What do You think about Judgment Day (2003)?
I like Penelope Lively's books so much because of the warmth they convey and ability to draw me in. I actually read this years ago and was the first thing I downloaded on Kindle. It is an ejoyable short read which, particularly where the awkward vicar and the Waspish Mrs Paling were concerend, I found very humourous! I beleived the story to be set some time around 1980- we are given a feel for the time as well as the setting which helped me create an atmosphere for the book. The church is one of the main scenes and the 'Juedgement Day' scene of the title features a great deal. I picked up on the theme of judgement. Much of the activity of the book suggests how one person forms opinions of another be it from their circumstances, quirks or in this case, religion. This book perhaps gently insiniautes how these views we hold of others should be altered. The unexpected tragic ending ties everything together.
—Gillian
I love Penelope Lively's books, and I always find it so hard to describe why. They are generally quiet, without the bluster or bombast of so many novels, yet they are not cloying or claustrophobic. They are observational, but not overly full of description. Generally, I have to like a character in a book to like the book, but I don't feel that need with Lively's books. Certainly, there are characters I empathize with, and others that I dislike immensely, but I don't latch on to any one person.Judgment Day is very much a Lively novel, in all of those senses. Set in a small English village, it is centered around an ancient church and its neighbors, and the events that happen one spring and summer when they plan a church fundraiser. The fundraiser is to be a play based on several violent moments in the history of the village and church. Throughout the story, there is an undercurrent of tension, or possible violence, like a tiger waiting to spring, and you don't know until the end how or if it will strike. Several of the main characters ponder faith and fate and existence, as many people do, and come away changed, and yet the same, as most people do. Lives are changed forever, and not changed, as is so often the case in real life. A picture of a village, and a picture of the wider world.
—Hope
History persists and keeps playing out in people's lives, and it isn't always picturesque, although most people, like the amusingly annoying Miss Bellingham, much prefer the theme park version of it (quaint costumes, heritage buildings, maypole dancing). People are just as complicated and messy, hard, often impossible, to know, mysterious to us, yet in small moments we can see someone astonishingly clearly. And the whole thing is messy and shocking and joyous and painful and beautiful, sometimes all at the same time. Lively is a very good writer, with an eye for significant detail and patterns of meaning that feel like they arise out of the story and aren't imposed on top of it.
—Leslie
