Book Review
Dec. 10th, 2008 08:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kenjariNotes on a Scandal
by Zoe Heller
I found this novel quite absorbing - I even missed my T stop one evening because of it. Notes On a Scandal is narrated by Barbara Covett, a lonely spinster schoolteacher who develops a close friendship with Sheba, the new art teacher at the high school where Barbara teaches. At the same time that this friendship develops, Sheba engages in a dangerous, not to mention illegal, affair with a 15 year old male student. Barbara is the only one in whom Sheba confides regarding this affair. As Barbara inserts herself more and more into Sheba's life, Sheba's affair becomes more unstable and more obsessional. We also begin to see that Barbara's friendship with Sheba is not wholesome either. However, since Barbara is the narrator, this last aspect of the story is revealed in a deliciously slow and subtle way.
Despite the nature of the titular scandal, this novel is not at all salacious or melodramatic. Instead, Heller gives us a penetrating portrait of two women and their relationship. Heller does not make either character particularly likable, nor does she make them two-dimensional. Sheba is not simply a pervert, nor is Barbara simply a predatory manipulator. It's all much more interesting than that.
by Zoe Heller
I found this novel quite absorbing - I even missed my T stop one evening because of it. Notes On a Scandal is narrated by Barbara Covett, a lonely spinster schoolteacher who develops a close friendship with Sheba, the new art teacher at the high school where Barbara teaches. At the same time that this friendship develops, Sheba engages in a dangerous, not to mention illegal, affair with a 15 year old male student. Barbara is the only one in whom Sheba confides regarding this affair. As Barbara inserts herself more and more into Sheba's life, Sheba's affair becomes more unstable and more obsessional. We also begin to see that Barbara's friendship with Sheba is not wholesome either. However, since Barbara is the narrator, this last aspect of the story is revealed in a deliciously slow and subtle way.
Despite the nature of the titular scandal, this novel is not at all salacious or melodramatic. Instead, Heller gives us a penetrating portrait of two women and their relationship. Heller does not make either character particularly likable, nor does she make them two-dimensional. Sheba is not simply a pervert, nor is Barbara simply a predatory manipulator. It's all much more interesting than that.
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Date: 2008-12-16 03:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-16 01:03 pm (UTC)