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Loading... Asta's Book (1993)by Barbara Vine (Author)
None. Strangely I wasn't as compelled and enthralled by this book as i expected to be. It was a bit domestic and estrogen soaked for my taste and had too much about children in it. I just can't get all worked up about children. The journal parts were done well, but I couldn't relate to Anna (Asta) at all. She was passive, yet sly. Opinionated, yet unsophisticated. I didn't need to like her to find her interesting though, like a strange bug you find in the yard. I wish the Roper saga could have been sprinkled in and interleaved the way Ann and Swanny's more modern stories were. As it was it derailed the already slow-moving train of the main storyline. It made sense to put it where it was given the mini-series angle, but i still found myself thinking that this better have a good pay off. It did and in a marvelously convoluted way, signaled by the abrupt and slightly menacing entrance of an unexpected character. Minor, but key to the final solution. Overall I liked this and enjoyed reading it, but not as much as her first two Vine novels. I think it marks the beginning of a lot of experimentation that the Vine persona allowed. The Rendell name as a brand was well established by the early 80s and maybe she felt confined by it. A pseudonym is a great way to break out of a mold and try new things, The Vine novels are always surprising and that's why I keep coming back to them. It's worth plouging through the initial chapters, where the central character Asta writes in her diary about life as a Danish immigrant in London. By the time the central mysteries (because there are definitely two) start to develop, you will find yourself going back to them and re-reading them for clues. This book is very clever - my favourite by Vine/Rendell; all the clues are there, as well as a few red herrings, and the conclusion is superb. Though it took me a little while initially to work out who all the characters were and how they related to eachother, in the end they stayed in my memory long after I finished the book. My favorite Rendell and Vine - the best novel of mystery and suspense I've ever read, and I've read it 13 times so far - it's become an annual tradition for me. I could probably go through it with a highlighter and indicate all the clues, but that doesn't stop me from still turning the pages with complete fascination. When I queried Rendell about how she wrote such a complex novel with multiple storylines, she modestly replied "I don't know how I did it!" This is a great mystery/suspense novel from Barbara Vine aka Ruth Rendell who I just discovered late last year. This is the story of Anna, mother of Swanny, and grandmother of Ann who is trying to solve the mystery of aunt' Swanny's paternity . The paternity issue was revvealed to her until she was well past fifty, in the form of a letter. Her mother Anna cruelly vascillates back and forth as to whether Swanny was her natural child or if she was in fact adopted. Anna was a very self-absorbed and selfish woman and could not be described as a nuturing mother. I was very confused with the introduction of the Roper family and then everything became quite clear. But if you pay attention to the clues.....
This is an engrossing double-detective story, a mixture of biography, true crime and romance peopled with vivid minor players and red with herrings. Is abridged in
Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0140176616, Paperback)This work is set in 1905. Asta and her husband Rasmus have come to east London from Denmark with their two sons. With Rasmus constantly away on business, Asta keeps loneliness and isolation at bay by writing her diary. These diaries, published over seventy years later, reveal themselves to be more than a mere journal, for they seem to hold the key to an unsolved murder, to the quest for a missing child and to the enigma surrounding Asta's daughter, Swanny. It falls to Asta's granddaughter Ann to unearth the buried secrets of nearly a century before.(retrieved from Amazon Thu, 14 Feb 2013 14:00:08 -0500) It is 1905. Asta and her husband Rasmus have to come to East London from Denmark with their two little boys. With Rasmus constantly away on business, Asta keeps loneliness and isolation at bay by writing a diary. These diaries published over seventy years later, reveal themselves to be more than just a journal and seem to hold the key to an unsolved murder and a missing child.… (more) |
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The premise of this novel seemed very interesting, but I found the story very confusing, with two seemingly completely separate stories and families that had nothing in common somehow connected in a way which is only revealed at the very end. Perhaps this is a story which benefits from a second reading. Then again, perhaps my own mind is too muddled to understand a plot which doesn't follow a familiar narrative style. I also kept wondering why Asta's journals had become such hugely successful books, as they didn't seem to make for such gripping reading on their own. Don't let my confused ramblings about this book influence you though, because it seems to have met with a lot of appreciation with other readers. (