What do You think about Another World (2000)?
This is the first book by Pat Barker I have read, but it won't be the last. Okay...this book took ME FOREVER to read! Not because it was extremely long or anything, it was me. You know those stories that you should be interested in and normally you are, but you just arn't? This book was that book for me. A nice family drama mixed in with historical bits is usually right up my alley, but for some reason I didn't really care much about these people. Perhaps it was because I couldn't connect with them. I only cared about Gordie, the grandad who was dying. I felt horrible for him! Poor guy. He survived WWI and a stab to the gut from a bayonet. He survived cancer. However, in the end he had a stroke and had to live in misery the last few weeks of his life. Throughout the story while grandad is suffering from his troubled past and side-effects of the stroke, Nick and his family are being all butts and selfish. I just didn't care about Nick and his little family of drama-kings and drama-queens.After reading some other reviews, I guess the struggles of the family was suppose to somehow connect with grandad's WWI past. I guess I missed it. I have no idea. I really wished that the story was revolved around grandad more. Don't get me wrong...I loved Pat Barker's writing and I can't wait to read another of her books, but this was not the tale for me. I wouldn't really recommend this book to others, but I would suggest reading one of her other books. She's a wonderful author! She has great potential! There isn't much else to say and I feel bad that my review is relatively short. Oh well. Out of five stars I grant this one 1 star. :( Favorite Character(s): Gordie/GrandadNot-so Favorite Character(s): everyone else.
—Carole Rae
I quite enjoyed this book and warmed to the characters. However I did find that there were parts which could have been further developed, you were sort of left hanging. For example, the bullying episodes – would sending Gareth off to granny do the trick? And what about Barbara in the looney bin? Then, there was the ghost thing, what was that all about? Was there a ghost? What was the point of it? Did it have something to do with an idea of slipping in and out of time – different moments in time?There were some very good one-liners, although these too were somehow never developed i.e. p.9 … Barbara coming in from the garden…. He [Nick:] and Miranda exchanged glances, in it together. And then, less than a year later, he moved out and Miranda realized that while she was in it for life, he was merely in it for the duration of the marriage.p. 73 … If, as Nick believed you should go to the past, looking not for messages or warnings, but simply to be humbled by the weight of human experience that has preceded the brief flicker of your own few days…p. 87 The only true or useful thing that can be said about the past is that it’s over. p. 232 The fact is that birth and death both go on too long for those who watch beside the bed. The appropriate emotions dry up.I think one of the parts I enjoyed most was when Nick and Geordie go off to visit the cemetary. I enjoyed their relationship.
—Charlotte
Alrightish, but nothing special. I really loved Barker's 'Regeneration', but wasn't too keen on 'The Eye in the Door' since main character Billy Prior didn't interest me as much as Sassoon and Owen. I thought I'd pick this one up since it seemed to be dealing with trauma, memory, things like that. While those themes are brought into the narrative, they aren't explored as much as in the Regeneration-books. There are some other interesting themes here (moving forward, bullying, family relationships), but as some other reviewers pointed out the story just doesn't seem to add up. The different things going on aren't really connected (besides all happening in the vicinity of the main character) and the ending felt a bit unsatisfying. Still, it's a nice enough book. It's well-written, has some good characters (Geordie in particular) and is entertaining enough. However, I feel it would've been better if a few things, most notably the character development of Gareth and the ghostly girl, had been woven more tightly into the story.
—Mo
