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Book Reviews - Review 22

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Beryl Bainbridge


An Awfully Big Adventure

Category: Fiction | Published: 1989 | Review Added: 14-06-2008

Rating: 2 - I'd give it a miss if I were you

In 1950s Liverpool, 15-year-old Stella gets work as an assistant stage manager at the local theatre. The theatre company turns out to be a nest of sexual and emotional intrigue, in which Stella gets embroiled by falling for Meredith, the company director.

This is a book that anyone without a perfect memory will have to read twice, for things fall into place late on that cast earlier events and utterances in a new light. Personally, I don't feel inclined to do so. The characterisation I found sketchy and uncompelling, and Bainbridge's famously terse writing style, rather than uncluttering the narrative, simply makes it too dense to follow easily. There's very little physical description or analysis of the characters, of whom there are so many that their names remain mere markers; and their resemblance to one another in motivation and personality - they're almost all bitter, angry, vulnerable and manipulative - makes any attempt to distinguish them seem largely superfluous in any case.

Bainbridge clearly has a quick and retentive mind that keeps all the components of her stories in place while she writes, but she often misjudges how much of the information in her head she's conveying to the reader. This applies not just to the characters, but to the narrative: few scenes last more than two or three paragraphs, and the changes between them are abrupt and confusing.

In short, this is a novel that shows off more of Bainbridge's weaknesses than of her strengths. The latter - a mordant sense of humour, intuitive psychological understanding, and a quirky, sceptical take on the world - are better realised in The Bottle Factory Outing.

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