Engaging but ultimately unconvincing
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There are some parts of this book that you cannot help but enjoy: the lack of glamour in the running of a provincial theatre where the cast complain about "the digs" and are forever tripping over carelessly discarded brooms and suchlike back stage. Bainbridge tries to do something more than just satirise the egos of minor celebs, however, she wants her main character, Stella, to go on a journey of discovery and this is where the book monumentally fails. Some revewiers have compared the denoument to "The Sixth Sense"; unfortunately it is nowhere near as good. By the end we already know that Stella is psychologically unbalanced by the way she quickly falls for Meredith (though we never learn precisely why) and the wayshe allows herself to be used and abused by multiple men throughout the book. Given the subject matter and characters Bainbridge could have done a lot more with this than she does. The writing is imaginative and I personally enjoyed the occassional flourishes of flowery prose usually employed when describing something quite mundane, but ultimately the plot could have been better.
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Over-written and often unpleasant
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Bainbridge is an impressive writer, but so far from having a spare prose style, she has a tendency to over-write, for example: 'when the taxi, girdled by pigeons, swooshed from the curb'. The plot is intricate and the characterisation effective, but the book frequently contains disturbing incidents which are not necessary to the main theme, for instance: 'a boy carrying a sheet of glass under his arm came down the stairs. He was wearing outsize boots without laces. He tripped on the bottom step and, losing one boot, lunged forwards, cartwheeling across the pavement on that deadly crutch of glass. ...He lay perfectly still, brows arched in surprise, bare toes quivering as the blood drained out of him.'
This passage vividly illustrates Bainbridge's skill as a writer, but you may not wish to about such an incident. Overall the book might best be described as a tragi-comedy. There are some funny moments, but the ending is doubly sad.
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Like a very fine well made bottle of champagne
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She writes beautifully and sparingly. You are straight into the story no messing about. The book is full of humour, skillfully drawn characters that you grasp within a few sentences but the narrative is always going somewhere. The clues are always there. The trick is not to get carried away and read it too fast. It ought to be savoured.
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Awfully Good
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Beryl Bainbridge is such a perfectionist that, according to a recent article in Mslexia, she is still trying to formulate the title of her present work in progress. Such consummate professionalism is clearly present in this mind-blowingly good novel. Set in 1950, An Awfully Big Adventure chronicles the life of troubled Stella Bradshaw, an aspiring young actress making her first hesitant steps onto the professional stage. She rapidly becomes infatuated with Meridith, the company director, and, when he spurns her advances, she turns to O’Hara (stand-in for Hook in their production of Peter Pan), in an effort to make him jealous. This attempt badly misfires, however, as the quite brilliant ending proves (every bit as shocking in its way as that of Sixth Sense) and we are left to reflect on the perils of unrequited love, dark, powerful family secrets, and the crippling effect of war. That Bainbridge achieves such multilayered depth in such a slim novel is nothing short of remarkable. An Awfully Big Adventure is beautifully crafted, tightly plotted – with absolutely no loose ends. She brings it to its awful denouement with devastating logic. And it is very subtly done: Bainbridge emphatically shows and studiously avoids telling. We are meant to infer her message from the drama of the narrative. She, as with other great novelists, allows the reader time and space to think – hence the exquisitely spare prose. I shall have to stop now, for fear of writing page after page of compliments. Suffice it to say, therefore, that An Awfully Big Adventure is wonderful in every way – character development, style and plot execution are all flawless. Truly, this is the perfect novel.
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