Athena K's Review - Breakfast on Pluto

I had a hard time with this one.  The main character is Patrick "Pussy" Braden, a transvestite prostitute.  Patrick was fathered by an Irish Catholic priest and dumped in an abusive foster family - and he dreams of his beautiful birth mother.  Pussy is an outcast in her tiny Irish hometown , and she leaves, first for the City and then for London to seek a better life.  But Pussy has bad luck when her married politician sugar daddy is killed by Irish terrorists, and then in London where she becomes a prostitute and gets mixed up in terrorist plots.

To start, I think it would have helped if I recognized more of the popular cultural and historical references to  Ireland and England circa 1970.  I know I missed an awful lot of the references (for example, the title of the book), and I even had a hard time following the plot references to terrorist plots because I just don't know much about the era.  I'd be interested to know if anyone who enjoyed this book could confirm that having this understanding helped their enjoyment.  

But unlike other novels set in unfamiliar times or locales, I was not inspired to learn more because I wasn't connecting with the story or characters.  This is probably because I found the narrative thread to be very weak - the chain of events was hard to follow, and it seemed to jump around a lot between times and places with little continuity.  I like something with more of a story arc.  As a result, I got lost and ended up rushing through the end just to be finished.  While Pussy was certainly a colorful and interesting character, the book didn't manage to retain my attention.

I finished this book on June 17, 2012.

Introducing Kate

Hello, friends.

I'm pleased to be included in The Complete Booker. I've been steadily reading through Booker winners and nominees for a few years and am glad to be able to share thoughts and reviews with others. As a current full-time graduate student in archaeology, I'm also grateful to Laura for having and maintaining this site for all of us to use!

I am an avid reader across many genres (though I tend to dislike postcolonial fiction) and my reviews range from longer, ponderous pieces to short, casual "thoughts on" posts. Outside of my dissertation research I also enjoy hiking, travelling, good coffee, interesting art, museums, dancing, and I'm taking up knitting again after many years away. I am an expat American living and teaching in a small English town, and relishing the cultural difference.

I won't bore you all with reposting all of my previous Booker posts from my blog, What Kate's Reading, but will link for you to peruse as you choose:

• Mister Pip
• The White Tiger
• The Old Devils
• In a Free State (which is less of a review than a critique of the author's recent statements about women authors)
• Netherland
• A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian
• Master Georgie
• The Sisters Brothers
• Never Let Me Go
• Notes on a Scandal
• Atonement
• On Beauty
• Restoration

Wow, I'm actually suddenly rather impressed with myself. (Please note that there were too many characters to label all of these as needed - sorry!)

For my reading here on out I'll either post a current link to my blog or the full review itself. Does anyone have any opinion on that? I don't have any Bookers in the to be read pile as yet, but as my reading is highly dependent on my local library, I have no doubt one will come up soon enough.

Thanks again, and I look forward to being a part of this site.

Jackie's review of Master Georgie

Master Georgie was short listed for the Booker prize in 1998, and is the first book I have read by Beryl Bainbridge. It is about a group of 3 people who set out from Victorian Liverpool to the Crimean war.

I found the book relatively easy to read, but the plot moved very slowly. The characters did not engage me, and the whole book seemed to lack the depth required for a decent read. The last 20 pages of the book were the only ones with any substance. Unfortunately these are the ones where the characters finally get to the Crimean war, and so are very disturbing. I was torn between wanting the action to have happened earlier, therefore getting a longer period of action; and wanting them never to get to the war, leaving a very boring book, but without the gruesome images I now have in my head.

I’m not looking forward to reading other books by Beryl Bainbridge and I’d avoid this book if you can.

2 out of 5 stars