The last book I read in 100 words: How It All Began by Penelope Lively
by Stephen Tall on December 23, 2013
How it All Began, Penelope Lively
Penelope Lively is among my favourite authors. It’s the Miss Marple thing, I think: the appearance of a gentle, genteel lady belies the breathtakingly acute gaze which pierces the human condition to its very soul.
How It All Began begins with one small, but lives-changing moment: an old lady is mugged. This commonplace, if sad, occurrence doesn’t just impact on Charlotte, the victim, but on those who surround her: her daughter, Rose, who meets and falls for an Eastern European immigrant, Anton, Charlotte is teaching to read English; Rose’s employer, Lord Peters, in denial of his fading intellectual powers and standing (the scene where he forgets his speech for a prestigious lecture and is unable to improvise his way out is every excruciating exam nightmare you’ve ever had rolled into one); and Lord Peters’ niece Marion, living out an unsatisfactory affair.
These are everyday lives, everyday happenings. But Lively’s brilliance is to three-dimensionalise her character-emblems, to alternately describe, critique, understand and redeem them. If you’ve not read her before, start with Moon Tiger, her Booker-winning triumph, one of my desert island books. If you have, enjoy this one also.