Kepler's 2020 Project in the News:
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This novel offers a great deal to chew through. It’s not a simple story, or an easy one, but it’s satisfying in a way that is both devastating and honest, and almost frighteningly broad. There are glorious English summers here, children’s stories and marionettes, good people and ordinary people and people you hate more every time they appear. There are tragedies and art and a world tumbling down into the unbelievable horror of World War I.
It’s hard for me to be precise about how this book made me feel. It unfolded itself inside my head and filled its various landscapes with characters, a whole horde of them, that grew up, bumped against each other, had secrets and told lies, fell in love. They were, while I read, so extremely real, and they dragged me into their England, which was full of history and change. I don’t usually like epics and this book is enormous in complexity as well as length, but all the little strands of it are true, recognizable things that latch in and compel you to keep reading because you need to know what happens to all the people who are suddenly living inside your head. Reviewed by Megan K. |
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