him, despite her family's protests. After several decades of living in a foreign country, she herself is now a foreigner in the country of her birth, a place that feels strange and uncomfortable to her. Her acceptance of the position of Italian teacher for Aidan's night school is a godsend, and she puts her heart and soul into this project. It first appears that this is a short story collection, as Binchy introduces a new character in each new chapter. However, she chooses to make this a novel, as she winds up the short stories by bringing them all together at the very end. It is a clever gimmick, and although I think she pulled it off, I felt that she cheated a bit. This was not a true novel. Her ending was rather sloppy, I thought, but it was the happy ending I was looking for. EVENING CLASS to me was an uplifting book, with a lot of hope and wishful thinking among the many characters. I found it one of the more enjoyable Binchy books so far that I've read, although not quite my favorite. I recommend EVENING CLASS to any Binchy fan!
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Summary: Captivating! Maeve Binchy's BEST book ever!!!
Review: I was first introduced to Maeve Binchy by my army officer, and have been captivated and have read ALL her stories ever since reading The Copper Beech.
All the characters in Evening Class are all well fleshed out, and you really develop feelings for each and every one of them.
The individual stories will make you sad, angry and move you all at the same time. The best thing about reading a Maeve Binchy's book is the inter-human relationships; how vastly different lives can somehow be entwined through some twist of fate.
It makes very interesting reading as you read through the lives of Signora (my fave character! Hers is one of the most touching and moving stories of all in the book), Aidan and his family etc..
This book is just so interesting that I simply cannot put it down! I finished the book in 1 and 1/2 days, at one go!!!
For those of you who are still hesitating, GO AND BUY IT NOW!!! This book is even better than her other recent release "This Year It Will Be Different: And Other Stories".
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Summary: a dropout!
Review: This book is not up to par with Binchy's quality.
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Summary: A Classy Novel
Review: I love reading about characters ~~ even if Binchy sometimes seem to be naive about some of her characters ~~ but her storytelling is superb as usual. This one is a re-read for me and I thoroughly enjoyed it again. You have different people coming into this story ~~ and with a deft hand, Binchy keeps the stories flowing into one mass conclusion at the end. You have Signora who returns from Italy to Ireland after her lover dies. You have the disappointed Latin teacher, Aidan Dunne, who is bereft of his dream job as a principal at Mountainview. You have Barry, the young kid who remembers Italy fondly. You have Lou, the class thug, who changes his life midway through the year in the class. There is Connie, the rich woman with a secret bursting to be told, Fran and Cathy, sisters or mother/daughter ~~ Fran's secret till it comes out. There is Bill, a serious banker and his finacee, Lizzy, who is a dizzy blonde. They all come together in a class to learn Italian ~~ for various reasons and because of this common ground, they all became friends and their stories are entertwined ~~ Dublin isn't the typical big city ~~ it's a city with a small-town feel to it where everyone knows your name. Binchy writes with a sure hand and she creates believable characters that you relate to as a reader. Her stories are believable in most instances. This is one book that you cannot stop turning the pages ~~ it is one of my favorites this year. I come to rely on Binchy's novels for pure relaxation ~~ her stories are interesting and well-written. Sometimes, when you pick up one of her novels, you feel like you're coming home to relax by the fire and hearing the local gossip of your friends and family. She is a warm writer and she gently shares those stories with you ~~ as only a good story-teller can do. 11-22-03
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Summary: A treat- light,sweet, somewhat guilty pleasure
Review: This is warm and somewhat simple, very predictable read. The characters are many and their relationships take curious and quirky twists and turns. It is a sweet story with a few well placed character studies and lots of delicious seductive surprises. Although not WAR AND PEACE, it is a plesurable book to read, and even moreso the second time. Enjoy!
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Summary: Should we start our own Italian Courses ??
Review: This is a very good book about foreign language courses. I participated to many of them in Ankara in my past. I feel that teachers will find good clues how to make their courses productive, exciting and full of fun.
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Summary: It's Okay
Review: 11/7/02 The substance of the novel"Evening Class" by Maeve Binchy on the book jacket (hardback book cost ...)was what prompted me to borrow it..I wondered on the 1st couple of pages how could the jacket be so good and the actual book not be so..however on page 3 ,as the main character Aidan Dune begins to interact with his wife,his employer ,his daughters,than his thoughts and responses become more interesting(he takes it personally that they have expanded to life outside the family and even the wallpaper that he put in the bathroom of Venice's scenes have been replaced in importance by his daughter choosing the mirror as the more important object on the bathroom wall...,hope is always for the hero and /or heroine in can they solve the problems that face them ....however the plot did not thicken for me when his daughter's 'secret friend' whom he still does not know the identity of,gets the principalship job,convinces him that he can help him do all the things he would want to do better[gives him a chance to start an 'Evening School,so he will stay a teacher there],since his victor /foe Tony O'Brien tells him he's a 'meaner'(and more meaningful guy),an administrator type not a teacher type...in other words in my opinion the book said it all in less than a 1/5 of its 420 pages...it's not really a solution novel...he's a man who's best memories are when his wife and daughters respected him and found him interesting....a negative reflection as well is given to(what most teachers are proud of) his ability to remember the faces of children and their names..(a really sorry image for 'the good guy') it really says;incapable of solving his problems where he is..he must go to a new life and begin afresh...life's a tredmill to make one appear to be more interesting..no agendae for agenda sake.."it's all about oneself"..his competition for the principal job was the peer his age,who drank 1 1/2 pints of beer on his lunch break on 'school days'...The sympathies of the book are atypical of the thought process for boys and men...'life's suppose to be considered just one big boor/bore,unless they're playing soap opera or war.
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Summary: The Gossip
Review: Everyone knows a gossip. Imagine you live in Dublin and decide to sign up for an Italian evening class. The "gossip" fills you in on the background of 42+ people, which includes members of the class as well as the instructors. At the end of the course, you go on a class trip and the Italian teacher and Latin professor become an item. The End. Now imagine... that gossip is Maeve Binchy. This book has no depth, no excitement, nothing literary or thought provoking. It is merely 420 pages of underdeveloped characters that leaves the reader wondering "What's the point?" There really is no difference between this author's style and the water cooler chatter. Amazon ratings scale: 2 stars = Disappointing
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