For July’s Eason Book Club on the Pat Kenny Show, the panel pored over the 515 pages of Louis de Bernières’ latest novel, The Dust that Falls from Dreams, though as singer Brian Kennedy told Pat and Mary O’Rourke, “Don’t let that put you off.”
With Rory Cowan on tour in the UK, “packing out stadiums,” Mary added, the trio in studio were mightily impressed by the novel from the famed writer of Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, which became a literary sensation and popular movie in the 1990s. Now, more than a decade and a half later, de Bernières once again turns his loquacious language towards life during wartime, although this time taking in the Great War in Edwardian Britain.
The story revolves around Rosie McCosh, a young, upper-middle class woman living in a grand house in London just after the death of Queen Victoria. On either side, she and her three very different sisters are neighboured by houses filled with boys, the Pitts on one side and the Pendennises on the other, while her father Hamilton, not to mention her deep-routed relationship with religion, pull her from pillar to post. An idyllic childhood, where the greatest concern is having a dinner guest attempt to poach your cook away with more agreeable terms, gives way to the horror of wartime in the 20th Century, where excited boys eager to enlist wake up to the reality of life – and the constant spectre, not to mention stench, of death – in the trenches.
“I couldn’t recommend it more, honestly,” raved Brian Kennedy, “Do not be put off by the length of that book, it’s worth every page.”
What Brian found particularly arresting was the interplay of the uniquely British class system, particularly as it played out in the theatre of wartime.
“I love the idea that you could be completely working class with someone who was upper middle-class, and you were stuck in a trench, covered in rat crap and all sorts of things. The war was a good kind of leveller in that sense,” the singer said.
Former cabinet minister Mary O’Rourke was also a big fan, revelling in the weaving of historical fact into the storyline. The book jumps around from first to third person, and around different time periods, but instead of being daunted and flicking through (“I don’t skim what I regard as my homework!”), Mary loved the sense of grandeur.
“There’s a huge stage of characters,” she said, “So therefore they all have to be accommodated in the various parts of their lives. And that’s what leads to it being somewhat jumpy. Sometimes it’s first person, sometimes it’s narrative, and that makes it good and lively.”
Paula Hamilton, a keen listener to The Pat Kenny Show and a seasoned book club member – having been in one for three years with 12 other members, often reading two books a month – was less enthused.
After telling Pat about she and her club members, who enjoy the odd extraordinary meeting as a social occasion, might someday try to write a book collaboratively, she said how the club’s meeting the previous night had not favourably read The Dust that Falls from Dreams.
“Well, you know, if I reflect the opinions of the Book Club themselves, it was over-ridingly rather negative, I’m afraid,” Paula said on the line.
“Louis de Bernières is a beautiful writer, we’ve all read his other books. Some of the stuff in the book was super, some of the diary entries are astonishing, really heart wrenching. I think that we felt that some of the characters felt caricatured, and they’re a little bit clichéd and that monotony set in.
“And when you thought you were going somewhere with the book, you were pulled back to something a little bit banal,” Paula added.
In the end, the panel agreed that the novel made for an ideal holiday read, was well researched, but perhaps could have been tidied up a little bit.
August's book choice for the Eason Book Club will not be revealed until after the Bank Holiday Monday on the 3rd, but Mary O'Rourke will be choosing from the following titles: Harper Lee's Go Set a Watchman, Paula McLain's Circling the Sun, Patrick Smith's In the Name of Love, and Paul Murray's The Mark and the Void.
You can listen back to the full Eason Book Club podcast below:
