I finished reading this book and journalled it on 29.12.08.
Lisa Hill, ANZ LitLoversTrevor was the most prolific reviewer this year, with 30 posts since joining in April. Wow! Thanks, Trevor, for writing such thoughtful reviews and being so instrumental in making this blog a valuable resource for anyone interested in the Booker Prize.
The most-reviewed prize-winning book was 2007 winner The Gathering, by Anne Enright, with 12 reviews. The Blind Assassin, by Margaret Atwood, was a distant second with 6 reviews. Several books received 5 reviews, including: Midnight's Children (1981), The Life and times of Michael K (1983), Oscar and Lucinda (1988), Possession (1990), Disgrace (1999), The Inheritance of Loss (2006), and The White Tiger (2008). Click on the label found in the sidebar for reviews of each title.
I hope everyone enjoyed participating this year, and that you will return in 2009 with still more reviews. Happy New Year!
Fingersmith
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Hallet was lying on his back, hands clasped behind his head, nothing much visible from Prior’s angle except his chin. How appallingly random it all was. If Hallet’s father had got a gleam in his eye two years later than he did, Hallet wouldn’t be here. he might even have missed the war altogether, perhaps spent the rest of his life goaded by the irrational shame of having escaped. ‘Cowed subjection to the ghosts of friends who died.’ That was it exactly, couldn’t be better put. Ghosts everywhere. Even the living were only ghosts in the making. - From The Ghost Road, page 46 -The Ghost Road is the third and final book in Pat Barker’s WWI trilogy - and it is by far the best of the series. The novel takes place in the waning months of the war and continues the story of Billy Prior who has returned to the front lines in France along with Wilfrid Owen (who previously spent time with Prior at Craiglockhart recovering from a breakdown). Neither man believes in the war, but are there out of duty to fight side by side with their comrades in arms. Psychiatrist Dr. Rivers continues to play a prominent role in this novel, seemingly safe from the war at his post in a London hospital. Dr. River’s memories of a time spent studying headhunters in the South Pacific run parallel to Billy’s story.
Barker weaves these two story lines together, deftly showing a culture of death and war amongst the South Pacific tribe linked to the mentality of modern society which supports the war in France.
Head-hunting had to be banned, and yet the effects of banning it were everywhere apparent in the listlessness and lethargy of the people’s lives. Head-hunting was what they had lived for. Though it might seem callous or frivolous to say so, head-hunting had been the most tremendous fun and without it life lost almost all its zest. This was a people perishing from the absence of war. - from The Ghost Road, page 207 -
Barker’s prose is harsh yet poetic - a ying and yang style which draws the reader into the lives of the characters.
The roar of the approaching train startled the birds. They rose as one, streaming out from under the glass roof in a great flapping and beating of wings, wheeling, banking, swooping, turning, a black wave against the smoke-filled sky. Prior and Sarah watched, open-mouthd, drunk on the sight of so much freedom, their linked hands slackening, able, finally, to think of nothing, as the train steamed in. -from The Ghost Road, page 85 -
Billy Prior is a largely unlikeable character with his gritty, sardonic view of life - and yet he becomes a sympathetic symbol of all that is wrong with war. And as the reader turns the final pages, it is with the conviction that war is not worth it.
The Ghost Road is a simply wrought, yet beautifully constructed anti-war novel which is graphic and disturbing. Barker spares her reader nothing and shows the violent nature of human beings in the depiction of loveless sex and ruthless battles. This novel - which won the 1995 Booker Prize - should be read as part of the larger trilogy to gain its full impact.
Highly recommended with a caution that some readers may be offended by violence, graphic sexual scenes and realistic language.
To read reviews of the first two books in the trilogy, click on the titles below:
The Night Watch
By Sarah Waters
Completed December 19, 2008
Sarah Waters swept her readers away with a tale of love, war, betrayal and hardship in her historical novel, The Night Watch. Set against a backdrop of bomb-ravaged London during World War II, this novel explored the lives of four young people – Helen, Vivian, Duncan and Kay – plus their lovers, friends and acquaintances – as they coped with their daily lives on the home front.
Waters structured her novel using a backward timeframe, so that as each year unraveled, you learned more about each character and his/her secrets. The first section was from 1947, and admittedly, this was the hardest section for me to get through. The characters were introduced with very little connection to each other, but I got the sense that their secrets and relationships were somehow woven together. As the book progressed, Waters shined a little more light on each character and story, putting each piece of her puzzle carefully together. It was a brilliant story structure – one that only a talented writer like Waters could pull off.
Each character was developed into an unforgettable person – one you worry about, sympathize with and root for. The Night Watch is considered lesbian fiction, which does not make this a book for everyone, but I found the women’s relationships to be compelling and insightful.
This is my first book by Sarah Waters but certainly won’t be my last. Short-listed for both the Booker and Orange Prizes (and understandably so), The Night Watch was a fantastic look at the lives of young people affected by a terrible war – and how they made the best and worst of these times. ( 
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