Check out Peter Carey’s official website.This stage adaptation could certainly use some seductive advertising copy. He has won the Man Booker Prize twice and the Miles Franklin Award three times, and received shortlisting for other titles in his catalogue for both awards. OR listen to the audiobook FREE with Audible’s Trial (check eligibility) About the Author, Peter Carey This is one I did not want to end.īOOK RATING: The Story 5 /5 The Writing 4.5 / 5 - Overall 4.75 Get your copy of Oscar & Lucinda from:īook Depository Booktopia AU Amazon Bookshop US

When you read it (and you should) I recommend you set aside some time to become lost in the world of Peter Carey’s Oscar & Lucinda.

The characters and their plights will stay with me long after reading. I have great admiration for the eccentric mind that crafted this wonderful story. This style actually conveyed beautifully the inner turmoil the lovable but hapless characters in this novel experience. And although that writing style left me frustrated and at times confused when reading Bliss, it somehow seemed quite in keeping with the Oscar & Lucinda storyline. He has a habit of veering off into tangents or providing caveats mid-sentence, as though his mind is bursting with too many ideas. My only slight criticism would be that Peter Carey’s prose requires some concentration to read. I have not seen the movie version of this novel, but it comes as no surprise to me that it was made. The intriguing similes and descriptive sequences created imagery as vivid as watching a film. Like a rod of ebony rubbed with cat’s fur, she was charged with static electricity. But the stillness was coiled and held flat. There was, in Lucinda Leplastrier, she who became known as the “Glass Lady”, a sense of containment, of order, a ‘clean starched stillness’.

It was a shaft of sunlight in a curtained room. Yet the knowledge thrust deep into his consciousness. He did not let himself know that he knew. Oscar was not told about the Christmas pudding, but he knew. Peter Carey has a real knack for original character descriptions, both physical and psychological: In the Man Booker Prize-winning Oscar & Lucinda, Peter Carey casts an Alice in Wonderland type spell on readers with quirky characters and the outlandish situations they find themselves in. I would have missed out on something truly special if I had not. But I am so glad I took NancyO’s advice to give him another chance and read this novel. BOOK REVIEWĪfter reading my first Peter Carey novel, Bliss, some years ago and not being enamoured, I had been somewhat reticent about giving Peter Carey another spot on my TBR pile. Disclosure: If you click a link in this post and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission.

Peter carey bliss review