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Book Review
Sep. 10th, 2009 08:44 pmOscar and Lucinda
by Peter Carey
I have now read three books by Peter Carey, and I have become a big fan of his writing. Oscar and Lucinda was every bit as good as I'd expected it to be, and then some. It is set in mid 19th century England and Australia and traces the lives of the title characters as they converge upon each other and fall in love. Oscar and Lucinda are both eccentric, prickly misfits who move uneasily through their own lives and their environments. Oscar is a passionate yet awkward and conflicted Anglican priest; Lucinda is an heiress and feminist who buys and runs a glass factory in Sydney. They are both also compulsive gamblers, which allows Carey to do some wonderful things with the motifs of risk, chance, compulsion, and faith.
Oscar and Lucinda remains fascinating from the first word to the last. I never got even briefly tired of it, and never felt that it lagged. The two main characters were continually interesting, as were the many secondary characters. Moreover, while the novel was both a love story and historical fiction, it defied the conventions of both, often going in a direction I hadn't at all expected.
by Peter Carey
I have now read three books by Peter Carey, and I have become a big fan of his writing. Oscar and Lucinda was every bit as good as I'd expected it to be, and then some. It is set in mid 19th century England and Australia and traces the lives of the title characters as they converge upon each other and fall in love. Oscar and Lucinda are both eccentric, prickly misfits who move uneasily through their own lives and their environments. Oscar is a passionate yet awkward and conflicted Anglican priest; Lucinda is an heiress and feminist who buys and runs a glass factory in Sydney. They are both also compulsive gamblers, which allows Carey to do some wonderful things with the motifs of risk, chance, compulsion, and faith.
Oscar and Lucinda remains fascinating from the first word to the last. I never got even briefly tired of it, and never felt that it lagged. The two main characters were continually interesting, as were the many secondary characters. Moreover, while the novel was both a love story and historical fiction, it defied the conventions of both, often going in a direction I hadn't at all expected.
