∎ Read An Awfully Big Adventure Beryl Bainbridge 9780349116150 Books

An Awfully Big Adventure Beryl Bainbridge 9780349116150 Books

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An Awfully Big Adventure Beryl Bainbridge 9780349116150 Books

Addled teen girl stirs up trouble at a theater in post-war England.

I've read half a dozen of Bainbridge's novels now. I've enjoyed them all to one degree or another, but this is the one I liked best. She touches greatness with this book; maybe because she drew on her own experiences. Wickedly...funny...I guess...although "funny" isn't really the right word. I don't think the English language has a word to describe the essential nature of Bainbridge's writing. She nudges you in the ribs throughout, only she uses a large kitchen knife to do the nudging, and she snaps it off at the hilt on the last page. Her books leave me torn between relief that the tension is finally broken and remorse that...um...the tension is finally broken.

Whatever this style of fiction is, if you like deeply ironic stories that keep giving you "Aha! So that's what she meant!" moments for days or weeks after you finish them, then you'll probably like this book.

On the other hand, this book is extremely confusing on a first read, for a couple of reasons. To describe one reason would be to reveal a spoiler, so I'll stay mum. Another reason is that characters are thrown into the story as if you already know who they are. It's a bit like tuning into a movie that's already half over. If you don't like that, you'll probably hate this book. A page-turner, in the sense of the typical easily-digested bestseller, it's not. This is genuine literature.

Incidentally, if you haven't read the book, and you think you know what the title means, let me assure you that you couldn't possibly be more wrong.


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An Awfully Big Adventure Beryl Bainbridge 9780349116150 Books Reviews

This is a phenomenal book- but it is crucial to approach it with the right mindset. This is not a light comedy, or a fantasy about the joys and agonies of growing up. The laughs to be found here are dark, and the story is painful and disturbing. It is also deeply powerful and moving, full of richly created characters and brilliantly subtle parrallels to J.M. Barrie's classic play, "Peter Pan." Do not open this one expecting anything easy, but do expect to be moved if you are willing to lose yourself inside. Highest possible recommendation.
The Good Companions is a lovely, warm, fuzzy, well written book (a favourite of mine) about the trials, tribulations, triumphs and tragedies of a small travelling music hall company in the 1920s

Jump forwards 30 years to the setting of Bainbridge's book about the trials, tribulations, triumphs (very few) and tragedies (quite a lot) of a Liverpool repertory company. Originally published in 1989, Bainbridge draws upon some of her own experiences as an actor around that time.

Gone is Priestley's enjoyable, rather sentimental approach. Instead, we have a blackly, bleakly funny and unholy mixture of sex, love, death and religion, all wrapped up in an atmosphere of lower middle-class prurience and and things which are not quite nice and musn't be mentioned (Orton's territory)

This is the story of Stella, an awkward, difficult, naive and impressionable mid-teens. She is also adept at wearing a don't tangle with me mask, making her appear much more hard-boiled and insensitive than she really is. Strings are pulled to get her a job as an ASM in the rep company, as her imaginative, rather histrionic abilities at play-acting her way through her life, suggest to those around her that she may have a theatrical gift.

Bainbridge structures her book beautifully, setting something up at the start, which is only finally revealed at the end, when she collapses, one by one, her house of cards, with a selection of hinted at revelations which are simultaneously as bleak, horribly funny, and shocking as Orton. There is as much going on here as there are in some of the major themes of Greek tragedy, except Bainbridge does the great trick of wrapping the tragedy with absurd, comedic touches.

I'm working through re-reading Bainbridge, following my reading of the wonderful Beryl Bainbridge Artist, Writer, Friend which connects her life, her writing and her art, and this was a wonderful re-read.
This spare little (205 pages) novel doesn't waste a word, yet signifies volumes. The highly honored Ms. Bainbridge, winner of the prestigious Whitbread Prize and short-listed (six times!) for the Booker Prize amply displays what all the fuss is about. She is that good.
The book is hard to categorize. It isn't a coming-of-age, a psychological thriller, a dazzling Peter Pan parable; it is all these things and more.
Stella raised in blue-collar, post WWII Liverpool is a troubled and troubling 15-year old who determinedly washed out of school and has been fixed up as a "student" (read gofer) at a provincial repertory company. She has no particular acting ambitions, but is certain she would be very good at it. We get a many-sided view of Stella; as she sees herself and as she is perceived by the people around her. Every scene and every word of dialogue interlocks like a jeweled timepiece. The reader is almost unaware of the ever-increasing momentum until it crashes upon you in a chilling finale. You think Ms. Bainbridge is through with you, but not quite. Just when you think you are utterly and completely emotionally drained, Ms. Bainbridge delivers a final twist, and now you know you are. I was left stunned.
An excellent example of fine prose. Highly recommended.
Beryl Bainbridge is a very black writer, and this novel (filmed with Alan Rickman, and Hugh Grant and Peter Firth both playing brilliantly against type) is a very black, sad, funny and wonderful book. It's longtime favourite of mine, but I will acknowledge that it won't be everyone's cup of tea. The writing is taut and incisive, the story is gripping and the characters are flawed and larger than life.
Addled teen girl stirs up trouble at a theater in post-war England.

I've read half a dozen of Bainbridge's novels now. I've enjoyed them all to one degree or another, but this is the one I liked best. She touches greatness with this book; maybe because she drew on her own experiences. Wickedly...funny...I guess...although "funny" isn't really the right word. I don't think the English language has a word to describe the essential nature of Bainbridge's writing. She nudges you in the ribs throughout, only she uses a large kitchen knife to do the nudging, and she snaps it off at the hilt on the last page. Her books leave me torn between relief that the tension is finally broken and remorse that...um...the tension is finally broken.

Whatever this style of fiction is, if you like deeply ironic stories that keep giving you "Aha! So that's what she meant!" moments for days or weeks after you finish them, then you'll probably like this book.

On the other hand, this book is extremely confusing on a first read, for a couple of reasons. To describe one reason would be to reveal a spoiler, so I'll stay mum. Another reason is that characters are thrown into the story as if you already know who they are. It's a bit like tuning into a movie that's already half over. If you don't like that, you'll probably hate this book. A page-turner, in the sense of the typical easily-digested bestseller, it's not. This is genuine literature.

Incidentally, if you haven't read the book, and you think you know what the title means, let me assure you that you couldn't possibly be more wrong.