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Loading... A Spot of Bother (2006)by Mark Haddon
  
» 13 more No current Talk conversations about this book.  starbox | Apr 18, 2022 |  From the author of The Incident with the Dog in the Nighttime, this quietly rollicking (so English!) novel is well worth its occasional longeurs-- like your family is. It presses its readers performatively to just be a little more patient, a little more open-eyed, a little less judgmental, a little more inventive-- and even the spot of bother that is paranoid depression with big sharp teeth, dysfunctional family dynamics given wings by class consciousness, and the daily sorrow that nibbles the soul can be transformed. Not made to go away, but transformed. Humor helps. A lot. You'll like this, I think. It revolves around a wedding. I want to be Ray. (  ) AnnKlefstad | Feb 4, 2022 | It was OK, but I did find it over-long and a bit plodding. The plot provided some good comedy, however there was a lot of forced humour in it and this spoilt the writing for me. Apart from the young boy I didn't really find any of the characters that likeable. I did read the author's first book, and had high hopes for this one, but I was left disappointed. I gave it two stars because I liked the storyline, but found the writing a bit tedious and the characters a bit too one-dimensional. (  ) Triduana | Jan 25, 2022 | Finally, having finished this book, filled with drama of a middle classed British family. Dad has anxiety attack. Mom has an affair. Brother is gay. Sister is getting married. It all blended into a tumultuous dramatic BBC kinda movie đ Here's my full review: http://www.sholee.net/2018/05/mpov-spot-of-bother.html (  ) Sholee | Sep 9, 2021 | A Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon (2006) arosoff | Jul 10, 2021 |
 âA Spot of Botherâ isnât nearly as audacious, and in other hands and other media, its plot elements wouldnât amount to much, maybe a weepy nighttime soap or a lesser Steve Martin comedy. But Haddon is too gifted and too ambitious to write a hacky second novel. In fact, heâs so wondrously articulate, so rigorous in thinking through his charactersâ mind-sets, that âA Spot of Botherâ serves as a fine example of why novels exist. Really, does any other art form do nuance so well, or the telling detail or the internal monologue?  Just as he flawlessly mastered the voice of a boy with Asperger's in The Curious Incident, here Haddon has filled 390 pages with sharp and witty observations about family and daily life. This a superb novel, and I was shocked when it didn't made the Man Booker longlist. There may be a perfectly obvious, simple reason for its omission. After reading it though, I can't think of an explanation that's good enough.  And that's what's so surprising about A Spot of Bother: how unsurprising it is. It's never less than pleasurable to read and there are good jokes and funny situations; it's just that it never tries to be much more than good jokes or funny situations. It's not that this is a bad book - it isn't. It's amusing and brisk and charming. But readers could be forgiven for wanting - and expecting - more.
At 61, George is settling down to a comfortable retirement, building a shed in his garden, reading historical novels and listening to a bit of light jazz. Then his tempestuous daughter, Katie, announces that she is getting re-married, to the deeply inappropriate Ray. Katie's mother Jean is a bit put out by all the planning and arguing the wedding has occasioned, which get in the way of her quite fulfilling late-life affair with one of her husband's ex-colleagues. Unnoticed in the uproar, George discovers a sinister lesion on his hip, and quietly begins to lose his mind. The way these damaged people fall apart - and come together - as a family is the true subject of Haddon's disturbing yet amusing portrait of a dignified man trying to go insane politely. No library descriptions found. |
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 Google Books — Loading...GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813 â Literature English (North America) American fictionLC ClassificationRatingAverage: (3.53)
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It's the eve of Katie and Ray's wedding. She...doesnt know what she wants (is it just Ray's house, moneyt and fact he's a good father to her young son?) Ray's possibly the only likeable character- tho his determination to hold onto Katie means he starts to lose that accolade...
Meanwhile Katie's father, George, is sliding into some kind of crisis- convinced his eczema is cancer...and made much worse when he discovers his wife is having an affair with his friend...
Meanwhile Katie's brother is pining after his gay lover....
When you reach page 420 and are seriously considering ditching it rather than wade through 80 further pages...a bit of a turkey. (