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Loading... The Service of Clouds (edition 1999)by Susan Hill
Work InformationThe Service of Clouds by Susan Hill
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. Another beautifully written book from Susan Hill. Not many writers can pull off the trick of writing something so rooted in the emotions (loves, expectations, regrets, mortality) and thoughts of the central characters that also engages the reader so thoroughly. ( )
The prose has a lulling, rolling cadence, mimicking the dreamlike state of the emotionally withdrawn characters. In the latter novel, Hill balances two different narratives - Flora's story as a young woman as she is about to embark on a loveless marriage, and her son's, Dr Molloy's, at the end of his own arid alliance - as she examines how prose can create atmosphere and mood.
At the far end of the long white gallery is a painting of a woman, in pale flowing clothes and lying on a sofa beside an open window. The muslin curtains billow out towards her like clouds. There is a touch of brilliant red, the ribbon on her hat. The rest is white, cream, palest grey. It is a painting which leads Flora on, beckoning her away from her childhood, her complaining, clinging mother, pert younger sister, and the confines of a small community, to a proud and self-reliant future. But later, this image is to prove the catalyst for the most signicant event in her life. Isolation, separation, solitude, betrayal. The shocks of life. The consolations and the beauty of death. A few piercing moments of absolute joy and perfect understanding. THE SERVICE OF CLOUDS is about these things, and also about love, loyalty, friendship, growing up and growing old. No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)823.914Literature English English fiction Modern Period 1901-1999 1945-1999LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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