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Consequences | 
 enlarge | Author: Penelope Lively
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Category: Book
List Price: £7.99
Buy New: £2.75
You Save: £5.24 (66%)
New (33) Used (6) from £1.67
Rating:  3 reviews
Sales Rank: 13133
Media: Paperback
Pages: 320
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 7.8 x 5.2 x 0.9
ISBN: 0141021284
EAN: 9780141021287
ASIN: 0141021284
Publication Date: May 29, 2008
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 Like an inpressionist painting September 4, 2008
helen (UK)
I had never read anything by Penelope Lively and came across this book by chance (maybe I was taknen in by the appealing cover). I was soon won over to the content, too. The author creates a painterly portrait of three generations of women, of historical periods (starting before WW2)and does so in a way which reminded me very much - as I mentioned in my headline - of an impressionist painting where small dots form a picture. Sometimes the focus is sharper, as in the beginnng of the novel, sometimes it is a mere blur, like more towards the end. Always, though, there is a particular angle light which throws particular scenes (events, or moments) into focus. If this all sounds a bit abstract, I can only say that it is also a very entertaining novel, not at all dull. Do read it, I'm sure you'll like it. And I will read more of Penelope Lively's from now on.
Beautifully paced August 14, 2008
I read lots (Wales)
I disagree with O Moore on this. I found this book quite charming. Yes, there is more detail of the initial characters, yes later characters slip away quietly, but I don't think this is meant to be a detailed saga. What this book does beautifully is capture moments in the lives of a trio of women, of small, often accidental events, and consequences. At some time in our lives many of us look around and ask "How did we get here?". There are the small events on which our lives turn. Many of us know little of our parents' and grandparents' lives - this book is about an exploration which, I suspect, many of us wish we could do; to answer the question "What consequences formed me."
 Starts well, but trails off to a lacklustre ending- disappointing July 4, 2008
O. Moore (England)
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
The story of three generations of women, Consequences begins in 1936 when upper class Lorna rebels against her parents' world of coming out balls and good marriages to marry grammar school boy and artist Matt. Their happiness is inevitably cut short by the war, when Matt is killed leaving Lorna alone with their daughter Molly. This first part of the book is lovely- beautifully written and very touching, perhaps partly because you can see Matt's death coming from the start. The characters are drawn in detail, and given the opportunity to be more than cardboard cutouts plonked in to move the story on and prove Lively's point. Lorna's death, when it comes, is shocking and you really feel the jolt of a life cut short too soon.
The same cannot quite be said for the adult Molly. Her rebellion seems a little pointless and her refusal to marry the publisher (whose name I have already forgotten) slightly adolescent. But we plough on with her, to the point where she is suddenly killed off with a phone call and never mentioned again except in passing. This seems a more than dismissive way of disposing of a main character, however bored Lively may have got of her.
But that is sadly nothing compared to the tedious vehicle for the final part of the novel, Molly's daughter Ruth. Ruth doesn't really seem to have a personality other than "disillusioned 30-something mother"- which is hardly original. Her husband is also a stereotype- this time the soulless careerist- so much so that leaving him and embarking on a Shirley Valentine-style Cretan tryst seems fairly conventional and dutiful rather than an act of rebellion. And to cap it all, the steamy one night stand that is supposed to launch Ruth's new life of independence is bizarrely anything but; her lover treats her more like a confused child, and gives the impression that he is going through the motions out of kindness rather than lust. Maybe this part is more subtle than I am giving it credit for, and that was Lively's intention. And then Ruth's real love story is shoe-horned neatly in before the end.
The novel as a whole leaps around from decade to decade with little warning or explanation, leaving you to work out where you are from little contextual clues. Unfortunately these clues are often misplaced- pizza boxes and Oddbins bags in the late 70s? Google in the mid 90s?- and these little details, which shouldn't matter, start to grate because they are the only crumbs you are thrown. This added to the overwhelming feeling of deja vu I had reading this- it was like the stories I used to write at school, starting out with big ambitions but tailing off half way through when the writer runs out of steam and ties it all off in a hurry before rushing off to do something more interesting. Very disappointing from such a well-known and usually reliable author.
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