Lily: A Tale of Revenge from the Sunday Times bestselling author

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Rescued from the aforementioned wolves by a kindly constable, the infant Lily is consigned to the Foundling Hospital. There she is to be inculcated with humility (her mother being a “shameful sinner”) and fitted in due course for some dismal occupation so that her debt to the upright can be discharged. In keeping with these grimly benevolent principles, she is “christened anew”. Henceforth, she will be Lily Mortimer, named for a high-born benefactress, as if to reinforce her own lowly station. Lily is a foundling, born in London but belonging nowhere. Her memory of a stint with foster parents, in a countryside setting which is a Constable sunset compared to the Doré hellscape that is Victorian London, sustains her through her later years at the Foundling Hospital. There, she is abused (in every sense of the word), isolated, desperate. Life regains a modicum of its early colour when she is apprenticed to a larger than life wigmaker - Lily finds a facsimile of family, of belonging. The darkness, though, remains - but it's in her soul, where she guards a fierce need for revenge, and later, a dark and terrible secret. As with other novels by Rose Tremain, her writing pulled me right into the story, and left me thinking about long after I'd finished reading. Különleges olvasmányélmény volt, de nem mondanám, hogy annyira tetszett, amiről olvastam. Persze ne legyünk naivak, túllépve Jane Austen habos-babos viktóriánus világán, tudjuk jól, hogy milyen volt az igazi élet az akkori Angliában. Azt hiszem ilyen volt: nyomasztó, sötét és reménytelen. Aki rossz helyre születik annak esélye sem volt, jóformán semmire. Mégis valahogy úgy éltem meg ezt a történetet, hogy sétálok valami borzasztó sötét helyen, már fel szeretném adni az egészet, mert nem bírom tovább, amikor hirtelen kikerülök a fényre, szinte minden átmenet nélkül. A vége végülis pozitív, merem remélni, már pedig remélünk, ettől ember az ember.

Tremain has given us a courageous and determined heroine in Lily. Despite the fact that she has little education and been shown scant affection, she is determined not to become ground down by her circumstances. Through the author’s portrayal of the characteristically vicious Victorian attitude to illegitimate children, she reinforces just how significant a child’s start in life is (perhaps echoes here of her previous memoir ‘Rosie’). Her formative years, spent in a rural idyll provides the strength she needs to believe in herself and, whilst some of her actions are morally wrong, who can blame her for what she does? Jóra” fordul. Hogyan fordulhat jóra annak az élete, aki soha senkinek nem volt fontos, és akit szüntelenül megaláztak? Hogyan lehet az ilyen ember más, mint bosszúszomjas? But fairy tales are often close to horror stories. Like all children at the Foundling Hospital, Lily spends her formative years with a foster family, in her case helmed by the lovingly maternal Nellie who lives on a Suffolk farm. At the age of six she is abruptly wrenched away (this was standard practice) and returned to the hospital where Tremain imagines a loveless climate of abuse on a par with that at Ireland’s Magdalene Laundries. Választ ugyan kevés dologra ad, sok az elvarratlan szál, sok a kérdőjel, de valahogy ez a ringatás-borzongás mégis megkapó. Meg kellett állnom vele többször, hogy ne rohanjak végig rajta együltő helyemben. Valahogy úgy éreztem, ehhez több idő kell. Ezt át kell érezni, bele kell élni magam, bizonyos gondolatokat megízlelni a nyelvem hegyén, ahogy hangosan kimondom őket. Rose Tremain, born in London in 1943, was one of only five women writers to be included in Granta’s original list of 20 Best of Young British Novelists in 1983. Her novels and short stories have been published worldwide in 27 countries and have won many prizes, including the Sunday buy cheap bactrim Express book of the Year Award (for Restoration, also shortlisted for the Booker Prize); the Prix Femina Etranger, France (for Sacred Country); the Whitbread Novel of the Year Award (for Music & Silence) and the Orange Prize for Fiction 2008 (for The Road Home). Restoration was filmed in 1995 and a stage version was produced in 2009. Her latest novel is the acclaimed The Gustav Sonata which sees Rose ‘writing at the height of her inimitable powers’ ( Observer).a b Rustin, Susanna (10 May 2003). "Profile: Rose Tremain". The Guardian . Retrieved 24 November 2018. Some parts of the book are utterly pointless and immature. Why do men fall helplessly in love with Belle Prettywood? Apparently she makes them orgasm (and make walrus sounds?) like no one else could. The whole searching for a grave for Belle is also pointless padding. In fact, much of the story about Belle was pointless. And for the person who shows Lily love, we don't know much about Belle; her character isn't developed sufficiently. The whole story about the lady making religious figurines who Lily thinks could be her mother was also pointless. Thinking about it, it seems like the author decided this book was going to just be a sad story with no other point. In that respect it was a success: a story which is great at describing a hopelessly horrible life of a person with no other point. Lily endures extreme emotional and physical suffering, much of it meted out by a particularly sadistic repressed lesbian. Later as an adult she builds a life of sorts as a seamstress but she has also committed an as yet undiscovered crime and cannot escape the conviction she is soon to hang.

I enjoyed the Anne with an e orphanage vibe. It was dark and gritty and how I like it. . the book is split between lily's pov as an adult and pov as a child and I def preferred her pov as a child because of this. I also liked the tone shift on the edgier scenes. I loved Nellie & Lilys relationship 💞 This may, at first, appear to be a ‘slight’ novel. It is no such thing. Another wholly involving, incredibly moving, and thought-provoking story from the incredibly talented Rose Tremain.

Marianne, being 15 and wildly enamoured with a distant teenaged Simon is affectionately driven to distraction hoping to “ascend to heaven together in the pale blue Morris Minor”

It’s a moving tale, frustrating in parts, heart-breaking in others. I have to admit to skimming a few parts of the book, really just because I wanted to see where this was all going. Parts of the story are told in retrospect, which can be a bit frustrating, but slowly the tale is told. I was pleased to receive a NetGally ARC to review, but I’ll be purchasing the book for another read when it comes out. Váratlanul ért Rose Tremain stílusa. A könyvtárunkban annak idején nagyot ment a „Gustáv- szonáta” meg a „Zene és csend”, de én valahogy a „Lily”-re figyeltem fel. A borító nem tetszik különösebben. Nagyjából értem mit fejez ki, és hogy miért ilyen, de mégis, valahogy sokkal letisztultabbak a korábbi Tremain fedlapok. A címe sem különös, és a szedése is nagyon levegős. Mindezekből kiindulva sokkal inkább egy történelmi romantikus zsánerhez közel álló szépirodalmi műre számítottam, mint erre a történetre. Nagyon megérintett, nem tudtam elvonatkoztatni, hogy ez csak egy regény, valószínűleg voltak olyanok, akiknek ezt át kellett élni. Novelist Rose Tremain appointed as new UEA chancellor". BBC News. 14 April 2013 . Retrieved 9 May 2014.Lily is a wonderful creation - diffident and trying to find her place in the world... But it's Tremain's attention to detail that really sets this novel apart Ian Critchley, Literary Review This subtle and short novel has the power and depth of a story twice as long. Rose Tremain captures and crystallises the emotions and suppressions within the life of Marianne Clifford and the people around her ( middle class England in the late 1950s into the 1960s). The story follows Marianne from the age of 15 when she falls in love with Simon Hurst and embarks on a brief but intense relationship which controls and defines her over the forthcoming years. When Simon moves to Paris after failing his university exams, Marianne is left to endure the “torture” of teenage love and rejection and the wrath of her parents as she struggles to enter the world of “acceptability “As her life moves forward, she is still trapped in the thoughts of what might have been .. The world around Marianne changes as the sixties progresses - guided by her friend Petronella - she is aware of the freedom and liberations that are evolving but somehow she falters.Personal tragedies and changes in circumstance move Marianne forward but the power of the past is never far from her mind… Marianne is naive, and for a lot of her life, her naivety stays through to her adulthood and shapes decisions she makes.

London, 1850. On a freezing winter's night, a baby is abandoned at the gates of a park only to be saved by a young policeman and taken to the Foundling Hospital. Abandoned at the gates of a London park one winter’s night in 1850, baby Lily Mortimer is saved by a young police constable and taken to the London Foundling Hospital. Lily is fostered by an affectionate farming family in rural Suffolk, enjoying a brief childhood idyll before she is returned to the Hospital, where she is punished for her rebellious spirit. Released into the harsh world of Victorian London, Lily becomes a favoured employee at Belle Prettywood’s Wig Emporium, but all the while she is hiding a dreadful secret… I was so excited to review the latest offering from the brilliant Rose Tremain and ‘Absolutely and Forever’ did not disappoint, it was everything I had hoped for and more. I see there is some criticism of the switching timelines. However, I feel added to the story as it unravelled slowly and served an important purpose in strengthening the connection between the past and present, as well as building empathy for the protagonist as we see her childhood.

I had high hopes for this book. While it did keep my interest (and I read it in one sitting), this is only because I’m interested in the period and the subject. Unfortunately it was quite dull and not the ‘tale of revenge’ expected. It felt like the author was trying to rewrite Hetty Feather for adults. Rose Tremain's 'Gustav Sonata' wins Ribalow Prize for Jewish fiction". Jewish Telegraphic Agency. 25 January 2018 . Retrieved 11 June 2019. There was a whole section during which Lily tries to find out if a certain woman is her mother, but she has no reason to believe she is. A regény szerkezete elsőre töredezettnek tűnik, rendszertelenül ugrál az időben, látszólag logikátlanul idéz fel eseményeket, és indokolatlanul ragad ki epizódokat Lily jelenéből. Aztán találtam egy második főszereplőt a regényben és hirtelen megalapozottnak tűnt minden jelenet. Az első pillanattól fogva ott ólálkodik a háttérben a halál. Annyira, hogy időközben, az árnyékok közt főszereplővé válik. A temetős jelenet például látszólag nem illik a történetbe (elsőre feleslegesnek tűnik), de aztán úgy éreztem ez a Halál nagyjelenete vagy a főpróbája. Nehéz eldönteni, mert bár kétségtelenül az ő szerepének ez a csúcspontja, de itt mégsem ér véget. Az utolsó oldalakig főszerepben van az elmúlás ígérete. Hátborzongató. Összetett, és sokrétű a mondanivalója. ben egy fiatal rendőr egy londoni parkban talál egy csecsemőt. Lily Mortimer árvaházban cseperedik, aztán vidékre kerül, nevelőszülőkhöz. Gyermekkorát Suffolkban tölti. Amikor dolgozni kezd, Belle Prettywood londoni parókaszalonjában talál munkát. Látszólag minden rendben, de Lily mindeközben borzasztó titkot őriz.