Click on a thumbnail to go to Google Books.
Loading... Op de klippen roman (original 1978; edition 2019)by Jane Gardam, Gerda Baardman, Kitty Pouwels
Work InformationGod on the Rocks by Jane Gardam (1978)
Loading...
Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. Classic Gardam observations of class, religion, and morals. Published in 1978 and nominated for the Booker Prize, God on the Rocks is a coming of age story of 8 year old Margaret as she tries to make sense of her stilted family, bawdy nursemaid, and surrounding community in the years immediately following WWI. ( ) Margaret is eight, growing up in a super-religious family where her father is the pastor and they're more defined by what they can't have than what they believe. Lydia, the maid, arrives that summer and takes Margaret out on Wednesday afternoons, upending the whole family's life without even trying to, while the minister attempts to convert her. I think this is one of those stories where for much of it nothing much happens and it goes along so quietly that you don't realize what it's about until the end. I'm not sure I ever fully "got it" to be honest. I spent most of the book trying to figure out if I liked it or not and once I decided I was solidly underwhelmed I was so far into it that I decided I'd rather finish it than not. no reviews | add a review
Awards
Originally published in Great Britain in 1978, the novel describes Margaret Marsh's coming of age one summer between the world wars. Caught in the backwash of a fervently religious father, a mother bitterly nostalgic for what might have been, the tea and sympathy of some thoroughly secular neighbors and the bawdy jokes of her nanny Lydia, Margaret's world hurtles towards a shattering moment of truth. Drama, tragedy and a touch of farce lend themselves to Gardam's typically eloquent prose. With subtlety and precision, God on the Rocks provides an intimate portrait of the tensions that divide men and women, present and past, and the love and sorrow that lingers throughout. --From publisher description. No library descriptions found.
|
Current DiscussionsNonePopular covers
Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)823.914Literature English & Old English literatures English fiction Modern Period 1901-1999 1945-1999LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
Is this you?Become a LibraryThing Author. |