How It All Began: A Novel Author: Penelope Lively | Language: English | ISBN:
B005OW8GVO | Format: PDF
How It All Began: A Novel Description
A vibrant new novel from Penelope Lively—
a wry, wise story about the surprising ways lives intersect When Charlotte Rainsford, a retired schoolteacher, is accosted by a petty thief on a London street, the consequences ripple across the lives of acquaintances and strangers alike. A marriage unravels after an illicit love affair is revealed through an errant cell phone message; a posh yet financially strapped interior designer meets a business partner who might prove too good to be true; an old-guard historian tries to recapture his youthful vigor with an ill-conceived idea for a TV miniseries; and a middle-aged central European immigrant learns to speak English and reinvents his life with the assistance of some new friends.
Through a richly conceived and colorful cast of characters, Penelope Lively explores the powerful role of chance in people's lives and deftly illustrates how our paths can be altered irrevocably by someone we will never even meet. Brought to life in her hallmark graceful prose and full of keen insights into human nature,
How It All Began is an engaging, contemporary tale that is sure to strike a chord with her legion of loyal fans as well as new readers. A writer of rare wisdom, elegance, and humor, Lively is a consummate storyteller whose gifts are on full display in this masterful work.
- File Size: 418 KB
- Print Length: 240 pages
- Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0670023442
- Publisher: Penguin Books; Reprint edition (January 5, 2012)
- Sold by: Penguin Group (USA) LLC
- Language: English
- ASIN: B005OW8GVO
- Text-to-Speech: Enabled
X-Ray:
- Lending: Not Enabled
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #11,360 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
- #49
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Literary Fiction > Psychological
- #49
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Literary Fiction > Psychological
Penelope Lively has given us a novel that illustrates how one misdeed can affect many people. She does so, of course, in her own indomitable style.
The author tells us that the plot is inspired by The Chaos Theory:
'Chaos theory studies the behavior of dynamical systems that are highly sensitive to initial conditions, an effect which is popularly referred to as the butterfly effect. Small differences in initial conditions (such as those due to rounding errors in numerical computation) yield widely diverging outcomes for chaotic systems, rendering long-term prediction impossible in general.' Wikipedia
Charlotte, a woman of indeterminate age, but probably in her seventies, is mugged. She is thrown to the ground, breaking her hip, and her money is taken. That one incident has an affect on at least seven more people. While recuperating, Charlotte goes to live with her daughter, Rose, and Rose's husband, Gerry. Charlotte finds it difficult to be dependent on others, Rose works as a personal secretary to an elderly Lord, an independent scholar, Lord Henry Peters. He suffers from a fading memory, but his ego has him believing that his words command everyone's attention. Henry's niece, Marion, a bit self centered, is an interior designer. Her work has slowed to almost no work. She has also taken up with a married man, Jeremy. Jeremy is a purveyor of other people's junk, and a man who wants it all. His wife, Stella, is a nervous wreck, and she takes a multitude of medications. They have two daughters, and Stella has a sister, Gill, who would drive anyone to drink. Stella reads a text message one day that changes the course of her life. Back to Charlotte, she is a teacher to immigrants who have difficulty reading English.
Once in a while, a work of fiction comes along that is eloquent, satirical, literate, warm, and engaging. Penelope Lively's "How It All Began" is one such novel. The epigraph is about the famous "butterfly effect": One seemingly insignificant event (such as the flapping of a butterfly's wings) can ultimately set off a chain reaction that influences the weather in a distant locale. In Lively's scenario, it all begins in London with the mugging of Charlotte Rainsford by "a fourteen-year-old with behavioral problems." As a result, Charlotte has a broken hip and her daughter, Rose Donovan, insists that it would best for her mother to recuperate at home with Rose and her husband, Gerry. This throws a monkey wrench into Rose's planned excursion to Manchester with her boss, a septuagenarian and historian named Lord Henry Peters. While Rose is busy getting her mother settled, Henry enlists his niece, Marion Clark, an interior designer, to fill in; consequences ensue that will affect Marion's life, as well. In fact, it is safe to say that few people emerge unchanged at the end of this tale.
Rarely has an author assembled such an absorbing cast. Henry Peters is "newly retired, brisk and self-important." Although he was once a force to be reckoned with in academia, his opinions are no longer sought after. In his declining years, he is self-absorbed, moody, and resentful of the infirmities of old age, which he considers "an insult" and "a slap in the face." Seventy-six year old Charlotte, who treasures her independence, appreciates Rose's attentiveness and concern. However, Charlotte is restless, sometimes in excruciating pain, and impatient to resume her normal routines. She also dislikes being "on the edge of things now, clinging on to life's outer rim.
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