Going Gently by David Nobbs, 0708992870, Lowest Book Price Finder

Customer Reviews:

Writer in top form

I've always found David Nobbs a bit frustrating. I wish he would exercise some quality control. Some of his books are decidedly ordinary while other really are top notch. Along with the Henry Pratt books, I think this is his best work. Well written, well paced, original and frankly a damn good book. To see how good a contemporary British popular author can be, look no further than this or the Pratt books.

A DEATH BED COMEDY

Who else but David Nobbs could write about a woman lying in hospital on her death bed and make a novel moving and hilarious by turns as Kate Copson remembers her life from her early elopement through a string of failed relationships including a pretentious artist who turns failure into success when his works are accidently hung upside down! We grow to love the spirited Kate and her tempestuous life and are only sorry when she has to take her leave.

Mick Drake author of the comic novel All`s Well at Wellwithoute.

David Nobbs at his best

Having just finished reading this wonderful book for the third time, I am once again left completely satisfied by the read and yet utterly bereft to have reached the end.
As another reviewer observed, Nobbs hits precisely the right note of intertwining comedy/tragedy as two sides of the same coin. Kate was a witty, charming and deeply lovable character, seemingly able to hold her own in any situation, except perhaps in the area of her heart. The accounts of her various relationships/marriages are described to perfection, each quite different, yet all profoundly moving, illustrating the fact that life is not black and white: that you can love someone you are not with, or be with someone who you do not love (enough). The supporting characters are colourful and diverse, from the rather dull and conventional offspring of Kate herself (so often true that the children of someone extraordinary are very ordinary), to the various eccentricities of her parents and extended family: her spinster sister Enid and her tactless and outspoken sister-in-law Bunny. Nobbs is the master of the understatement, and often says much more about his characters in a few well chosen words than another writer could in a chapter.
For anyone who has not read David Nobbs before, this novel is a jewel in his crown, but the crown is heavily bejewelled, and the "Bit of a do" novels and the Pratt series are also well worth dipping into.

Awful

Having read the wonderful newspaper and readers' reviews, I was expecting a genuinely clever and witty read - along the lines of the excellent Jonathan Coe. However, after a good first sentence ( the same line/Joke being repeated throughout taking away it's initial wit) the book went gently downhill.

The book had an overall feeling of callousness and coldness - with no endearing characters and very little warmth/humanity in evidence.

I was unsure whether Kate's character was meant to be a Bohemian with 'modern' attitudes toward sexual relationships? Was she a ladette before her time/out of context? Was she a female character, created by a male author attempting to present a liberated female - but sadly failing and creating a blokish character with a crude and cold atitude toward everyone around her?

It was difficult to identify the humour - especially for the scenes set in the hospital ward. Is the concept of immobile older people, with varying degrees of dementia, 'farting' funny?

There are many witty, cleverly constructed 'comic novels' out there to choose from...give them a try.

Going Gently by David Nobbs

No-one does it better - makes you laugh and cry at the same time that is - than David Nobbs.

His portrait of a woman, Kate Copson, and her family is brilliant.

Nobbs' book opens as Kate is on her death bed. She is days away from her 100th birthday. She has had a stroke but while her body is immobile her mind can move anywhere it likes.

She chooses to take the reader on a review of her eventful, sex-filled, love-laden life.

She is determined to live but she also has a political conscience, dignity and compassion.

This novel is filled with laughs - but will also produce many a tear as Kate looks back on her failures and victories, her husbands and her family lovers.

Written in true Nobbs' I didn't get to be the writer I am today without striving to understand human nature and the meaning of life, it is unputdownable.

Loved this Nobbs book the most except for A Bit of A Do. There is a lot of Kate Copson in Rita Simcock. But while Rita starts by being an ugy duckling who becomes a swan, Kate is never anything but beautiful and outstanding.

Nobbs always seems to be in love with his leading ladies - and invites his readers to fall for them too.

Every woman who reads this book, wants to be Kate, loved, loving having lived her life to the full faces death without fear.

Confirms Nobbs as the best writer of comedy and observer of human nature known to British literature.

His nuances of language are as perfect as his ability to twist a knife so gently you don't feel it sting til it's pierced your heart.

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