Nothing like recovering from New Year celebrations than to read the fifteenth novel by Jennifer Johnston: family Christmas. Or see how Christmas otherwise ...
The family in question is found in this Christmas Eve at the bedside of Henry. You learn very quickly that it suffered a terrible car accident and he will recover. But who is Henry? Gradually, the reader and the character himself - the latter has lost some memory - will get to know this loving husband and fickle, this father loved but not always measure up, the son of both adulation and cursed. Relatives appear, by turns at his bedside: his first wife, Stephanie, dynamic woman who does not know what to think of the state of one who broke her heart some years ago and the role it is expected to play, his daughter, Ciara, beautiful redhead who fervently expresses the joy of find a father she has not seen for a long time, his son Donough, who has just come out courageously, his brother, George, with whom Henry has fallen out for some mysterious reason that there are many years and his mother, Tash, woman painter, independent and flamboyant, which has always preferred his paintings to his son and begins to feel come the first signs of old age and finally, the beautiful Jeremy's brother, his second wife, died in the accident and that he can not remember strangely.
All the ingredients of a disastrous Christmas, so where should emerge more family secrets, old grudges and blows the lowest. Yet the subtlety of Jennifer Johnston made sure that all the cliches are avoided. No family feuds, no turkey that flies over the table, not the least glass of wine thrown in the face of another. The characters family Christmas will instead take advantage of what this strange time for Christmas getting closer, to discover, find and recover to live.
No melodrama either, however: the snow does not fall at midnight, or the chimes to ring. There is not even, strictly speaking, a happy ending. Pathos, Jennifer JOHNSTON prefer comedy, although it is sometimes jarring.
Let's add to that numerous references to Shakespeare (the original title is also fatal Absurd, the famous phrase Dream of a Summer Night ), a breathless narrative made of short chapters alternating between the different points view and the retrospections As Henry recovers memory, a statement on the Irish society of today and existential questions about identity (possibly sexual) character (references to Shakespeare always?).
short, a book that makes us say that next year, I promise, it will go without a priori Eve!
Reference:
A family Christmas, Jennifer Johnston, translated from English by Anne Damour Belfond, October 2009. Pocket Edition: 10/18, Domain abroad in December 2010.
The family in question is found in this Christmas Eve at the bedside of Henry. You learn very quickly that it suffered a terrible car accident and he will recover. But who is Henry? Gradually, the reader and the character himself - the latter has lost some memory - will get to know this loving husband and fickle, this father loved but not always measure up, the son of both adulation and cursed. Relatives appear, by turns at his bedside: his first wife, Stephanie, dynamic woman who does not know what to think of the state of one who broke her heart some years ago and the role it is expected to play, his daughter, Ciara, beautiful redhead who fervently expresses the joy of find a father she has not seen for a long time, his son Donough, who has just come out courageously, his brother, George, with whom Henry has fallen out for some mysterious reason that there are many years and his mother, Tash, woman painter, independent and flamboyant, which has always preferred his paintings to his son and begins to feel come the first signs of old age and finally, the beautiful Jeremy's brother, his second wife, died in the accident and that he can not remember strangely.
All the ingredients of a disastrous Christmas, so where should emerge more family secrets, old grudges and blows the lowest. Yet the subtlety of Jennifer Johnston made sure that all the cliches are avoided. No family feuds, no turkey that flies over the table, not the least glass of wine thrown in the face of another. The characters family Christmas will instead take advantage of what this strange time for Christmas getting closer, to discover, find and recover to live.
No melodrama either, however: the snow does not fall at midnight, or the chimes to ring. There is not even, strictly speaking, a happy ending. Pathos, Jennifer JOHNSTON prefer comedy, although it is sometimes jarring.
Let's add to that numerous references to Shakespeare (the original title is also fatal Absurd, the famous phrase Dream of a Summer Night ), a breathless narrative made of short chapters alternating between the different points view and the retrospections As Henry recovers memory, a statement on the Irish society of today and existential questions about identity (possibly sexual) character (references to Shakespeare always?).
short, a book that makes us say that next year, I promise, it will go without a priori Eve!
Reference:
A family Christmas, Jennifer Johnston, translated from English by Anne Damour Belfond, October 2009. Pocket Edition: 10/18, Domain abroad in December 2010.
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