Beautiful writing and insight a ****1/2, 02 Nov 2008
'The vehicle, a battered ice-blue Saab with a front passenger door in matt violet, raced down the wide dirt road on the southern penisula of the island as fast as a clattering engine could take it.' The novel starts and finishes with the young wife on the island and it's not until it comes full circle that we see the significance of seemingly small actions.

Most of the novel is seen from the pov of Jack, the composer protagonist and although he is pretentious Thorpe is very good at conveying the excitement of composing. Thorpe juxtaposes Hampstead and Estonia and does this with humour and wit and insight. A brilliant novel.

A beautiful English psychological novel, 21 Aug 2008
If we spend 10 hours reading the average novel (as Po Bronson has written), then it's vital to enjoy the company of the characters. Jack will be recognisable to most egocentric, indecisive, weak males, or at least those times we (the males) let ourselves down. Initially, he seems pretty precious and annoying - being one of those Hampstead types living a life of material comfort; however, he comes from an unremarkable working-class background, and rose from being a musical prodigy to being a (reasonably-)celebrated classical composer, who marries into wealth. But Adam Thorpe uses Jack and his wife's combined statuses to mirror the have-nots in UK society too, and the book becomes an excellent reading of injustice and missed chances in a bloated, self-satisfied, unfair society. I've read a book of Thorpe's poetry, and it is as exquisite as many moments of his prose, but there was a faintly bourgeois refinement that left me unable to love his work, but here he uses what I might imagine is his background, or experiences of life, to do what other writers in similar social strata are afraid of doing: ostensibly painting, but ultimately excavating - in painful detail - the pomposity of the upper middle-classes to show us where our hankering for money and comfort would lead us, instead of finding out what we were put on this earth to do.

Middle age, 31 Jul 2008
be prepared to read the thoughts of a selfish, self-obsessed character. littered with small moments of humour at his situation and the world around. and the way mistakes are made, people's feelings ignored, assumptions blasted. very very good writing in a very good story.

Symphonic, 05 Oct 2007
A beautifully written meditation on love and art contained in a truly compelling narrative and one of the most profoundly plausible books I have read which includes classical music amongst its subject matter. Head and shoulders above most other novels by booker eligible authors I have read this year.

Between Each Breath, 19 Sep 2007
Hadn't read Adam Thorpe before, it came up on a local library search on Tallinn just after returning from Estonia. Couldn't put it down, yet had to break to absorb it - beautifully lyrical, poetic prose that flowed like molten glass.
Set partly in a country rapidly shedding its Communist legacy its people & places were portrayed with such sharp edged clarity that it hurt.
Brilliant.

Beautiful writing and insight a ****1/2, 02 Nov 2008
'The vehicle, a battered ice-blue Saab with a front passenger door in matt violet, raced down the wide dirt road on the southern penisula of the island as fast as a clattering engine could take it.' The novel starts and finishes with the young wife on the island and it's not until it comes full circle that we see the significance of seemingly small actions.

Most of the novel is seen from the pov of Jack, the composer protagonist and although he is pretentious Thorpe is very good at conveying the excitement of composing. Thorpe juxtaposes Hampstead and Estonia and does this with humour and wit and insight. A brilliant novel.

A beautiful English psychological novel, 21 Aug 2008
If we spend 10 hours reading the average novel (as Po Bronson has written), then it's vital to enjoy the company of the characters. Jack will be recognisable to most egocentric, indecisive, weak males, or at least those times we (the males) let ourselves down. Initially, he seems pretty precious and annoying - being one of those Hampstead types living a life of material comfort; however, he comes from an unremarkable working-class background, and rose from being a musical prodigy to being a (reasonably-)celebrated classical composer, who marries into wealth. But Adam Thorpe uses Jack and his wife's combined statuses to mirror the have-nots in UK society too, and the book becomes an excellent reading of injustice and missed chances in a bloated, self-satisfied, unfair society. I've read a book of Thorpe's poetry, and it is as exquisite as many moments of his prose, but there was a faintly bourgeois refinement that left me unable to love his work, but here he uses what I might imagine is his background, or experiences of life, to do what other writers in similar social strata are afraid of doing: ostensibly painting, but ultimately excavating - in painful detail - the pomposity of the upper middle-classes to show us where our hankering for money and comfort would lead us, instead of finding out what we were put on this earth to do.

Middle age, 31 Jul 2008
be prepared to read the thoughts of a selfish, self-obsessed character. littered with small moments of humour at his situation and the world around. and the way mistakes are made, people's feelings ignored, assumptions blasted. very very good writing in a very good story.

Symphonic, 05 Oct 2007
A beautifully written meditation on love and art contained in a truly compelling narrative and one of the most profoundly plausible books I have read which includes classical music amongst its subject matter. Head and shoulders above most other novels by booker eligible authors I have read this year.

Between Each Breath, 19 Sep 2007
Hadn't read Adam Thorpe before, it came up on a local library search on Tallinn just after returning from Estonia. Couldn't put it down, yet had to break to absorb it - beautifully lyrical, poetic prose that flowed like molten glass.
Set partly in a country rapidly shedding its Communist legacy its people & places were portrayed with such sharp edged clarity that it hurt.
Brilliant.



Thought provoking, 19 Jun 2008
This book is with me for the rest of my life. I drive past a village (any village) and I see a church tower or a beautiful field, an old man, a war memorial, or a ramshackle pub and up pops 'Ulverton'. This is rural Britain in focus. It opens minds to what has been, what is and what will (or may) be. We are living history, we are responsible for what happens next. Ulverton didn't teach me that but it reminded me so strongly that my life is influenced, my actions are influenced and my eyes are more open than they were before I read the tales.

A series of simple, yet compelling tales with 50 year gaps in between. Based in the same small village. Tales of small lives that live on in many different ways. Starting with the Civil War ending with modern day - so much has changed and yet so little.

There is that unpunctuated 'Adam Thorpe' chapter and hard to read - it's OK not to read it! I lost little of the power of the book by skipping it.

not just clever, 17 May 2008
Quite apart from being a stylistic and structural tour de force, this is the sort of book that brings history to life. Each apparently self-contained chapter has subtle links to the others, and the timeless characters will be familiar to all of us. It ends where it began, so it illustrates not just the linear nature of history, but its cyclical nature too.

Too much like hard work, 19 Mar 2008
I bought this book on the strength of the glowing reviews it has attracted. I am a fairly dogged reader but I'm afraid I failed to finish it. The unremitting use of the first person and the phonetic representation of (supposed) ancient speech made it just too tedious. Certainly there is interest in the stories with their evocation of past times and past lives, but the sheer effort of following the the obscure text proved too much for me.

Absolutely fascinating, 12 Sep 2007
There are so many different layers and strands of this dense book to enjoy. The language is marvellously evocative, although I really had to concentrate to get the full meaning and subtlety, I really loved the old fashioned language, it seemed so real. I have no idea if it actually was real old useage but it certainly felt like it.

Each chapter is a story in itself, and yet has connections to previous stories of maybe fifty years previously. Previous history is often wrongly interpreted by characters in later stories in quite clever ways. There is a fantastic sense of place, which is interesting to follow through history. I did feel like I got under the skin of some of the characters, and various scenes have really stuck with me.

I would also recommend "Kilvert's Diary" which is the real diary of a friendly country priest some time ago, for getting the feel of real lives past. (As Ulverton is a fictional book you can see how real it feels!)

Utterly grim and unreadable - a chore, 10 Jan 2007
I have to totally disagree with all the other reviews on this page and try to resway the balance - I found this book to be utterly unreadable, there was no plot, no characters to identify or empathize with, the chapters did not really hang together, the language was tedious and hard to follow (though admittedly it was trying to be 'of its time'), the whole atmosphere conjured up was utterly bleak and unremittingly grim. I had to force myself to keep picking it up and somehow through sheer will power managed the first four chapters (that brought me to just past page 100 I think) whereupon I decided that reading a book really shouldn't be such an ordeal and there are so many better ones out there I could be spending my time on. I very rarely find a book such a torture that I fail to finish it - if it did pick up after chapter 4 I for one will never find out (100 pages was quite enough for me thanks!)

Beautiful writing and insight a ****1/2, 02 Nov 2008
'The vehicle, a battered ice-blue Saab with a front passenger door in matt violet, raced down the wide dirt road on the southern penisula of the island as fast as a clattering engine could take it.' The novel starts and finishes with the young wife on the island and it's not until it comes full circle that we see the significance of seemingly small actions.

Most of the novel is seen from the pov of Jack, the composer protagonist and although he is pretentious Thorpe is very good at conveying the excitement of composing. Thorpe juxtaposes Hampstead and Estonia and does this with humour and wit and insight. A brilliant novel.

A beautiful English psychological novel, 21 Aug 2008
If we spend 10 hours reading the average novel (as Po Bronson has written), then it's vital to enjoy the company of the characters. Jack will be recognisable to most egocentric, indecisive, weak males, or at least those times we (the males) let ourselves down. Initially, he seems pretty precious and annoying - being one of those Hampstead types living a life of material comfort; however, he comes from an unremarkable working-class background, and rose from being a musical prodigy to being a (reasonably-)celebrated classical composer, who marries into wealth. But Adam Thorpe uses Jack and his wife's combined statuses to mirror the have-nots in UK society too, and the book becomes an excellent reading of injustice and missed chances in a bloated, self-satisfied, unfair society. I've read a book of Thorpe's poetry, and it is as exquisite as many moments of his prose, but there was a faintly bourgeois refinement that left me unable to love his work, but here he uses what I might imagine is his background, or experiences of life, to do what other writers in similar social strata are afraid of doing: ostensibly painting, but ultimately excavating - in painful detail - the pomposity of the upper middle-classes to show us where our hankering for money and comfort would lead us, instead of finding out what we were put on this earth to do.

Middle age, 31 Jul 2008
be prepared to read the thoughts of a selfish, self-obsessed character. littered with small moments of humour at his situation and the world around. and the way mistakes are made, people's feelings ignored, assumptions blasted. very very good writing in a very good story.

Symphonic, 05 Oct 2007
A beautifully written meditation on love and art contained in a truly compelling narrative and one of the most profoundly plausible books I have read which includes classical music amongst its subject matter. Head and shoulders above most other novels by booker eligible authors I have read this year.

Between Each Breath, 19 Sep 2007
Hadn't read Adam Thorpe before, it came up on a local library search on Tallinn just after returning from Estonia. Couldn't put it down, yet had to break to absorb it - beautifully lyrical, poetic prose that flowed like molten glass.
Set partly in a country rapidly shedding its Communist legacy its people & places were portrayed with such sharp edged clarity that it hurt.
Brilliant.



Thought provoking, 19 Jun 2008
This book is with me for the rest of my life. I drive past a village (any village) and I see a church tower or a beautiful field, an old man, a war memorial, or a ramshackle pub and up pops 'Ulverton'. This is rural Britain in focus. It opens minds to what has been, what is and what will (or may) be. We are living history, we are responsible for what happens next. Ulverton didn't teach me that but it reminded me so strongly that my life is influenced, my actions are influenced and my eyes are more open than they were before I read the tales.

A series of simple, yet compelling tales with 50 year gaps in between. Based in the same small village. Tales of small lives that live on in many different ways. Starting with the Civil War ending with modern day - so much has changed and yet so little.

There is that unpunctuated 'Adam Thorpe' chapter and hard to read - it's OK not to read it! I lost little of the power of the book by skipping it.

not just clever, 17 May 2008
Quite apart from being a stylistic and structural tour de force, this is the sort of book that brings history to life. Each apparently self-contained chapter has subtle links to the others, and the timeless characters will be familiar to all of us. It ends where it began, so it illustrates not just the linear nature of history, but its cyclical nature too.

Too much like hard work, 19 Mar 2008
I bought this book on the strength of the glowing reviews it has attracted. I am a fairly dogged reader but I'm afraid I failed to finish it. The unremitting use of the first person and the phonetic representation of (supposed) ancient speech made it just too tedious. Certainly there is interest in the stories with their evocation of past times and past lives, but the sheer effort of following the the obscure text proved too much for me.

Absolutely fascinating, 12 Sep 2007
There are so many different layers and strands of this dense book to enjoy. The language is marvellously evocative, although I really had to concentrate to get the full meaning and subtlety, I really loved the old fashioned language, it seemed so real. I have no idea if it actually was real old useage but it certainly felt like it.

Each chapter is a story in itself, and yet has connections to previous stories of maybe fifty years previously. Previous history is often wrongly interpreted by characters in later stories in quite clever ways. There is a fantastic sense of place, which is interesting to follow through history. I did feel like I got under the skin of some of the characters, and various scenes have really stuck with me.

I would also recommend "Kilvert's Diary" which is the real diary of a friendly country priest some time ago, for getting the feel of real lives past. (As Ulverton is a fictional book you can see how real it feels!)

Utterly grim and unreadable - a chore, 10 Jan 2007
I have to totally disagree with all the other reviews on this page and try to resway the balance - I found this book to be utterly unreadable, there was no plot, no characters to identify or empathize with, the chapters did not really hang together, the language was tedious and hard to follow (though admittedly it was trying to be 'of its time'), the whole atmosphere conjured up was utterly bleak and unremittingly grim. I had to force myself to keep picking it up and somehow through sheer will power managed the first four chapters (that brought me to just past page 100 I think) whereupon I decided that reading a book really shouldn't be such an ordeal and there are so many better ones out there I could be spending my time on. I very rarely find a book such a torture that I fail to finish it - if it did pick up after chapter 4 I for one will never find out (100 pages was quite enough for me thanks!)

Not Thorpe's best but good on the British abroad, 03 Nov 2008
'The house is massive. Three floors of trouble. His father remembered its farming days, and it was trouble then. But all farms are trouble, Papa. We're not talking farms.'

The prologue is written fom the pov of the sexy builder who dies roofing in the wet for the overly demanding English owners. The novel makes fun of the English and their romanticised view of French living and of primitive art. The writing and sense of time and place is superb. The contrast between the idyll and reality exemplified by the local hunters is well drawn. As others here have highlighted it is difficult to have sympathy for any of the characters except for the poor roofer and there are problems with the ending. Thorpe's writing is so good though that it has to be four stars.

Not the easiest read, 09 Aug 2008
I have found a number of Adam Thorpe's other novels more admirable for the quality and depth of their writing than in any way enthralling.

Unfortunately, after a promising start, this one also fell away for me. Thorpe paints a vivid and convincingly mundane portrait of the comfortably middle-class odd couple who have taken their children away to France on a sabbatical.

He builds up a head of steam in terms of mystery, tension and impending menace, although the tropes of perception and appearance and reality and the fear of the unknown/different among those who have made a conscious decision to change their lives seem a little tired and uninspired.

However, the book falls flat with the unnecessarily tricksy ending; there are times when a linear narrative demands a linear ending. I suspect this was one of those occasions, as the tricksiness is misplaced and sits very uneasily with what has gone before it.

Just when you thought it was safe to go for a dip...., 25 Jul 2008
A haunting, sinister and brilliantly observed story by one of the best novelists around about a young family's break at a ramshackle old farm in the South of France. An under-current of threat and terror throughout, that age-old tension between France and Britain, some harrowing wartime memories and best of all some memorable descriptions of life in rural France. A slow burn but worth it....

I soooo wanted to enjoy this, but..., 20 Jun 2008
I didn't. I have given it 3 stars because it is well written and the premise is good, but that's about it. I found the two married Cambridge academics duller than dull, their children were brats and their whole ultra liberal outlook on life was tiresome. The plot took forever to develop. One of the main characters ' Nick ' liked the sound of his own voice. I didn't understand some of his ramblings. In the end, I got half way through this book and had to ditch it. A shame indeed.

Beautiful writing and insight a ****1/2, 02 Nov 2008
'The vehicle, a battered ice-blue Saab with a front passenger door in matt violet, raced down the wide dirt road on the southern penisula of the island as fast as a clattering engine could take it.' The novel starts and finishes with the young wife on the island and it's not until it comes full circle that we see the significance of seemingly small actions.

Most of the novel is seen from the pov of Jack, the composer protagonist and although he is pretentious Thorpe is very good at conveying the excitement of composing. Thorpe juxtaposes Hampstead and Estonia and does this with humour and wit and insight. A brilliant novel.

A beautiful English psychological novel, 21 Aug 2008
If we spend 10 hours reading the average novel (as Po Bronson has written), then it's vital to enjoy the company of the characters. Jack will be recognisable to most egocentric, indecisive, weak males, or at least those times we (the males) let ourselves down. Initially, he seems pretty precious and annoying - being one of those Hampstead types living a life of material comfort; however, he comes from an unremarkable working-class background, and rose from being a musical prodigy to being a (reasonably-)celebrated classical composer, who marries into wealth. But Adam Thorpe uses Jack and his wife's combined statuses to mirror the have-nots in UK society too, and the book becomes an excellent reading of injustice and missed chances in a bloated, self-satisfied, unfair society. I've read a book of Thorpe's poetry, and it is as exquisite as many moments of his prose, but there was a faintly bourgeois refinement that left me unable to love his work, but here he uses what I might imagine is his background, or experiences of life, to do what other writers in similar social strata are afraid of doing: ostensibly painting, but ultimately excavating - in painful detail - the pomposity of the upper middle-classes to show us where our hankering for money and comfort would lead us, instead of finding out what we were put on this earth to do.

Middle age, 31 Jul 2008
be prepared to read the thoughts of a selfish, self-obsessed character. littered with small moments of humour at his situation and the world around. and the way mistakes are made, people's feelings ignored, assumptions blasted. very very good writing in a very good story.

Symphonic, 05 Oct 2007
A beautifully written meditation on love and art contained in a truly compelling narrative and one of the most profoundly plausible books I have read which includes classical music amongst its subject matter. Head and shoulders above most other novels by booker eligible authors I have read this year.

Between Each Breath, 19 Sep 2007
Hadn't read Adam Thorpe before, it came up on a local library search on Tallinn just after returning from Estonia. Couldn't put it down, yet had to break to absorb it - beautifully lyrical, poetic prose that flowed like molten glass.
Set partly in a country rapidly shedding its Communist legacy its people & places were portrayed with such sharp edged clarity that it hurt.
Brilliant.



Thought provoking, 19 Jun 2008
This book is with me for the rest of my life. I drive past a village (any village) and I see a church tower or a beautiful field, an old man, a war memorial, or a ramshackle pub and up pops 'Ulverton'. This is rural Britain in focus. It opens minds to what has been, what is and what will (or may) be. We are living history, we are responsible for what happens next. Ulverton didn't teach me that but it reminded me so strongly that my life is influenced, my actions are influenced and my eyes are more open than they were before I read the tales.

A series of simple, yet compelling tales with 50 year gaps in between. Based in the same small village. Tales of small lives that live on in many different ways. Starting with the Civil War ending with modern day - so much has changed and yet so little.

There is that unpunctuated 'Adam Thorpe' chapter and hard to read - it's OK not to read it! I lost little of the power of the book by skipping it.

not just clever, 17 May 2008
Quite apart from being a stylistic and structural tour de force, this is the sort of book that brings history to life. Each apparently self-contained chapter has subtle links to the others, and the timeless characters will be familiar to all of us. It ends where it began, so it illustrates not just the linear nature of history, but its cyclical nature too.

Too much like hard work, 19 Mar 2008
I bought this book on the strength of the glowing reviews it has attracted. I am a fairly dogged reader but I'm afraid I failed to finish it. The unremitting use of the first person and the phonetic representation of (supposed) ancient speech made it just too tedious. Certainly there is interest in the stories with their evocation of past times and past lives, but the sheer effort of following the the obscure text proved too much for me.

Absolutely fascinating, 12 Sep 2007
There are so many different layers and strands of this dense book to enjoy. The language is marvellously evocative, although I really had to concentrate to get the full meaning and subtlety, I really loved the old fashioned language, it seemed so real. I have no idea if it actually was real old useage but it certainly felt like it.

Each chapter is a story in itself, and yet has connections to previous stories of maybe fifty years previously. Previous history is often wrongly interpreted by characters in later stories in quite clever ways. There is a fantastic sense of place, which is interesting to follow through history. I did feel like I got under the skin of some of the characters, and various scenes have really stuck with me.

I would also recommend "Kilvert's Diary" which is the real diary of a friendly country priest some time ago, for getting the feel of real lives past. (As Ulverton is a fictional book you can see how real it feels!)

Utterly grim and unreadable - a chore, 10 Jan 2007
I have to totally disagree with all the other reviews on this page and try to resway the balance - I found this book to be utterly unreadable, there was no plot, no characters to identify or empathize with, the chapters did not really hang together, the language was tedious and hard to follow (though admittedly it was trying to be 'of its time'), the whole atmosphere conjured up was utterly bleak and unremittingly grim. I had to force myself to keep picking it up and somehow through sheer will power managed the first four chapters (that brought me to just past page 100 I think) whereupon I decided that reading a book really shouldn't be such an ordeal and there are so many better ones out there I could be spending my time on. I very rarely find a book such a torture that I fail to finish it - if it did pick up after chapter 4 I for one will never find out (100 pages was quite enough for me thanks!)

Not Thorpe's best but good on the British abroad, 03 Nov 2008
'The house is massive. Three floors of trouble. His father remembered its farming days, and it was trouble then. But all farms are trouble, Papa. We're not talking farms.'

The prologue is written fom the pov of the sexy builder who dies roofing in the wet for the overly demanding English owners. The novel makes fun of the English and their romanticised view of French living and of primitive art. The writing and sense of time and place is superb. The contrast between the idyll and reality exemplified by the local hunters is well drawn. As others here have highlighted it is difficult to have sympathy for any of the characters except for the poor roofer and there are problems with the ending. Thorpe's writing is so good though that it has to be four stars.

Not the easiest read, 09 Aug 2008
I have found a number of Adam Thorpe's other novels more admirable for the quality and depth of their writing than in any way enthralling.

Unfortunately, after a promising start, this one also fell away for me. Thorpe paints a vivid and convincingly mundane portrait of the comfortably middle-class odd couple who have taken their children away to France on a sabbatical.

He builds up a head of steam in terms of mystery, tension and impending menace, although the tropes of perception and appearance and reality and the fear of the unknown/different among those who have made a conscious decision to change their lives seem a little tired and uninspired.

However, the book falls flat with the unnecessarily tricksy ending; there are times when a linear narrative demands a linear ending. I suspect this was one of those occasions, as the tricksiness is misplaced and sits very uneasily with what has gone before it.

Just when you thought it was safe to go for a dip...., 25 Jul 2008
A haunting, sinister and brilliantly observed story by one of the best novelists around about a young family's break at a ramshackle old farm in the South of France. An under-current of threat and terror throughout, that age-old tension between France and Britain, some harrowing wartime memories and best of all some memorable descriptions of life in rural France. A slow burn but worth it....

I soooo wanted to enjoy this, but..., 20 Jun 2008
I didn't. I have given it 3 stars because it is well written and the premise is good, but that's about it. I found the two married Cambridge academics duller than dull, their children were brats and their whole ultra liberal outlook on life was tiresome. The plot took forever to develop. One of the main characters ' Nick ' liked the sound of his own voice. I didn't understand some of his ramblings. In the end, I got half way through this book and had to ditch it. A shame indeed.

Beautiful writing and insight a ****1/2, 02 Nov 2008
'The vehicle, a battered ice-blue Saab with a front passenger door in matt violet, raced down the wide dirt road on the southern penisula of the island as fast as a clattering engine could take it.' The novel starts and finishes with the young wife on the island and it's not until it comes full circle that we see the significance of seemingly small actions.

Most of the novel is seen from the pov of Jack, the composer protagonist and although he is pretentious Thorpe is very good at conveying the excitement of composing. Thorpe juxtaposes Hampstead and Estonia and does this with humour and wit and insight. A brilliant novel.

A beautiful English psychological novel, 21 Aug 2008
If we spend 10 hours reading the average novel (as Po Bronson has written), then it's vital to enjoy the company of the characters. Jack will be recognisable to most egocentric, indecisive, weak males, or at least those times we (the males) let ourselves down. Initially, he seems pretty precious and annoying - being one of those Hampstead types living a life of material comfort; however, he comes from an unremarkable working-class background, and rose from being a musical prodigy to being a (reasonably-)celebrated classical composer, who marries into wealth. But Adam Thorpe uses Jack and his wife's combined statuses to mirror the have-nots in UK society too, and the book becomes an excellent reading of injustice and missed chances in a bloated, self-satisfied, unfair society. I've read a book of Thorpe's poetry, and it is as exquisite as many moments of his prose, but there was a faintly bourgeois refinement that left me unable to love his work, but here he uses what I might imagine is his background, or experiences of life, to do what other writers in similar social strata are afraid of doing: ostensibly painting, but ultimately excavating - in painful detail - the pomposity of the upper middle-classes to show us where our hankering for money and comfort would lead us, instead of finding out what we were put on this earth to do.

Middle age, 31 Jul 2008
be prepared to read the thoughts of a selfish, self-obsessed character. littered with small moments of humour at his situation and the world around. and the way mistakes are made, people's feelings ignored, assumptions blasted. very very good writing in a very good story.

Symphonic, 05 Oct 2007
A beautifully written meditation on love and art contained in a truly compelling narrative and one of the most profoundly plausible books I have read which includes classical music amongst its subject matter. Head and shoulders above most other novels by booker eligible authors I have read this year.

Between Each Breath, 19 Sep 2007
Hadn't read Adam Thorpe before, it came up on a local library search on Tallinn just after returning from Estonia. Couldn't put it down, yet had to break to absorb it - beautifully lyrical, poetic prose that flowed like molten glass.
Set partly in a country rapidly shedding its Communist legacy its people & places were portrayed with such sharp edged clarity that it hurt.
Brilliant.

Beautiful writing and insight a ****1/2, 02 Nov 2008
'The vehicle, a battered ice-blue Saab with a front passenger door in matt violet, raced down the wide dirt road on the southern penisula of the island as fast as a clattering engine could take it.' The novel starts and finishes with the young wife on the island and it's not until it comes full circle that we see the significance of seemingly small actions.

Most of the novel is seen from the pov of Jack, the composer protagonist and although he is pretentious Thorpe is very good at conveying the excitement of composing. Thorpe juxtaposes Hampstead and Estonia and does this with humour and wit and insight. A brilliant novel.

A beautiful English psychological novel, 21 Aug 2008
If we spend 10 hours reading the average novel (as Po Bronson has written), then it's vital to enjoy the company of the characters. Jack will be recognisable to most egocentric, indecisive, weak males, or at least those times we (the males) let ourselves down. Initially, he seems pretty precious and annoying - being one of those Hampstead types living a life of material comfort; however, he comes from an unremarkable working-class background, and rose from being a musical prodigy to being a (reasonably-)celebrated classical composer, who marries into wealth. But Adam Thorpe uses Jack and his wife's combined statuses to mirror the have-nots in UK society too, and the book becomes an excellent reading of injustice and missed chances in a bloated, self-satisfied, unfair society. I've read a book of Thorpe's poetry, and it is as exquisite as many moments of his prose, but there was a faintly bourgeois refinement that left me unable to love his work, but here he uses what I might imagine is his background, or experiences of life, to do what other writers in similar social strata are afraid of doing: ostensibly painting, but ultimately excavating - in painful detail - the pomposity of the upper middle-classes to show us where our hankering for money and comfort would lead us, instead of finding out what we were put on this earth to do.

Middle age, 31 Jul 2008
be prepared to read the thoughts of a selfish, self-obsessed character. littered with small moments of humour at his situation and the world around. and the way mistakes are made, people's feelings ignored, assumptions blasted. very very good writing in a very good story.

Symphonic, 05 Oct 2007
A beautifully written meditation on love and art contained in a truly compelling narrative and one of the most profoundly plausible books I have read which includes classical music amongst its subject matter. Head and shoulders above most other novels by booker eligible authors I have read this year.

Between Each Breath, 19 Sep 2007
Hadn't read Adam Thorpe before, it came up on a local library search on Tallinn just after returning from Estonia. Couldn't put it down, yet had to break to absorb it - beautifully lyrical, poetic prose that flowed like molten glass.
Set partly in a country rapidly shedding its Communist legacy its people & places were portrayed with such sharp edged clarity that it hurt.
Brilliant.



Thought provoking, 19 Jun 2008
This book is with me for the rest of my life. I drive past a village (any village) and I see a church tower or a beautiful field, an old man, a war memorial, or a ramshackle pub and up pops 'Ulverton'. This is rural Britain in focus. It opens minds to what has been, what is and what will (or may) be. We are living history, we are responsible for what happens next. Ulverton didn't teach me that but it reminded me so strongly that my life is influenced, my actions are influenced and my eyes are more open than they were before I read the tales.

A series of simple, yet compelling tales with 50 year gaps in between. Based in the same small village. Tales of small lives that live on in many different ways. Starting with the Civil War ending with modern day - so much has changed and yet so little.

There is that unpunctuated 'Adam Thorpe' chapter and hard to read - it's OK not to read it! I lost little of the power of the book by skipping it.

not just clever, 17 May 2008
Quite apart from being a stylistic and structural tour de force, this is the sort of book that brings history to life. Each apparently self-contained chapter has subtle links to the others, and the timeless characters will be familiar to all of us. It ends where it began, so it illustrates not just the linear nature of history, but its cyclical nature too.

Too much like hard work, 19 Mar 2008
I bought this book on the strength of the glowing reviews it has attracted. I am a fairly dogged reader but I'm afraid I failed to finish it. The unremitting use of the first person and the phonetic representation of (supposed) ancient speech made it just too tedious. Certainly there is interest in the stories with their evocation of past times and past lives, but the sheer effort of following the the obscure text proved too much for me.

Absolutely fascinating, 12 Sep 2007
There are so many different layers and strands of this dense book to enjoy. The language is marvellously evocative, although I really had to concentrate to get the full meaning and subtlety, I really loved the old fashioned language, it seemed so real. I have no idea if it actually was real old useage but it certainly felt like it.

Each chapter is a story in itself, and yet has connections to previous stories of maybe fifty years previously. Previous history is often wrongly interpreted by characters in later stories in quite clever ways. There is a fantastic sense of place, which is interesting to follow through history. I did feel like I got under the skin of some of the characters, and various scenes have really stuck with me.

I would also recommend "Kilvert's Diary" which is the real diary of a friendly country priest some time ago, for getting the feel of real lives past. (As Ulverton is a fictional book you can see how real it feels!)

Utterly grim and unreadable - a chore, 10 Jan 2007
I have to totally disagree with all the other reviews on this page and try to resway the balance - I found this book to be utterly unreadable, there was no plot, no characters to identify or empathize with, the chapters did not really hang together, the language was tedious and hard to follow (though admittedly it was trying to be 'of its time'), the whole atmosphere conjured up was utterly bleak and unremittingly grim. I had to force myself to keep picking it up and somehow through sheer will power managed the first four chapters (that brought me to just past page 100 I think) whereupon I decided that reading a book really shouldn't be such an ordeal and there are so many better ones out there I could be spending my time on. I very rarely find a book such a torture that I fail to finish it - if it did pick up after chapter 4 I for one will never find out (100 pages was quite enough for me thanks!)

Not Thorpe's best but good on the British abroad, 03 Nov 2008
'The house is massive. Three floors of trouble. His father remembered its farming days, and it was trouble then. But all farms are trouble, Papa. We're not talking farms.'

The prologue is written fom the pov of the sexy builder who dies roofing in the wet for the overly demanding English owners. The novel makes fun of the English and their romanticised view of French living and of primitive art. The writing and sense of time and place is superb. The contrast between the idyll and reality exemplified by the local hunters is well drawn. As others here have highlighted it is difficult to have sympathy for any of the characters except for the poor roofer and there are problems with the ending. Thorpe's writing is so good though that it has to be four stars.

Not the easiest read, 09 Aug 2008
I have found a number of Adam Thorpe's other novels more admirable for the quality and depth of their writing than in any way enthralling.

Unfortunately, after a promising start, this one also fell away for me. Thorpe paints a vivid and convincingly mundane portrait of the comfortably middle-class odd couple who have taken their children away to France on a sabbatical.

He builds up a head of steam in terms of mystery, tension and impending menace, although the tropes of perception and appearance and reality and the fear of the unknown/different among those who have made a conscious decision to change their lives seem a little tired and uninspired.

However, the book falls flat with the unnecessarily tricksy ending; there are times when a linear narrative demands a linear ending. I suspect this was one of those occasions, as the tricksiness is misplaced and sits very uneasily with what has gone before it.

Just when you thought it was safe to go for a dip...., 25 Jul 2008
A haunting, sinister and brilliantly observed story by one of the best novelists around about a young family's break at a ramshackle old farm in the South of France. An under-current of threat and terror throughout, that age-old tension between France and Britain, some harrowing wartime memories and best of all some memorable descriptions of life in rural France. A slow burn but worth it....

I soooo wanted to enjoy this, but..., 20 Jun 2008
I didn't. I have given it 3 stars because it is well written and the premise is good, but that's about it. I found the two married Cambridge academics duller than dull, their children were brats and their whole ultra liberal outlook on life was tiresome. The plot took forever to develop. One of the main characters ' Nick ' liked the sound of his own voice. I didn't understand some of his ramblings. In the end, I got half way through this book and had to ditch it. A shame indeed.

Beautiful writing and insight a ****1/2, 02 Nov 2008
'The vehicle, a battered ice-blue Saab with a front passenger door in matt violet, raced down the wide dirt road on the southern penisula of the island as fast as a clattering engine could take it.' The novel starts and finishes with the young wife on the island and it's not until it comes full circle that we see the significance of seemingly small actions.

Most of the novel is seen from the pov of Jack, the composer protagonist and although he is pretentious Thorpe is very good at conveying the excitement of composing. Thorpe juxtaposes Hampstead and Estonia and does this with humour and wit and insight. A brilliant novel.

A beautiful English psychological novel, 21 Aug 2008
If we spend 10 hours reading the average novel (as Po Bronson has written), then it's vital to enjoy the company of the characters. Jack will be recognisable to most egocentric, indecisive, weak males, or at least those times we (the males) let ourselves down. Initially, he seems pretty precious and annoying - being one of those Hampstead types living a life of material comfort; however, he comes from an unremarkable working-class background, and rose from being a musical prodigy to being a (reasonably-)celebrated classical composer, who marries into wealth. But Adam Thorpe uses Jack and his wife's combined statuses to mirror the have-nots in UK society too, and the book becomes an excellent reading of injustice and missed chances in a bloated, self-satisfied, unfair society. I've read a book of Thorpe's poetry, and it is as exquisite as many moments of his prose, but there was a faintly bourgeois refinement that left me unable to love his work, but here he uses what I might imagine is his background, or experiences of life, to do what other writers in similar social strata are afraid of doing: ostensibly painting, but ultimately excavating - in painful detail - the pomposity of the upper middle-classes to show us where our hankering for money and comfort would lead us, instead of finding out what we were put on this earth to do.

Middle age, 31 Jul 2008
be prepared to read the thoughts of a selfish, self-obsessed character. littered with small moments of humour at his situation and the world around. and the way mistakes are made, people's feelings ignored, assumptions blasted. very very good writing in a very good story.

Symphonic, 05 Oct 2007
A beautifully written meditation on love and art contained in a truly compelling narrative and one of the most profoundly plausible books I have read which includes classical music amongst its subject matter. Head and shoulders above most other novels by booker eligible authors I have read this year.

Between Each Breath, 19 Sep 2007
Hadn't read Adam Thorpe before, it came up on a local library search on Tallinn just after returning from Estonia. Couldn't put it down, yet had to break to absorb it - beautifully lyrical, poetic prose that flowed like molten glass.
Set partly in a country rapidly shedding its Communist legacy its people & places were portrayed with such sharp edged clarity that it hurt.
Brilliant.



Powerful & Fresh, 31 Jul 2007
There is pure gold to be found in the form of Adam Thorpe's The Rules of Perspective, which pulls off the challenge of finding something fresh to say about the human condition and the Second World War.

This is an extremely powerful novel, compellingly written and completely devoid of resistance workers, farmers wives hiding airmen or any of a dozen cliches of that conflict. Thorpe skilfully interweaves two stories - one of a young American soldier taking part in the liberation of Germany, and the other of a group of German art gallery staff taking cover in their museum under the Allied bombardment. We know from the very outset that they do not survive the ordeal as Parry (the American) finds their corpses as the novel begins, but we do not know how or to what purpose their stories will unite. Because the reader knows of the Germans' fate, the whole book is infused with a disturbing sense of doom - but Thorpe exhumes more than just their final hours and the conclusion of the book was, to me at least, totally un-anticipated.

Thorpe is a very poised and considered writer. I knew of him, but I shall now be seeking out the rest of his books

A Really Heavy Bomber, 04 Sep 2006
I adore Adam thorpe and consider his previous Novel 'No Telling' to be perhaps my favourite contemporary work of fiction, and certainly alongside my other favourites, the New York Trilogy and Howards end (yes, that good). This novel is still excellent fiction and full of lucid, exquisite passages and nail biting, precise plotting.

However.

there is a breathlessness about the plotting which drags you along as if you are reading a Tom Clancy novel, and the musings of Curator and reluctant Reich member Heinrich Hoffer are so rich and satisfying, that a longer work with a much slower pace seems in order. Thorpe splits his narrative between three voices, that of Hoffer (with whom I was most comfortable: he is by far the best written), Neal Parry, an american serviceman, and a mysterious, whispering disjointed narrative voice.

The novel would have been much stronger with just Herr Hoffer's voice and The middle class, middle aged Thorpe does not quite get into the mind of the twenty-something GI, not as well as he gets into Her Hoffer's baggy borgeois trousers.

This is a novel of themes, but the themes confuse. It is supposed to be about the healing powers of a single work of art but ends up being about two works of art. The musings and philosophy are excellent but sadly, sadly give way to stilted action hero and 'extreme peril' which was almost like reading a film screenplay.

Adam thorpe is in my opinion the best writer in English writing today. Ulverton, Pieces of Light and No telling are three supreme masterpieces which will be read in 100 years, but this novel needs to calm down, thin out the plots and put down its gun. PS, the disembodied voice. A bit obvious. You can't cover every aspect of WW2 in 300 pages unless you write an epic, which this is not.

Beautiful writing and insight a ****1/2, 02 Nov 2008
'The vehicle, a battered ice-blue Saab with a front passenger door in matt violet, raced down the wide dirt road on the southern penisula of the island as fast as a clattering engine could take it.' The novel starts and finishes with the young wife on the island and it's not until it comes full circle that we see the significance of seemingly small actions.

Most of the novel is seen from the pov of Jack, the composer protagonist and although he is pretentious Thorpe is very good at conveying the excitement of composing. Thorpe juxtaposes Hampstead and Estonia and does this with humour and wit and insight. A brilliant novel.

A beautiful English psychological novel, 21 Aug 2008
If we spend 10 hours reading the average novel (as Po Bronson has written), then it's vital to enjoy the company of the characters. Jack will be recognisable to most egocentric, indecisive, weak males, or at least those times we (the males) let ourselves down. Initially, he seems pretty precious and annoying - being one of those Hampstead types living a life of material comfort; however, he comes from an unremarkable working-class background, and rose from being a musical prodigy to being a (reasonably-)celebrated classical composer, who marries into wealth. But Adam Thorpe uses Jack and his wife's combined statuses to mirror the have-nots in UK society too, and the book becomes an excellent reading of injustice and missed chances in a bloated, self-satisfied, unfair society. I've read a book of Thorpe's poetry, and it is as exquisite as many moments of his prose, but there was a faintly bourgeois refinement that left me unable to love his work, but here he uses what I might imagine is his background, or experiences of life, to do what other writers in similar social strata are afraid of doing: ostensibly painting, but ultimately excavating - in painful detail - the pomposity of the upper middle-classes to show us where our hankering for money and comfort would lead us, instead of finding out what we were put on this earth to do.

Middle age, 31 Jul 2008
be prepared to read the thoughts of a selfish, self-obsessed character. littered with small moments of humour at his situation and the world around. and the way mistakes are made, people's feelings ignored, assumptions blasted. very very good writing in a very good story.

Symphonic, 05 Oct 2007
A beautifully written meditation on love and art contained in a truly compelling narrative and one of the most profoundly plausible books I have read which includes classical music amongst its subject matter. Head and shoulders above most other novels by booker eligible authors I have read this year.

Between Each Breath, 19 Sep 2007
Hadn't read Adam Thorpe before, it came up on a local library search on Tallinn just after returning from Estonia. Couldn't put it down, yet had to break to absorb it - beautifully lyrical, poetic prose that flowed like molten glass.
Set partly in a country rapidly shedding its Communist legacy its people & places were portrayed with such sharp edged clarity that it hurt.
Brilliant.



Thought provoking, 19 Jun 2008
This book is with me for the rest of my life. I drive past a village (any village) and I see a church tower or a beautiful field, an old man, a war memorial, or a ramshackle pub and up pops 'Ulverton'. This is rural Britain in focus. It opens minds to what has been, what is and what will (or may) be. We are living history, we are responsible for what happens next. Ulverton didn't teach me that but it reminded me so strongly that my life is influenced, my actions are influenced and my eyes are more open than they were before I read the tales.

A series of simple, yet compelling tales with 50 year gaps in between. Based in the same small village. Tales of small lives that live on in many different ways. Starting with the Civil War ending with modern day - so much has changed and yet so little.

There is that unpunctuated 'Adam Thorpe' chapter and hard to read - it's OK not to read it! I lost little of the power of the book by skipping it.

not just clever, 17 May 2008
Quite apart from being a stylistic and structural tour de force, this is the sort of book that brings history to life. Each apparently self-contained chapter has subtle links to the others, and the timeless characters will be familiar to all of us. It ends where it began, so it illustrates not just the linear nature of history, but its cyclical nature too.

Too much like hard work, 19 Mar 2008
I bought this book on the strength of the glowing reviews it has attracted. I am a fairly dogged reader but I'm afraid I failed to finish it. The unremitting use of the first person and the phonetic representation of (supposed) ancient speech made it just too tedious. Certainly there is interest in the stories with their evocation of past times and past lives, but the sheer effort of following the the obscure text proved too much for me.

Absolutely fascinating, 12 Sep 2007
There are so many different layers and strands of this dense book to enjoy. The language is marvellously evocative, although I really had to concentrate to get the full meaning and subtlety, I really loved the old fashioned language, it seemed so real. I have no idea if it actually was real old useage but it certainly felt like it.

Each chapter is a story in itself, and yet has connections to previous stories of maybe fifty years previously. Previous history is often wrongly interpreted by characters in later stories in quite clever ways. There is a fantastic sense of place, which is interesting to follow through history. I did feel like I got under the skin of some of the characters, and various scenes have really stuck with me.

I would also recommend "Kilvert's Diary" which is the real diary of a friendly country priest some time ago, for getting the feel of real lives past. (As Ulverton is a fictional book you can see how real it feels!)

Utterly grim and unreadable - a chore, 10 Jan 2007
I have to totally disagree with all the other reviews on this page and try to resway the balance - I found this book to be utterly unreadable, there was no plot, no characters to identify or empathize with, the chapters did not really hang together, the language was tedious and hard to follow (though admittedly it was trying to be 'of its time'), the whole atmosphere conjured up was utterly bleak and unremittingly grim. I had to force myself to keep picking it up and somehow through sheer will power managed the first four chapters (that brought me to just past page 100 I think) whereupon I decided that reading a book really shouldn't be such an ordeal and there are so many better ones out there I could be spending my time on. I very rarely find a book such a torture that I fail to finish it - if it did pick up after chapter 4 I for one will never find out (100 pages was quite enough for me thanks!)

Not Thorpe's best but good on the British abroad, 03 Nov 2008
'The house is massive. Three floors of trouble. His father remembered its farming days, and it was trouble then. But all farms are trouble, Papa. We're not talking farms.'

The prologue is written fom the pov of the sexy builder who dies roofing in the wet for the overly demanding English owners. The novel makes fun of the English and their romanticised view of French living and of primitive art. The writing and sense of time and place is superb. The contrast between the idyll and reality exemplified by the local hunters is well drawn. As others here have highlighted it is difficult to have sympathy for any of the characters except for the poor roofer and there are problems with the ending. Thorpe's writing is so good though that it has to be four stars.

Not the easiest read, 09 Aug 2008
I have found a number of Adam Thorpe's other novels more admirable for the quality and depth of their writing than in any way enthralling.

Unfortunately, after a promising start, this one also fell away for me. Thorpe paints a vivid and convincingly mundane portrait of the comfortably middle-class odd couple who have taken their children away to France on a sabbatical.

He builds up a head of steam in terms of mystery, tension and impending menace, although the tropes of perception and appearance and reality and the fear of the unknown/different among those who have made a conscious decision to change their lives seem a little tired and uninspired.

However, the book falls flat with the unnecessarily tricksy ending; there are times when a linear narrative demands a linear ending. I suspect this was one of those occasions, as the tricksiness is misplaced and sits very uneasily with what has gone before it.

Just when you thought it was safe to go for a dip...., 25 Jul 2008
A haunting, sinister and brilliantly observed story by one of the best novelists around about a young family's break at a ramshackle old farm in the South of France. An under-current of threat and terror throughout, that age-old tension between France and Britain, some harrowing wartime memories and best of all some memorable descriptions of life in rural France. A slow burn but worth it....

I soooo wanted to enjoy this, but..., 20 Jun 2008
I didn't. I have given it 3 stars because it is well written and the premise is good, but that's about it. I found the two married Cambridge academics duller than dull, their children were brats and their whole ultra liberal outlook on life was tiresome. The plot took forever to develop. One of the main characters ' Nick ' liked the sound of his own voice. I didn't understand some of his ramblings. In the end, I got half way through this book and had to ditch it. A shame indeed.

Beautiful writing and insight a ****1/2, 02 Nov 2008
'The vehicle, a battered ice-blue Saab with a front passenger door in matt violet, raced down the wide dirt road on the southern penisula of the island as fast as a clattering engine could take it.' The novel starts and finishes with the young wife on the island and it's not until it comes full circle that we see the significance of seemingly small actions.

Most of the novel is seen from the pov of Jack, the composer protagonist and although he is pretentious Thorpe is very good at conveying the excitement of composing. Thorpe juxtaposes Hampstead and Estonia and does this with humour and wit and insight. A brilliant novel.

A beautiful English psychological novel, 21 Aug 2008
If we spend 10 hours reading the average novel (as Po Bronson has written), then it's vital to enjoy the company of the characters. Jack will be recognisable to most egocentric, indecisive, weak males, or at least those times we (the males) let ourselves down. Initially, he seems pretty precious and annoying - being one of those Hampstead types living a life of material comfort; however, he comes from an unremarkable working-class background, and rose from being a musical prodigy to being a (reasonably-)celebrated classical composer, who marries into wealth. But Adam Thorpe uses Jack and his wife's combined statuses to mirror the have-nots in UK society too, and the book becomes an excellent reading of injustice and missed chances in a bloated, self-satisfied, unfair society. I've read a book of Thorpe's poetry, and it is as exquisite as many moments of his prose, but there was a faintly bourgeois refinement that left me unable to love his work, but here he uses what I might imagine is his background, or experiences of life, to do what other writers in similar social strata are afraid of doing: ostensibly painting, but ultimately excavating - in painful detail - the pomposity of the upper middle-classes to show us where our hankering for money and comfort would lead us, instead of finding out what we were put on this earth to do.

Middle age, 31 Jul 2008
be prepared to read the thoughts of a selfish, self-obsessed character. littered with small moments of humour at his situation and the world around. and the way mistakes are made, people's feelings ignored, assumptions blasted. very very good writing in a very good story.

Symphonic, 05 Oct 2007
A beautifully written meditation on love and art contained in a truly compelling narrative and one of the most profoundly plausible books I have read which includes classical music amongst its subject matter. Head and shoulders above most other novels by booker eligible authors I have read this year.

Between Each Breath, 19 Sep 2007
Hadn't read Adam Thorpe before, it came up on a local library search on Tallinn just after returning from Estonia. Couldn't put it down, yet had to break to absorb it - beautifully lyrical, poetic prose that flowed like molten glass.
Set partly in a country rapidly shedding its Communist legacy its people & places were portrayed with such sharp edged clarity that it hurt.
Brilliant.



Powerful & Fresh, 31 Jul 2007
There is pure gold to be found in the form of Adam Thorpe's The Rules of Perspective, which pulls off the challenge of finding something fresh to say about the human condition and the Second World War.

This is an extremely powerful novel, compellingly written and completely devoid of resistance workers, farmers wives hiding airmen or any of a dozen cliches of that conflict. Thorpe skilfully interweaves two stories - one of a young American soldier taking part in the liberation of Germany, and the other of a group of German art gallery staff taking cover in their museum under the Allied bombardment. We know from the very outset that they do not survive the ordeal as Parry (the American) finds their corpses as the novel begins, but we do not know how or to what purpose their stories will unite. Because the reader knows of the Germans' fate, the whole book is infused with a disturbing sense of doom - but Thorpe exhumes more than just their final hours and the conclusion of the book was, to me at least, totally un-anticipated.

Thorpe is a very poised and considered writer. I knew of him, but I shall now be seeking out the rest of his books

A Really Heavy Bomber, 04 Sep 2006
I adore Adam thorpe and consider his previous Novel 'No Telling' to be perhaps my favourite contemporary work of fiction, and certainly alongside my other favourites, the New York Trilogy and Howards end (yes, that good). This novel is still excellent fiction and full of lucid, exquisite passages and nail biting, precise plotting.

However.

there is a breathlessness about the plotting which drags you along as if you are reading a Tom Clancy novel, and the musings of Curator and reluctant Reich member Heinrich Hoffer are so rich and satisfying, that a longer work with a much slower pace seems in order. Thorpe splits his narrative between three voices, that of Hoffer (with whom I was most comfortable: he is by far the best written), Neal Parry, an american serviceman, and a mysterious, whispering disjointed narrative voice.

The novel would have been much stronger with just Herr Hoffer's voice and The middle class, middle aged Thorpe does not quite get into the mind of the twenty-something GI, not as well as he gets into Her Hoffer's baggy borgeois trousers.

This is a novel of themes, but the themes confuse. It is supposed to be about the healing powers of a single work of art but ends up being about two works of art. The musings and philosophy are excellent but sadly, sadly give way to stilted action hero and 'extreme peril' which was almost like reading a film screenplay.

Adam thorpe is in my opinion the best writer in English writing today. Ulverton, Pieces of Light and No telling are three supreme masterpieces which will be read in 100 years, but this novel needs to calm down, thin out the plots and put down its gun. PS, the disembodied voice. A bit obvious. You can't cover every aspect of WW2 in 300 pages unless you write an epic, which this is not.

lost innocence, 30 Jul 2004
Once again Adam Thorpe has astonished us with his talent. NO TELLING is a powerful, complex and beautifully written novel. The story is woven with the intricacy of a spider's web. He is an author who observes and creates with natural fluency. His prose is taught yet poetic. The novel is a voyage. As you travel with the young, innocent Gilles you embark on a journey where there is no going back. It is the story of a family unable to disassociate themselves with the past, living in the shadow of undiscovered truths, while set against the turbulent backcloth of Paris in the throws of the 1968 riots. As we follow Gilles' development, both physical and psychological, this mystery gradually begins to unravel. Adam Thorpe's charecters are no cardboard cutouts, they live and breathe with freshness and vitality, creating a tension that lingers on long after you have turned the last pages.

No Telling what readers like!, 21 Jun 2004
I'm sorry to say that this book has left me disappointed and depressed. Whilst I have to agree that Adam Thorpe has successfully recreated the time and the place, there is little to inspire or uplift the reader out of the downward spiral of doom and gloom that this poor bewildered child has to endure. What surprised me more than anything was the brief sojurn to the present, realising that this human being survived, somehow, to tell the tale without incarceration in an asylum or topping himself, which I'm afraid is what will happen to me if I dont read something more cheerful to purge the black mood that this book has left me with. Sorry.

brilliantly intense innocence, 24 May 2003
.
The story of a boy whose life is surrounded by unmentionables (thus the title). Everyone tells him not to speak about what he sees, to keep it to himself--the sister's illegitimate baby, the devoutly Catholic mother who insists that the baby is hers, the sister's radical-crossed-over-to-anarchy politics, her madness, the racist pretentious womaniser fraudster uncle-and-stepfather.

Yet all this comes naturally to him, for it is all that he has known . . . at least until the awakening. Throughout, innocence makes Gilles yet unable to see or realise these events. And Thorpe's literary prowess manifests itself by managing to show us the whole story through the eye-level of the boy--adolescence taking centre stage in his life, almost oblivious to all that the reader is already painfully aware.

Intense in its casualness, poetic in its innocence. Brace yourself for beauty when the boy speaks of his observations and
perceptions. It was a most riveting moving read.
.

brilliantly intense innocence, 15 May 2003
.
The story of a boy whose life is surrounded by unmentionables (thus the title). Everyone tells him not to speak about what he sees, to keep it to himself--the sister's illegitimate baby, the devoutly Catholic mother who insists that the baby is hers, the sister's radical-crossed-over-to-anarchy politics, her madness, the racist pretentious womaniser fraudster uncle-and-stepfather.

Yet all this comes naturally to him, for it is all that he has known . . . at least until the awakening. Throughout, innocence makes Gilles yet unable to see or realise these events. And Thorpe's literary prowess manifests itself by managing to show us the whole story through the eye-level of the boy--adolescence taking centre stage in his life, almost oblivious to all that the reader is already painfully aware.

Intense in its casualness, poetic in its innocence. Brace yourself for beauty when the boy speaks of his observations and
perceptions. It was a most riveting moving read.
.

Beautiful writing and insight a ****1/2, 02 Nov 2008
'The vehicle, a battered ice-blue Saab with a front passenger door in matt violet, raced down the wide dirt road on the southern penisula of the island as fast as a clattering engine could take it.' The novel starts and finishes with the young wife on the island and it's not until it comes full circle that we see the significance of seemingly small actions.

Most of the novel is seen from the pov of Jack, the composer protagonist and although he is pretentious Thorpe is very good at conveying the excitement of composing. Thorpe juxtaposes Hampstead and Estonia and does this with humour and wit and insight. A brilliant novel.

A beautiful English psychological novel, 21 Aug 2008
If we spend 10 hours reading the average novel (as Po Bronson has written), then it's vital to enjoy the company of the characters. Jack will be recognisable to most egocentric, indecisive, weak males, or at least those times we (the males) let ourselves down. Initially, he seems pretty precious and annoying - being one of those Hampstead types living a life of material comfort; however, he comes from an unremarkable working-class background, and rose from being a musical prodigy to being a (reasonably-)celebrated classical composer, who marries into wealth. But Adam Thorpe uses Jack and his wife's combined statuses to mirror the have-nots in UK society too, and the book becomes an excellent reading of injustice and missed chances in a bloated, self-satisfied, unfair society. I've read a book of Thorpe's poetry, and it is as exquisite as many moments of his prose, but there was a faintly bourgeois refinement that left me unable to love his work, but here he uses what I might imagine is his background, or experiences of life, to do what other writers in similar social strata are afraid of doing: ostensibly painting, but ultimately excavating - in painful detail - the pomposity of the upper middle-classes to show us where our hankering for money and comfort would lead us, instead of finding out what we were put on this earth to do.

Middle age, 31 Jul 2008
be prepared to read the thoughts of a selfish, self-obsessed character. littered with small moments of humour at his situation and the world around. and the way mistakes are made, people's feelings ignored, assumptions blasted. very very good writing in a very good story.

Symphonic, 05 Oct 2007
A beautifully written meditation on love and art contained in a truly compelling narrative and one of the most profoundly plausible books I have read which includes classical music amongst its subject matter. Head and shoulders above most other novels by booker eligible authors I have read this year.

Between Each Breath, 19 Sep 2007
Hadn't read Adam Thorpe before, it came up on a local library search on Tallinn just after returning from Estonia. Couldn't put it down, yet had to break to absorb it - beautifully lyrical, poetic prose that flowed like molten glass.
Set partly in a country rapidly shedding its Communist legacy its people & places were portrayed with such sharp edged clarity that it hurt.
Brilliant.



Thought provoking, 19 Jun 2008
This book is with me for the rest of my life. I drive past a village (any village) and I see a church tower or a beautiful field, an old man, a war memorial, or a ramshackle pub and up pops 'Ulverton'. This is rural Britain in focus. It opens minds to what has been, what is and what will (or may) be. We are living history, we are responsible for what happens next. Ulverton didn't teach me that but it reminded me so strongly that my life is influenced, my actions are influenced and my eyes are more open than they were before I read the tales.

A series of simple, yet compelling tales with 50 year gaps in between. Based in the same small village. Tales of small lives that live on in many different ways. Starting with the Civil War ending with modern day - so much has changed and yet so little.

There is that unpunctuated 'Adam Thorpe' chapter and hard to read - it's OK not to read it! I lost little of the power of the book by skipping it.

not just clever, 17 May 2008
Quite apart from being a stylistic and structural tour de force, this is the sort of book that brings history to life. Each apparently self-contained chapter has subtle links to the others, and the timeless characters will be familiar to all of us. It ends where it began, so it illustrates not just the linear nature of history, but its cyclical nature too.

Too much like hard work, 19 Mar 2008
I bought this book on the strength of the glowing reviews it has attracted. I am a fairly dogged reader but I'm afraid I failed to finish it. The unremitting use of the first person and the phonetic representation of (supposed) ancient speech made it just too tedious. Certainly there is interest in the stories with their evocation of past times and past lives, but the sheer effort of following the the obscure text proved too much for me.

Absolutely fascinating, 12 Sep 2007
There are so many different layers and strands of this dense book to enjoy. The language is marvellously evocative, although I really had to concentrate to get the full meaning and subtlety, I really loved the old fashioned language, it seemed so real. I have no idea if it actually was real old useage but it certainly felt like it.

Each chapter is a story in itself, and yet has connections to previous stories of maybe fifty years previously. Previous history is often wrongly interpreted by characters in later stories in quite clever ways. There is a fantastic sense of place, which is interesting to follow through history. I did feel like I got under the skin of some of the characters, and various scenes have really stuck with me.

I would also recommend "Kilvert's Diary" which is the real diary of a friendly country priest some time ago, for getting the feel of real lives past. (As Ulverton is a fictional book you can see how real it feels!)

Utterly grim and unreadable - a chore, 10 Jan 2007
I have to totally disagree with all the other reviews on this page and try to resway the balance - I found this book to be utterly unreadable, there was no plot, no characters to identify or empathize with, the chapters did not really hang together, the language was tedious and hard to follow (though admittedly it was trying to be 'of its time'), the whole atmosphere conjured up was utterly bleak and unremittingly grim. I had to force myself to keep picking it up and somehow through sheer will power managed the first four chapters (that brought me to just past page 100 I think) whereupon I decided that reading a book really shouldn't be such an ordeal and there are so many better ones out there I could be spending my time on. I very rarely find a book such a torture that I fail to finish it - if it did pick up after chapter 4 I for one will never find out (100 pages was quite enough for me thanks!)

Not Thorpe's best but good on the British abroad, 03 Nov 2008
'The house is massive. Three floors of trouble. His father remembered its farming days, and it was trouble then. But all farms are trouble, Papa. We're not talking farms.'

The prologue is written fom the pov of the sexy builder who dies roofing in the wet for the overly demanding English owners. The novel makes fun of the English and their romanticised view of French living and of primitive art. The writing and sense of time and place is superb. The contrast between the idyll and reality exemplified by the local hunters is well drawn. As others here have highlighted it is difficult to have sympathy for any of the characters except for the poor roofer and there are problems with the ending. Thorpe's writing is so good though that it has to be four stars.

Not the easiest read, 09 Aug 2008
I have found a number of Adam Thorpe's other novels more admirable for the quality and depth of their writing than in any way enthralling.

Unfortunately, after a promising start, this one also fell away for me. Thorpe paints a vivid and convincingly mundane portrait of the comfortably middle-class odd couple who have taken their children away to France on a sabbatical.

He builds up a head of steam in terms of mystery, tension and impending menace, although the tropes of perception and appearance and reality and the fear of the unknown/different among those who have made a conscious decision to change their lives seem a little tired and uninspired.

However, the book falls flat with the unnecessarily tricksy ending; there are times when a linear narrative demands a linear ending. I suspect this was one of those occasions, as the tricksiness is misplaced and sits very uneasily with what has gone before it.

Just when you thought it was safe to go for a dip...., 25 Jul 2008
A haunting, sinister and brilliantly observed story by one of the best novelists around about a young family's break at a ramshackle old farm in the South of France. An under-current of threat and terror throughout, that age-old tension between France and Britain, some harrowing wartime memories and best of all some memorable descriptions of life in rural France. A slow burn but worth it....

I soooo wanted to enjoy this, but..., 20 Jun 2008
I didn't. I have given it 3 stars because it is well written and the premise is good, but that's about it. I found the two married Cambridge academics duller than dull, their children were brats and their whole ultra liberal outlook on life was tiresome. The plot took forever to develop. One of the main characters ' Nick ' liked the sound of his own voice. I didn't understand some of his ramblings. In the end, I got half way through this book and had to ditch it. A shame indeed.

Beautiful writing and insight a ****1/2, 02 Nov 2008
'The vehicle, a battered ice-blue Saab with a front passenger door in matt violet, raced down the wide dirt road on the southern penisula of the island as fast as a clattering engine could take it.' The novel starts and finishes with the young wife on the island and it's not until it comes full circle that we see the significance of seemingly small actions.

Most of the novel is seen from the pov of Jack, the composer protagonist and although he is pretentious Thorpe is very good at conveying the excitement of composing. Thorpe juxtaposes Hampstead and Estonia and does this with humour and wit and insight. A brilliant novel.

A beautiful English psychological novel, 21 Aug 2008
If we spend 10 hours reading the average novel (as Po Bronson has written), then it's vital to enjoy the company of the characters. Jack will be recognisable to most egocentric, indecisive, weak males, or at least those times we (the males) let ourselves down. Initially, he seems pretty precious and annoying - being one of those Hampstead types living a life of material comfort; however, he comes from an unremarkable working-class background, and rose from being a musical prodigy to being a (reasonably-)celebrated classical composer, who marries into wealth. But Adam Thorpe uses Jack and his wife's combined statuses to mirror the have-nots in UK society too, and the book becomes an excellent reading of injustice and missed chances in a bloated, self-satisfied, unfair society. I've read a book of Thorpe's poetry, and it is as exquisite as many moments of his prose, but there was a faintly bourgeois refinement that left me unable to love his work, but here he uses what I might imagine is his background, or experiences of life, to do what other writers in similar social strata are afraid of doing: ostensibly painting, but ultimately excavating - in painful detail - the pomposity of the upper middle-classes to show us where our hankering for money and comfort would lead us, instead of finding out what we were put on this earth to do.

Middle age, 31 Jul 2008
be prepared to read the thoughts of a selfish, self-obsessed character. littered with small moments of humour at his situation and the world around. and the way mistakes are made, people's feelings ignored, assumptions blasted. very very good writing in a very good story.

Symphonic, 05 Oct 2007
A beautifully written meditation on love and art contained in a truly compelling narrative and one of the most profoundly plausible books I have read which includes classical music amongst its subject matter. Head and shoulders above most other novels by booker eligible authors I have read this year.

Between Each Breath, 19 Sep 2007
Hadn't read Adam Thorpe before, it came up on a local library search on Tallinn just after returning from Estonia. Couldn't put it down, yet had to break to absorb it - beautifully lyrical, poetic prose that flowed like molten glass.
Set partly in a country rapidly shedding its Communist legacy its people & places were portrayed with such sharp edged clarity that it hurt.
Brilliant.



Powerful & Fresh, 31 Jul 2007
There is pure gold to be found in the form of Adam Thorpe's The Rules of Perspective, which pulls off the challenge of finding something fresh to say about the human condition and the Second World War.

This is an extremely powerful novel, compellingly written and completely devoid of resistance workers, farmers wives hiding airmen or any of a dozen cliches of that conflict. Thorpe skilfully interweaves two stories - one of a young American soldier taking part in the liberation of Germany, and the other of a group of German art gallery staff taking cover in their museum under the Allied bombardment. We know from the very outset that they do not survive the ordeal as Parry (the American) finds their corpses as the novel begins, but we do not know how or to what purpose their stories will unite. Because the reader knows of the Germans' fate, the whole book is infused with a disturbing sense of doom - but Thorpe exhumes more than just their final hours and the conclusion of the book was, to me at least, totally un-anticipated.

Thorpe is a very poised and considered writer. I knew of him, but I shall now be seeking out the rest of his books

A Really Heavy Bomber, 04 Sep 2006
I adore Adam thorpe and consider his previous Novel 'No Telling' to be perhaps my favourite contemporary work of fiction, and certainly alongside my other favourites, the New York Trilogy and Howards end (yes, that good). This novel is still excellent fiction and full of lucid, exquisite passages and nail biting, precise plotting.

However.

there is a breathlessness about the plotting which drags you along as if you are reading a Tom Clancy novel, and the musings of Curator and reluctant Reich member Heinrich Hoffer are so rich and satisfying, that a longer work with a much slower pace seems in order. Thorpe splits his narrative between three voices, that of Hoffer (with whom I was most comfortable: he is by far the best written), Neal Parry, an american serviceman, and a mysterious, whispering disjointed narrative voice.

The novel would have been much stronger with just Herr Hoffer's voice and The middle class, middle aged Thorpe does not quite get into the mind of the twenty-something GI, not as well as he gets into Her Hoffer's baggy borgeois trousers.

This is a novel of themes, but the themes confuse. It is supposed to be about the healing powers of a single work of art but ends up being about two works of art. The musings and philosophy are excellent but sadly, sadly give way to stilted action hero and 'extreme peril' which was almost like reading a film screenplay.

Adam thorpe is in my opinion the best writer in English writing today. Ulverton, Pieces of Light and No telling are three supreme masterpieces which will be read in 100 years, but this novel needs to calm down, thin out the plots and put down its gun. PS, the disembodied voice. A bit obvious. You can't cover every aspect of WW2 in 300 pages unless you write an epic, which this is not.

lost innocence, 30 Jul 2004
Once again Adam Thorpe has astonished us with his talent. NO TELLING is a powerful, complex and beautifully written novel. The story is woven with the intricacy of a spider's web. He is an author who observes and creates with natural fluency. His prose is taught yet poetic. The novel is a voyage. As you travel with the young, innocent Gilles you embark on a journey where there is no going back. It is the story of a family unable to disassociate themselves with the past, living in the shadow of undiscovered truths, while set against the turbulent backcloth of Paris in the throws of the 1968 riots. As we follow Gilles' development, both physical and psychological, this mystery gradually begins to unravel. Adam Thorpe's charecters are no cardboard cutouts, they live and breathe with freshness and vitality, creating a tension that lingers on long after you have turned the last pages.

No Telling what readers like!, 21 Jun 2004
I'm sorry to say that this book has left me disappointed and depressed. Whilst I have to agree that Adam Thorpe has successfully recreated the time and the place, there is little to inspire or uplift the reader out of the downward spiral of doom and gloom that this poor bewildered child has to endure. What surprised me more than anything was the brief sojurn to the present, realising that this human being survived, somehow, to tell the tale without incarceration in an asylum or topping himself, which I'm afraid is what will happen to me if I dont read something more cheerful to purge the black mood that this book has left me with. Sorry.

brilliantly intense innocence, 24 May 2003
.
The story of a boy whose life is surrounded by unmentionables (thus the title). Everyone tells him not to speak about what he sees, to keep it to himself--the sister's illegitimate baby, the devoutly Catholic mother who insists that the baby is hers, the sister's radical-crossed-over-to-anarchy politics, her madness, the racist pretentious womaniser fraudster uncle-and-stepfather.

Yet all this comes naturally to him, for it is all that he has known . . . at least until the awakening. Throughout, innocence makes Gilles yet unable to see or realise these events. And Thorpe's literary prowess manifests itself by managing to show us the whole story through the eye-level of the boy--adolescence taking centre stage in his life, almost oblivious to all that the reader is already painfully aware.

Intense in its casualness, poetic in its innocence. Brace yourself for beauty when the boy speaks of his observations and
perceptions. It was a most riveting moving read.
.

brilliantly intense innocence, 15 May 2003
.
The story of a boy whose life is surrounded by unmentionables (thus the title). Everyone tells him not to speak about what he sees, to keep it to himself--the sister's illegitimate baby, the devoutly Catholic mother who insists that the baby is hers, the sister's radical-crossed-over-to-anarchy politics, her madness, the racist pretentious womaniser fraudster uncle-and-stepfather.

Yet all this comes naturally to him, for it is all that he has known . . . at least until the awakening. Throughout, innocence makes Gilles yet unable to see or realise these events. And Thorpe's literary prowess manifests itself by managing to show us the whole story through the eye-level of the boy--adolescence taking centre stage in his life, almost oblivious to all that the reader is already painfully aware.

Intense in its casualness, poetic in its innocence. Brace yourself for beauty when the boy speaks of his observations and
perceptions. It was a most riveting moving read.
.

Powerful & Fresh, 31 Jul 2007
There is pure gold to be found in the form of Adam Thorpe's The Rules of Perspective, which pulls off the challenge of finding something fresh to say about the human condition and the Second World War.

This is an extremely powerful novel, compellingly written and completely devoid of resistance workers, farmers wives hiding airmen or any of a dozen cliches of that conflict. Thorpe skilfully interweaves two stories - one of a young American soldier taking part in the liberation of Germany, and the other of a group of German art gallery staff taking cover in their museum under the Allied bombardment. We know from the very outset that they do not survive the ordeal as Parry (the American) finds their corpses as the novel begins, but we do not know how or to what purpose their stories will unite. Because the reader knows of the Germans' fate, the whole book is infused with a disturbing sense of doom - but Thorpe exhumes more than just their final hours and the conclusion of the book was, to me at least, totally un-anticipated.

Thorpe is a very poised and considered writer. I knew of him, but I shall now be seeking out the rest of his books

A Really Heavy Bomber, 04 Sep 2006
I adore Adam thorpe and consider his previous Novel 'No Telling' to be perhaps my favourite contemporary work of fiction, and certainly alongside my other favourites, the New York Trilogy and Howards end (yes, that good). This novel is still excellent fiction and full of lucid, exquisite passages and nail biting, precise plotting.

However.

there is a breathlessness about the plotting which drags you along as if you are reading a Tom Clancy novel, and the musings of Curator and reluctant Reich member Heinrich Hoffer are so rich and satisfying, that a longer work with a much slower pace seems in order. Thorpe splits his narrative between three voices, that of Hoffer (with whom I was most comfortable: he is by far the best written), Neal Parry, an american serviceman, and a mysterious, whispering disjointed narrative voice.

The novel would have been much stronger with just Herr Hoffer's voice and The middle class, middle aged Thorpe does not quite get into the mind of the twenty-something GI, not as well as he gets into Her Hoffer's baggy borgeois trousers.

This is a novel of themes, but the themes confuse. It is supposed to be about the healing powers of a single work of art but ends up being about two works of art. The musings and philosophy are excellent but sadly, sadly give way to stilted action hero and 'extreme peril' which was almost like reading a film screenplay.

Adam thorpe is in my opinion the best writer in English writing today. Ulverton, Pieces of Light and No telling are three supreme masterpieces which will be read in 100 years, but this novel needs to calm down, thin out the plots and put down its gun. PS, the disembodied voice. A bit obvious. You can't cover every aspect of WW2 in 300 pages unless you write an epic, which this is not.