Advantages: Good story, enjoyable writing and exciting ending Disadvantages: No epilogue
Background
I'm sure most people have heard of this author Ian Rankin through the Rebus books and television series. This was however my first experience of his work.
About the Author
Ian Rankin was born in Fife, Scotland in 1960. He is the UK's Number 1 selling crime author. So far he has written 27 novels, of which his most successful have been the Rebus books. His first novel was indeed 'The Flood', which originally was planned for Radio 4's Short story section but was considered too long so Rankin converted it into a novel instead.
He has received many awards for his work including an OBE in 2002 for his services to literature.
The Storyline of the book
The book is set in a small Scottish town called Carsden. Whose traditional industry of coal mining was closing down due to it being uneconomic to mine there any ...
Advantages: Inexpensive, makes good basic coffee Disadvantages: Tiny tank capacity means filling it every time. A bit noisy
Oh yes, make that three appliances that have crapped out on us in recent months, having had very little real use ? our Party Gear iPod dock, our Rexel Shredder and now our Morphy Richards Espresso machine that promised so much with its prestigious build quality and yet lasted three years of merely occasional domestic use.
With hindsight, the perceived build-quality of the latter appears to have been ?all fur coat and no knickers?. I can?t bring myself to scroll back through my opinions to find out how much it cost, but it was over a ton, of that I?m sure. I?d only upset myself anyway.
IT HAD TO GO
It?ll come as no surprise that I?ve decided to buy something cheaper, covered with an extended warranty this time. Hence it was that I recently found myself in Comet paying £70 for a DeLonghi Treviso, but before you all start ...
Advantages: short, well written, poignant Disadvantages: cold
a largely pre-determined inevitability to what happened and ensued, or whether is was a result of a momentary decision made by one or both of them, understandable in the context of their personalities and the mores of the time, but ultimately not inevitable until it actually happened.
What I found the most gripping was the rendition of Florence's emotions, thoughts, but most of all, perceptions of the sexual contact. McEwan has been nominated for the bad sex award for this book, but I think unjustly so. The stilted language used to describe the limited sexual experiences of Edward (and the imaginations of Florence) is a reflection of the idiom of the time, while the detailed account of the wedding night's disaster workes brilliantly to de-familiarise the experience normally coloured by desire and vividly shows how the sexual act (and, even ...