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Friday, September 23, 2011

Master Georgie, Beryl Bainbridge

This novel relates the story of Master Georgie's life, as told in first-person narration by three different people who know him: a servant girl, his brother-in-law, and a sometime employee. I thought the author did a great job of revealing the character of each narrator in the narrator's voice. The ending did not satisfy me. I find as I get older that the hopes and desires of fictional characters seem hollow to me. I used to enter the secondary world with great gusto, and could almost believe myself an inhabitant of it. Now I am more aloof.

4 comments:

  1. So what happened in Master Georgie's life? What's the gist of the story? Would you read more by this author. Inquiring readers want to know. ;-)

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  2. I'm sorry. I was intentionally brief, hoping thereby to have enough time to catch up on all the books I'm behind on. No such luck.

    Not a whole lot happened in his life, in terms of major adventures. He did end up serving as a surgeon in the Crimean War, but the war serves more as a backdrop, a setting, than as a thrust of the plot.

    As I've thought about the book and your question, I have to say I think the book might be more about the three narrators than about Master Georgie himself. He is a unifying theme for them, but we really learn a whole lot more about the narrators, only we learn it obliquely.

    I would be willing to read more by Ms. Bainbridge, but would not ardently search out more.

    Does that help?

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  3. Yes, that helps! I'm always looking for new books although I'm more narrow in what I look for in books than you are. I admire the breadth of topics that your books cover. Wow! I'm more looking for a fun read that lets me explore a different world. Hence I don't like novels about depressing topics no matter how well written.

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  4. In that case skip 'Master Georgie.' I also forgot to mention that the ending was not happy. But you might like 'Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell,' if you haven't read it already.

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