The Illuminations: A Novel, by Andrew O'Hagan
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The Illuminations: A Novel, by Andrew O'Hagan
Read and Download The Illuminations: A Novel, by Andrew O'Hagan
Longlisted for the 2015 Man Booker PrizeThe Illuminations, the fifth novel from Andrew O'Hagan, a writer "of astonishingly assured gifts" (The New York Times Book Review), is a work of deeply charged beauty--and one that demonstrates, with poignancy and power, that no matter how we look at it, there is no such thing as an ordinary life.
Anne Quirk's life is built on stories--the lies she was told by the man she loved and the fictions she told herself to survive. Nobody remembers Anne now, but in her youth she was an artistic pioneer, a creator of groundbreaking documentary photographs. Her beloved grandson Luke, a captain with the Royal Western Fusiliers in the British army, has inherited her habit of transforming reality. When his mission in Afghanistan goes horribly wrong, he returns to Scotland, where the secrets that have shaped his family begin to emerge. He and Anne set out to confront a mystery from her past among the Blackpool Illuminations--the dazzling lights that brighten the seaside town as the season turns to winter.
The Illuminations: A Novel, by Andrew O'Hagan- Amazon Sales Rank: #180396 in Books
- Brand: O'Hagan, Andrew
- Published on: 2015-03-24
- Released on: 2015-03-24
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.54" h x 1.01" w x 5.78" l, 1.00 pounds
- Binding: Hardcover
- 304 pages
Review
“Andrew O'Hagan has created a story that is both a howl against the war in Afghanistan and the societies that have blindly abetted it, and a multilayered, deeply felt tale of family, loss, memory, art, loyalty, secrecy and forgiveness.” ―Dani Shapiro, The New York Times Book Review
“[The Illuminations] moves with bold, imaginative daring and a troubled intensity between men at war and women with their children, between Scotland and Afghanistan, between photography and fiction, and between memory and secrets . . . The virtuosity of the novel, and also its riskiness, is in the violent contrast between the world of women, families and art, and the world of war . . . [The Illuminations] is using the real world to ask real, difficult and important questions: about how the truth gets reshaped and rearranged, and about whether, under every kind of circumstance, it is possible to be true to yourself.” ―Hermione Lee, The Guardian
“It's a measure of O'Hagan's compassion that after balancing these stories of war and family - braving the battlefield and braving the passing of time - the ultimate note is hopeful and almost gentle, of something that seems real and vital.” ―Lucy Daniel, The Telegraph
“[The Illuminations] is immensely generous and wholly committed to conveying the complex intelligence of its large and varied cast of characters. The men and women who meet in these pages are as full of contradictions, and as mysterious to others--and to themselves--as real human beings . . . The novel is at once dramatically plotted and leisurely enough to sustain a series of meditations on consciousness, memory, loyalty, identity, friendship, love, and history . . . The Illuminations misses nothing, and we can be grateful for the energy and the intelligence with which O'Hagan has presented us with the complexity of human consciousness, and has managed to convey both the beauty and the harshness of the world in which his characters--and his readers--live.” ―Francine Prose, Prospect
“Andrew O'Hagan could well win the Man Booker prize of this, his fifth work of fiction. Myself I'd give The Illuminations two Bookers . . . You could argue (as I would) that only in fiction as good as this will you find war, sex, nationalism and the care of the elderly, truthfully handled. The illuminations is a novel which validates the greatness of fiction in hands as masterly as Andrew O'Hagan. Read it and see what I mean.” ―John Sutherland, The Times (UK)
“As if it is not enough that Andrew O'Hagan can write like an angel, one has to add that he does it in the style of an intelligent angel.” ―Norman Mailer on Andrew O'Hagan
“The Illuminations is a natural extension of O'Hagan's earlier work (aided in part by the reappearance of characters from previous novels) but also an elaborate and ambitious departure from it . . . with two Booker Prize-nominations to his name, [O'Hagan] is a skilled yet criminally undervalued storyteller. With luck, this masterful novel will bring him the wider readership he deserves.” ―Malcolm Forbes, Star Tribune
“The Illuminations is deftly orchestrated and quietly moving . . . This British author is a master of making readers care about all of his characters. Their very flaws draw us into their inner complexity. No reader dares to cast a stone.” ―Dan Cryer, The San Francisco Chronicle
About the Author Andrew O'Hagan is one of Britain's most exciting and serious contemporary writers. He has twice been short-listed for the Man Booker Prize. He was voted one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists in 2003. He has won the Los Angeles Times Book Award and the E. M. Forster Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He is the author of Our Fathers, Be Near Me, The Illuminations, among other books. He lives in London.
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Most helpful customer reviews
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful. Fading Images By Roger Brunyate Look up Blackpool on the Internet. The largest seaside resort on the Northwest coast of England, it drew mainly working-class holidaymakers from the industrial North and Scotland, reaching its peak in the middle of the last century, when major stars would play its theaters, but it has not been able to compete with cheap fares to warmer resorts abroad. Blackpool has long been famous for its extensive illuminations that light up its promenades, piers, and miniature Eiffel Tower. The tarnished glamor of the resort in former days is an emotional point of reference in Andrew O'Hagan's latest novel, even though he does not take us to those particular illuminations until the very end. But the metaphorical associations of the title resonate throughout.Most of O'Hagan's book is divided between the Ayrshire coast of Scotland (setting of his peerless BE NEAR ME, one of whose characters makes a brief appearance here), and Afghanistan. The two principal characters are Anne Quirk, a former photographer now an elderly woman living in a retirement community, and her devoted grandson Luke Campbell, who is a Captain in the British army. I have to say it is a difficult book to follow at first. Anne is succumbing to senile dementia, and little of her conversation makes everyday sense. Though university educated and a thinker, Luke spends much of the novel with the soldiers in his armored vehicle, and the constant barrage of obscene insults in various regional dialects comes pretty close to unintelligibility. The Afghan scenes had a certain element of déjà vu for me, I think from my recent reading of THE HUMAN BODY by Paolo Giordano, but maybe it is simply that both authors took care to show it like it is.Neither story is as simple as it seems. Anne Quirk has been a photographer in her youth, a true artist and something of a pioneer. The author implies that he was inspired by the Scottish Canadian photographer Margaret Watkins, although the biographies don't quite match. Anne's talent emerges gradually through O'Hagan's words, but seeing the pictures which were his inspiration adds an extra glow to the novel in retrospect. Most of Anne's thoughts now are centered on Blackpool, where she met her husband, Harry Blake, a war photographer and hero in his own right. It gradually becomes clear, though, that constructing stories is not merely a symptom of Anne's illness, but something she has been doing her entire life, professionally and otherwise. And when things go horribly wrong in Afghanistan, and Luke returns to Scotland, he too must shape some kind of narrative that makes sense of who he is and what he lives for.I am somewhere between four and five stars on this one. There is much more in the book than I have described -- for example, riffs on the secrets and resentments endemic to extended families -- and at times I felt it lacked focus. But the gentle process of illumination, carefully letting the light in as a photographer does when developing a film, is one that I find quite beautiful, ultimately persuading me to round up rather than down.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful. Choppy, unfocused, unfelt By A Reader This is a strangely choppy novel, splitting focus between an elderly woman with dementia (Anne, a photographer now living in a housing complex with a lonely neighbor), and Anne's grandson, fighting in, and then leaving (in great psychic conflict) Afghanistan. Anne's dementia takes her into the past, where she remembers, in the vague reminiscenses of the very old, her love affair with another photographer. Her daughter Alice feels abandoned by her. Poor Alice pours out her betrayed heart to anyone who will listen. Although the reason for her abandonment is eventually revealed, it's hard to feel any impact because it's explained, not dramatized. There's much talk of emotions but that's all you get, a lot of talk about it, a lot of distance from it (and a lot of soldier jargon that felt even more false to me). Anne's grandson, Luke, feels a special bond with her but it's almost impossible to know why. He behaves like an example of an idealized person, not a real person. As a memory piece this does not work at all. The structure is messy, emotional life has no impact on the reader. The focus wanders all over the place, which is maybe the point, but as a result it was very difficult to feel anything for anyone. I couldn't really tell you what the point of the story was, although I'm pretty certain we're meant to draw conclusions about the parallel lives lived here. It didn't add up to much for me though, honestly. Very tedious novel.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful. A wonderfully drawn set of characters providing an interesting link to ... By TFoss A wonderfully drawn set of characters providing an interesting link to life as it is versus life as we'd like it to be... It turns out that the truth may not, after all, set us free... But from one person's "truth" another may be able to come to terms with his own. At times poignant, at times messy, I can see clearly why this book was short-listed for the Man-Booker... A wonderful read, and highly recommended.
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