What do You think about The Shell Seekers (2004)?
I thought this book would be better for all its NYT Book Review (and other) praise, but it wasn't. Ostensibly a sprawling family saga centring around matriarch Penelope, it's basically the same 2 or 3 characters with different names playing out over three generations. If you're a "good" character, then you're independent, stubborn, glossy haired, tall, beautiful. You love France, holiday in Spain, dream of Cornwall, and believe in children out of wedlock and monied bohemian lifestyles (but not too monied, nor do you care too much about cashola, but it doesn't matter because it will come pouring down in the hundreds of thousands anyway). You know and namedrop all the same (white) (western) painters and authors. You joined the war effort due to the "cultured refugee faced" (I kid you not) Jews who rent rooms in your massive inherited London mansion. You are or love gardeners or artists or offspring of artists. You have a 50% chance of dying in the great war. If you're a "bad" character, you endlessly harp on class and money and other selfish concerns. You have no interest in intimacy or art or any higher calling than social climbing and your awful ugly children and awful ugly spouse or your anorexic supermodel lover of the mo. You are either ugly and empty or beautiful and empty. You hate gardeners. Everyone, regardless of integrity or intention, wants a scotch and soda. So why did I plow through 500+ pages of this? And even tear up at moments? Because the idea of lives fully lived is a powerful one and Ms. Pilcher tells a well paced story, even if it is written in a hackneyed trashy romance style. Certainly it wasn't hard to blow through, and it was sort of fun watching all the foils of the story unfold in mediocrity. I left my copy in Newark Airport on top of the recycling bin for someone else to take it up or pitch it in.
—Abeer Hoque
I can't exactly, truly, really file this under Burton Browbeating. But I'm doing it anyway because without Burton booktalking, I would probably not have picked this up. It's the kind of thing I used to read, sprawled on a raft, when there was all the time in the world for fat books about people the likes of whom I'd never met. It's easy, now, to be dismissive of that earlier self and all her indulgent habits. But she's still in there, and this book was exactly right for me now. I loved the people I was meant to love, and hated the bad guys. I rooted for the underdog, and caught my breath in hope. I was pleased by the ending, and suspect I will remember these characters long and well. There were some editing hiccups, and some iffy usage throughout, but it didn't matter much. The sweep of the story, and the clever way in which it unfolds, is lovely. A very enjoyable book, one I can see revisiting from time to time.
—Melody
From its supermarket cover (have you seen it? It felt embarrassing to have such a romantically embossed book in my hands) to its one-dimensional characters, the entire book reminded me of a heavyweight beach read. So....what should get a "nice summer read" review instead trips me up for weeks, unable to write anything about this book and a dozen others because I'm forced to question my reasoning. Why do I feel so bad about being critical of this book? Mostly, I think it's because many friends and readers I know love this book. But, I also think my stupor of thought is a result of a former self once being able to love this book. My tastes have changed.It's frustrating, because I think the themes Pilcher wrote about are serious enough to do well. Inheritance, greed, sentimentality, playing favorites with children, staying in a loveless marriage, putting a relationship that never fully developed on a pedestal because it escaped the inevitable boredom, irritation, and complacency that all relationships eventually go through. These are things you don't usually find underneath a flowery cover. Overall, The Shell Seekers didn't feel wholly honest to me. The situations did have a semblance of reality. I imagine most of us would have some serious introspection if we discovered a piece of art we owned was suddenly very valuable, especially any art we owned that was created by a beloved relative. However, the characters, written as people who you should like (Penelope, Olivia, Richard), or who you should not like (Nancy, Neil, horrible grandmother and husband whose names I can't remember) didn't have motives - or at least any that I understood. It appears to me that Pilcher confused having the coveted flawed character with having bad characters. Just because a character makes bad choices shouldn't make them bad. I wanted to know why Nancy and Neil cared more about money than their grandfather's painting. Was Neil a gambler and in debt and needed cash? Did Nancy think her marriage would fall apart if she didn't continue to be the lavish bride that her grandmother turned her into? Why in the world would Penelope stay in her never-should-have-happened-marriage when the author has done her best to describe her as a free-spirit, raised by an athiest father and French mother who both could have cared less if she married the father of her baby or took a lover while her husband (who she hoped would either die or leave her for someone else) was at war, who placed a nontraditional value to things (wasn't that the point of the the symbolic painting? Most people would care to know how much it was worth. But not Penelope, who would rather garden and feed people large meals)? Why were Neil and Nancy so shallow and greedy? Because they were genetically like their father and grandmother (who were also inexplicably bad)? Why did Olivia get such a free pass from her mother? Why did we have to invest so much time with her in Greece with her old and linen-clad lover (who I kept imaging as Kris Kristofferson. Odd)? Was I supposed to really care about her gardener's epilepsy? So many more questions that have no satisfying answers because, once again, I don't think this is meant as a serious book. In which case, I'm being snobby and critical. Or it was meant as a serious book and I'm being picky and callous. Or snobby and critical. Take your pick. Oh my...this is such a bad book review. For the confused, I'll tidy things up. I enjoyed the book. I'm disappointed it wasn't more. And that worries me. Because that means I'm a book snobOh....curse you, Shell Seekers! Why did I ever open your abysmal cover with flowers and shiny typeface?Why? Because there's a well known saying about books and their covers. And I fell for it.
—Lucy
