A Week in December (2010)

It was a very interesting reading. There are a lot of different lives wrapped into a fictional story which could also be a true one. All life stories are linked to each other. There are different generations which are connected privately or professionel. All those stories are showing the every day life of our time with its ups and downs or its hopes und failures. It comprehends the power of money, religion fundamentalism, drugs and mental disorder, the competition who is the best writer or the best host as well as finding love and true friendship. ( )

Wasn't going to read this, but London's Cityread followed by an article in The Evening Standard by Faulks made me pick up a copy. Very engaging read with an array of interesting characters. I liked the way there's a certain terrible feeling building all the way through as you read until you reach the climax of the book. A very relevant and intelligent commentary on contemporary London. ( )

I thoroughly enjoyed this book since it is a view on the state of our society represented by several intertwined characters that start off as apparent stereotypes but than the complexity and detail of real life is added to their stories. In my mind it is a good representation of 'the state of the nation'. I liked the 'playing' with the cliches of the terrorist bombers, the hedge-fund managers, the North London house-wife etc and the twist to those cliches that gave them more credibility and that made thm serve as mirrors to who we have become. Well done. ( )

'Six stages of separation' is an old hypothesis in this book Faulks's attempts 'Seven' as this book tells of seven characters in seven days in London and how they are supposedly brought together by the London underground.

Faulks's "Birdsong" is one of my top 10 all time reads so I really looked forward to reading this book but I guess that it was a bit much to expect an author to write two brilliant books and this one is certainly not that for me. The characters are basically a hedge-fund manager, a bored underworked lawyer, a chutney magnate, a Polish football player, a hack book reviewer who have all been invited to a newly elected MPs house for dinner, and two students, one hooked on skunk and reality TV whilst the other is struggling with Islamist theory . The book's concept is a good one with the themes of love, hate and greed while taking a satirical swipe at modern London. all told just before the financial bubble in London and other share trading centres bursts, but in the end rather overstrethes itself.The book becomes over-reliant on stereotypes. The hedge-fund is oblivious to everything other than making money, the football star has a porn-star girlfriend and the hack reviwer is anti all books written in the last 50 years or so. In particular it is the satire which falls flat for me. The skunk student is hooked on a TV reality show called 'Its Madness' which is a take on Big Brother, and would rather see his 'Fantasy Football Team' do better than his real team, whilst the hack moans about modern authors using contrived coincidencs to move their stories along yet it is exactly this that Faulks uses himself, almost poking fun at the reader.

Saying all that it is not a bad read, the fisrt third of the book is pretty good as Faulks sets out his characters and the final third picks up pace nicely even if for me the ending itself was a bit of a let down but it is the middle part where I felt that the story got bogged down. Faulks insists of going into great and minute detail portraying his characters and while this was admirable and much appreciated in Birdsong in this book it felt overblown, a bit nit-picking. In the end I became more interested in the peripheral figures than I did in the main ones.

Don't let me put you off but for me this was not a book that will live long in the memory and would not enter my all-time top 100 let alone top 10 ( )

Powerful contemporary novel set in London from a master of literary fiction.
Structured like a thriller, A Week in December takes place over the course of a single week at the end of 2008. Set in London, it brings together an intriguing cast of characters whose lives apparently run on parallel lines but — as it gradually becomes clear — are intricately related. The central anti-hero, John Veals, is a shadily successful and boundlessly ambitious Dickensian character who is trading billions. The tentacles of Veals’ influence encompass newspaper columnists, MPs, businessmen, footballers, a female tube driver, a Scottish convert to Islam, a disaffected teenager, and a care worker, whose different perspectives build up a tale of love, family and money as the story builds to its powerful climax. All of the characters are utterly believable, and finely drawn, and Faulks displays complete mastery in the manner in which he interleaves their stories.
At times hilarious, yet also steeped at times in melancholic resignation, this novel also offers some poignant insights. The most striking of these was Gabriel Northwood's passionate lament over the failure of the education system, and the sad descent from a halcyon age when children were taught for the sheer sake of learning rather than to equip them to take on jobs that might no longer be there. ( )