A sequel which is better than the first volume, 26 Mar 2001
Being the sequel of The Radiant Way it is a surprising fact that I liked more A Natural Curiosity. Continuing from where The Radiant Way has left us, A Natural Curiosity is a lovely novel, written in the same intelligent style of Margaret Drabble. Three women, nonconformist intellectuals are leading their normal lives with few sparklings of originality, but some exterior things happen and have a great influence in their lives. Alix' serial killer and Liz's sister will prove to be important factors in their decisions from now on. Now and then Alix goes to prison to see Paul, "her serial killer" trying to demonstrate that his insanity, his evilness are not his fault, that there has to be another person which is morally responsible for his crimes. Liz must cope with her sister disappearance after her husband has commited suicide, fearing that she is dead and her body is not yet discovered.

Another dramatic, interesting, intelligent and funny book from Margaret Drabble, A Natural curiosity seems to be a natural sequel to the Radiant Way story, its characters always evolving, always learning, even in their fifties. It may be considered a fair description of modern British Society.

A sequel which is better than the first volume, 26 Mar 2001
Being the sequel of The Radiant Way it is a surprising fact that I liked more A Natural Curiosity. Continuing from where The Radiant Way has left us, A Natural Curiosity is a lovely novel, written in the same intelligent style of Margaret Drabble. Three women, nonconformist intellectuals are leading their normal lives with few sparklings of originality, but some exterior things happen and have a great influence in their lives. Alix' serial killer and Liz's sister will prove to be important factors in their decisions from now on. Now and then Alix goes to prison to see Paul, "her serial killer" trying to demonstrate that his insanity, his evilness are not his fault, that there has to be another person which is morally responsible for his crimes. Liz must cope with her sister disappearance after her husband has commited suicide, fearing that she is dead and her body is not yet discovered.

Another dramatic, interesting, intelligent and funny book from Margaret Drabble, A Natural curiosity seems to be a natural sequel to the Radiant Way story, its characters always evolving, always learning, even in their fifties. It may be considered a fair description of modern British Society.

Aging, Longing, and Loving in the Upper-Middle Class, 17 Oct 2007
For some reason I seem lately to have been reading several novels about aging, depressed, and lonely academics or members of the media or arts community--E.g. Shroud, by Banville; Amsterdam by McEwan, and A Foreign Affair by Lurie, among others. The Sea Lady is another and one of the best of this flourishing genre. As in The Sea Lady the protagonists seem always to be highly successful (unlike most of us real aging academics reading or writing amazon reviews), very depressed about their miserable lives (but it's not always clear why and sometimes seems self-indulgent), are divorced or in any case alone and lonely (but many of us real retired academics are still married, with rafts of grand children), and are almost obsessively self-involved (aren't we all? Or perhaps I should just speak for myself here).

The Sea Lady is the compressed life story of several children who meet one or two summers shortly after World War II on the seashore of England near the border with Scotland on the North Sea. Two, Ailsa and Humphrey, meet later in life, fall in love and marry, divorce, etc. Then meet again in their sixties, etc., etc. All the children turn out to be famous or wealthy as adults; all are successful, miserable, lonely, aging or aged now in 2006 (the story is told seamlessly with flashbacks). Drabble is a fine writer with a sensitive simple style that is very similar to Ian McEwan's but without the twisted, dark tones of McEwan. Although nothing happens in the novel, there is no violence, little lurid sex, or anything else of moment, I found it gripping and enjoyable. This is life, a mirror for us aging academics. Even if we're not successful or miserable and lonely there is much in this novel that illuminates and perhaps quiets our own demons.

Some of the things I very much liked about The Sea Lady: Drabble manages to weave a lot of trivia about life in England since WW II into her narrative. This novel evoked England for me better than many others that I've read lately (I'm a confirmed anglophile--I live in New York). Also Drabble uses quotes and snippets from Shakespeare in a creative and charming way that enhances the story. (I'm also a life-long Shakespeare fan.)

I must say that I am amazed by Drabble's talent. I wonder how she can breathe such life, such intensity into her story and characters. I admire and wonder at this talent, this genius. As with other fine writers, I wonder how they can know so much, sense so many things and get them on the page and make them live off the page. This is the first of Drabble's novels that I have read and I came upon it by accident, but I plan to read more of her works. Congratulations!

Disappointed, 04 Oct 2007
I have been a great fan of Margaret Drabble for many years and have read all her other books. I could not wait to read this one. It has proved a huge disappointment; I found it slow and rather turgid . The past was indeed beautifully evoked but it did not seem to ground the intense connections which brought the characters together in the future - rather I was left puzzled as to their emotional motivations. A lovely idea but maybe did not come out in the execution.

A wonderful evocation of childhood, 16 Sep 2007
Humphrey Clark and Ailsa Kelman met briefly as children in north-east England. They later meet up as lovers and embark on a short unfortunate marriage. Both have gone on to eke out very different careers. Ailsa has made a name for herself through her academic work on feminism and then through media appearances. She scandalized people by putatively wearing a foetus as a pendant. Humphrey has had a fairly successful career as a marine biologist albeit not without disappointments. At the Green Grotto (in the white elephant at Greenwich) which he had a part in setting up is a robotic mermaid who moves in and out of the water. His embarrassment at this as he escorts his grandson is almost tangible.

Their stories unfold as they travel back to Ornemouth fifty years later to receive honorary doctorates at one of the country's newer universities.

The book is a wonderful evocation of childhood at the seaside as well as the anxieties and uncertainties of ageing. There are constant references to sea life and marine biology (Ailsa's name, her mermaid-like dress, their journey compared to salmon coming home to spawn)

A grown-up book for grown-ups!



A fishy tale from the author of The Ice Age and The Gates Of Ivory, 09 Aug 2007
Margaret Drabble's latest novel chronicles a journey - or rather two journeys which are set to converge, with surprising results. Briefly and unsuccessfully married thirty years before, ageing experts Ailsa Kelman and Humphrey Clark are making separate trips north to a provincial town where they are both to receive honorary degrees. Although they appear to come from quite different worlds - Ailsa the wildly controversial academic and feminist pundit, Humphrey the quietly distinguished marine biologist - they once shared an emotional language which both have now almost forgotten how to speak.

As they make their separate pilgrimages towards the scene of a first idyllic childhood summer, Drabble takes us back through time to revisit each reminiscence and regret, chronicling the progress of the couple's strangely unfulfilled relationship. She is excellent when evoking memory, and every detail - from the "tarry masculine seafaring smell of creosote" to the "heathery blend of colours" on a tweedy aunt's sensible suit - evokes a vanished English world with aching veracity.

Drabble links personality with myth throughout the novel, in almost overwhelming fashion. Sea Lady Ailsa, named after an island in the Firth of Clyde, is first revealed dressed in "silver sequinned scales", and the ageing Humphrey recalls how salmon return to the spawning grounds - "the source" - at the end of their lives. Ailsa's life has been glamorous but ultimately lonely, like that of the animatronic mermaid Humphrey watches mechanically circling a grotto pool in a civic aquarium. There's a lot of Hans Christian Anderson's "Little Mermaid" in Ailsa; despite her strident feminism and varied career, and although she has long since given up the "high knife heels" she once wore, there is still a sense that she is a fish out of water, a beached and crippled mermaid looking for her destiny in an indifferent world.

Humphrey is also a disappointed man, forced to forgo fame by his refusal to compete for funding and recognition at the expense of serious science. The Green Grotto, home of the robotic mermaid, is the all too tangible symbol of his failure; conceived as a research establishment and teaching facility, it's become no more than an expensive tourist sideshow. It's also a fairly obvious sideswipe at the dumbing down of modern science teaching and the great White Elephant of Greenwich.

The slow convergence of these disparate lovers is controlled and overseen by the mysterious "Public Orator", a metafictional narrative device which seems unsatisfactory for most of the novel's length. He makes sense only at the novel's denouement, once he is able to step into the action - though he remains a shadowy and somewhat insubstantial figure to the end. Much more satisfying is the sense we have (the novel is subtitled A Late Romance) that in returning to the source, perhaps the Sea Lady might be about to find her true element at last.

first published at subba-cultcha.com

WHAT A WINNER!, 25 Sep 2006
I really loved this book. I finished reading it a few minutes ago and ran to the computer to write this review so other people could buy the book and enjoy it as I had.
From the beginning with the description of Ailsa's beautiful dress in which 'she appeared to have dressed herself as a mermaid, in silver sequinned scales', you realise that she is a very sensuous woman and later in the book, she delivers another speech which is so brilliantly executed, that you feel the tension of the audience as 'Ailsa, sensing its lowered guard, goes in for the kill.'
The description of that particular speech is masterfully written, so that you are swayed with the movement of the lines, until you hold your breath for the last climactic moment and then want to join the rapturous applause of the audience.
Then we meet Humphrey Clark, travelling by train from King's Cross to the far northern town by the sea, where his childhood had been played out, remembering all the events which took place and worrying about this particular event which he is facing and what its significance might be.
He is a highly intelligent man, who worries and is not independent of others as Ailsa is.
The person referred to as the Public Orator grates a little at first because he seems to be a construct in order to give the book a post-modern, objective slant, but later, we realise that he is another character who is revealed to us, along with the fleeting appearance of the opera singer, Dame Mary McTaggart, a cameo performance which is unforgettable.
This is Margaret Drabble at her best, informing us about things which fascinate her, drawing us into events so that we can feel the atmosphere and we shiver with delight and she reminds us constantly of the short passage of time.
'The journey draws to its end, but it is not over yet.'
But this book, it's wonderful!