This was one of my book group reads. Tonight is the first meeting after the summer break and the group will be discussing their thoughts on the book. As I have been off sick for a couple of days with the lurgy I decided it was safer to stay at home and chill out a bit. I am looking forward to hearing what the other members of the group have to say about the book, but in the meanwhile here are my thoughts.
Synopsis (from book cover):
Saturday, February, 2003. Henry Prowne is a contented man – a successful neorosurgeon, the devoted husband of Rosalind and proud father of two grown-up children. Unusually, he wakes before dawn, drawn to the window and filled with a growing unease. As he looks out at the night sky he is troubled by the state of the world – the impending war against Iraq, a gathering pessimism since 9/11, and a fear that his city and his happy family life are under threat.
Later as Perowne makes his way through London streets filled with hundreds of thousands of anti-war protestors, a minor car accident brings him inot a confrontation with Baxter, a fidgety, aggressive young man, on the edge of violence. To Perowne’s professional eye, there appears to be something profoundly wrong with him. But it is not until Baxter makes a sudden appearance as the Perowne family gathers for a reunion that Henry’s earlier fears seem about to be realised.
Review:
The book as the title suggests, covers just one day of Henry Perowne’s life. The current and recent past events of the world are laying heavily on his shoulders as he wakes unusually early to see what he initially thinks is a comet fly low through the night sky. Ian fleshes out all the characters in the book very well and gives them all individual personality. He describes very well the Perowne families history and what makes them bond together or not. All the family members, although quite different in character are all successful in their different ways.
The pending war on Iraq and the anti-war march cause tension within the family due to differing view points. The march itself is the cause of what turns out to be one of the major events of the day for the Perowne family.
I loved the style of writing and descriptive details, but in some places I found there was too much detail which slowed down the narrative to much for my liking.
The book throughout gave a feeling of ominous foreboding and uncertainty, but ultimately I found the book delivered a glimmer of hope.
Overall I would give the book 4 stars.
It’s not amongst the Top 100 I’d commend; still, it was one of the better books published in 2005.
I wouldn’t put it in my top 100 either and I think it would have been better to read it at the time of publication rather than now.
Hope you’re feeling a lot better by now, Cherie. Thanks for the review. Must confess I’ve been finding his recent work rather thin – maybe I just don’t especially like miniatures/intense focus on a small canvas … Bon weekend, C!
I am feeling much better now thank you
This is the only book of his that I have read.
Interesting day in the life concept.
Not the sort of day I would have liked to have had.
I thought this was a good book to Cherie. For once I have already read your bookclub book.
I think this was one of their more normal choices of book.
Good to see you back in action – you have it sorted?
The book review was interesting.
Apparently the fault was sent to the second line engineers to fix, the same as last time. They obviously don’t have their web server set up properly.
It seems the 24/7 support is really only 24/5 as nothing seems to happen at weekends!
Hope you had a great w/e, and were able to wield your camera to the full. So sorry you’re still having probs with your server, Cherie. Hope they get sorted soon … for my sake, of course
! Mx
There are photos a plenty, but only one of flowers. I shall post some later in the week when I have caught up after the posts I was supposed to be doing at the weekend
Good to see that you are back. I have been getting internal server error for the last few days!
Thank You
Everyone was getting the error including me. The server where my blog is hosted seemed to have broken again. The second time within 6 weeks!!!