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Loading... Oscar and Lucindaby Peter Carey
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. It is as if, in this novel, Peter Carey has set out to write a traditional, narrative lead novel with two main protagonists but has given himself this task of subverting the reader's expectations. The two don't meet until half-way through the book and then on a boat from the UK to Australia despite Lucinda being from Australia. They are linked by a common interest in gambling but that is not the main theme of the book, except symbollically. The climax of the book seems to me more typical of an Amazonian or Congo setting. I suspect the off-kilter, unsettling nature of the plotting and the characterisation is what makes this book such an enjoyable read. Carey is an excellent writer and is an author who never sells his reader's short. Oscar and Lucinda is a book that is worthy of its many plaudits and awards. (  )1   dylanwolf | Jul 11, 2009 |  One of the reviews on the back of the book describes this as 'bizzare' and I can't think of a better description. It is also desperately sad as you yearn for an outcome for the main protagonists that just does not appear. I still cannot make up my mind whether this is a work of genius or not. (  ) riverwillow | Jun 9, 2009 | What an odd book. I don’t mean that the writing is odd - it’s actually very good. The characters are odd, but they are also unique. I don’t think I have encountered any like them before. The plot is also odd - very odd. I don’t want to give anything away, but things do not work out quite the way I expected. Which is probably a good thing. It’s a historical novel, set in Australia and England in the 1860s. There is a minimal framework where it seems that a modern great-grandchild is actually telling the story. The framework is really only needed for the final twist at the end - and no I won’t reveal what that odd plot twist is - you’ll have to read those 400+ pages to see what it is. ( ) samfsmith | Oct 14, 2008 | bostonbibliophile | Oct 8, 2008 | Oscar Hopkins grew up in southern England in the mid-1800s, under his father’s iron rule. As a teenager he left his father’s house to become an Anglican minister. He was an introverted and backward young man, called “Odd Bod” by his seminary colleagues. Surprisingly, he befriended Ian Wardley-Fish, a bit of a rake who introduced Oscar to betting on horse races. At the same time, Lucinda Leplastrier grew up in Australia, and came into a sizeable inheritance as she approached adulthood. She bought a glass factory and made her way as an independent business woman. She also became involved with a social group that spent considerable time gambling on cards. Returning from a visit to England, Lucinda met Oscar, who was travelling on the same ship, having decided to take the gospel to New South Wales. Eventually these two empty, dysfunctional people discovered their shared addiction to gambling, and a relationship of sorts blossomed. Their addiction took a bizarre turn when Lucinda bet her fortune on Oscar’s ability to transport a church, made completely of glass, to a remote location in the colony. The novel concludes with this adventure and its consequences. Peter Carey’s Booker prize-winning novel works both as a love story and an adventure set in an untamed part of the world. The characters of Lucinda and Oscar are well-developed, and the “supporting cast” is equally colorful. The plot gets a bit fantastic at times, and I never quite understood the source of attraction between Oscar and Lucinda. Nevertheless, from the very beginning I was caught up in their lives, eager to learn when and how their paths crossed, and even more curious about the story’s conclusion. I found Carey’s other Booker winner, True History of the Kelly Gang, more enjoyable and better written, but would still recommend Oscar and Lucinda as a very worthwhile read. (  )2 lindsacl | May 8, 2008 |  no reviews | add a review
Amazon.com (ISBN 0571153046, Paperback)Oscar Hopkins is a high-strung preacher's kid with hydrophobia and noisy knees. Lucinda Leplastrier is a frizzy-haired heiress who impulsively buys a glass factory with the inheritance forced on her by a well-intentioned adviser. In the early parts of this lushly written book, author Peter Carey renders the seminal turning points in his protagonists' childhoods as exquisite 19th-century set pieces. Young Oscar, denied the heavenly fruit of a Christmas pudding by his cruelly stern father, forever renounces his father's religion in favor of the Anglican Church. "Dear God," Oscar prays, "if it be Thy will that Thy people eat pudding, smite him!" Lucinda's childhood trauma involves a beautiful doll bought by her struggling mother with savings from the jam jar; in a misguided attempt to tame the doll's unruly curls, young Lucinda mutilates her treasure beyond repair. Neither of these coming-of-age stories quite explains how the grownup Oscar and Lucinda each develop a guilty passion for gambling. Oscar plays the horses while at school, and Lucinda, now an orphaned heiress, finds comfort in a game of cards with an odd collection of acquaintances. When the two finally meet, on board a ship bound for New South Wales, they are bound by their affinity for risk, their loneliness, and their awkwardly blossoming (but unexpressed) mutual affection. Their final high-stakes folly--transporting a crystal palace of a church across (literally) godforsaken terrain--strains plausibility, and events turn ghastly as Oscar plays out his bid for Lucinda's heart. Yet even the unconvincing plot turns are made up for by Carey's rich prose and the tale's unpredictable outcome. Although love proves to be the ultimate gamble for Oscar and Lucinda, the story never strays too far from the terrible possibility that even the most thunderstruck lovers can remain isolated in parallel lives.(retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:58:12 -0400) The first test round has been closed. Visit the Open Shelves Classification group for details. |
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