Books on the Broad reading group online discussion of God's Own Country by Ross Raisin Online discussion started 20 April, 2009, with comments on the first chapter only in the first week to allow people time to come on board. Complimentary copies of this book were distributed during The Readers' Voice Convention. If you wish to join in the discussion then you should email to BooksontheBroadmail@gmail.com to start the registration process. Once you have registered you will be able to add comments and to make attachments to these pages. Add your comments on chapter 3 - 12 below. To add your comments on chapters 13 - 19 click here. You can use the navigation bar on the left to move between sections and add further comments back and forth as you wish. |
The remark about lack of speech marks is interesting. Perhaps the omission makes for a half-way house between direct and reported speech, so that the slant is more from Sam's point of view ie. what people say is filtered through his (usually caustic) observations e.g. "She was at it again. Laughing away, what a man you are, let me just steady myself against the van here." (p.7) I find the style original and very assured. Mostly we're inside Sam's thoughts, so that what he sees (narrated events) is sometimes not distinguished from his imaginings - not a good sign of mental stability! e.g where he is watching the tupping session and the narrative slides from the ewe via his jealous thoughts to the girl - "the ewe just let him (..) I knew she was liking it because her hand tightened into a fist(...)" - and then on to her embarrassment- "I should get going" . I'm up to page 90 and still very impressed by the vividness of it all. I enjoyed the scene in the pub-thought it was very closely observed; also Sam's attempt to revenge himself on his rival with the blowfly vaccine. This would have been hilarious if not for the thought of the vaccine and its consequences -for all concerned. The thing is, I always feel sympathetic towards Sam, whilst being on edge about the harm he might do. There's narrative tension for you!