John de Falbe
Not So Ordinary
I liked this book very much. Quoting from Dombey and Son in his epigraph – ‘“We are dreadfully real, Mr Carker”, said Mrs Skewton; “are we not?”’ – Adam Thorpe announces that he has set out to write a story about the particular intensities of ordinary people.
Jack Middleton, a composer, visits Estonia hoping to find inspiration for a piece he has been commissioned to write for the opening of the Millennium Dome. To his astonishment, instead of inspiring music, the freedom he finds there causes him to have an affair with Kaja, a beautiful waitress. Convinced that this is a closed episode, he returns to London and his wife Milly and resumes his usual existence.
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@PParkerWriting on 'Forgotten Masters: Indian Painting for the East India Company'.
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‘"I feel", Lowell told Hardwick ... "as if I were pulled apart and thinning into mist, or rather being torn apart and still preferring that state to making a decision."'
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'To me, Elmore Leonard is as comforting in extremity as Pym, and as safe, in the last resort, as Wodehouse. The guys with the best lines are going to come out the other side; the dumb fucks are going to get it in the head or chest.'
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