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Peripheral Vision | 
 enlarge | Author: Patricia Ferguson
Publisher: Solidus
Category: Book
List Price: £8.99
Buy New: £6.06
You Save: £2.93 (33%)
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Rating:  7 reviews
Sales Rank: 138494
Media: Paperback
Pages: 348
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 8.4 x 5.4 x 1
ISBN: 1904529291
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9781904529293
ASIN: 1904529291
Publication Date: January 15, 2007
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand new book delivered in the UK in 2-3 days.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 2 more reviews...
Peripheral Vision January 25, 2008
gerty guinea (Yorkshire)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is definitely one of those books that makes you miss your bus stop, the end of your lunch break, the reasonable time to go to bed... The plot is very cleverly constructed, flitting between the 1950s and 1990s, with short and tantalising snippets of each strand of the novel. All the characters are connected, and the intrigue of how they are connected is one of the things that keep you reading avidly. The other thing is the amazing characterisation. There is a fair amount of medical detail, and even that is interesting - it doesn't just feel like research plonked down into a novel to be showy (Ian McEwan anyone?). This is a very talented writer and I absolutely loved this book.
Love this book! April 20, 2007
J. S. Sykes (u.k.)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
As a longtime admirer of Patricia Ferguson's writing, it is a pleasure to discover that Peripheral Vision shows her outstanding talent at its very best. Stucturally clever and unusual it loosely interweaves three stories set between the post-war period and the present day, their subtle relationship to each other emerging only gradually. The effect of this is a sort of elegant counterpoint that gives a satisfying shape to the book as well as an element of mystery. Tantalizing episodic intercutting sets up a pleasuable anticipation that keeps you urgently turning the pages. Pay attention, this is not a novel for lazy reading. This time Ferguson's medical expertise turns to opthalmology, the wonder of the "eye that worked both ways. it expressed, it shiningly conveyed emotion, understanding humanity itself." And understanding humanity is what this writer is about, its hard to know who is doing it better. Witty and incisive, she views her characters with compassion as they shape to the forces of history. And love and kindness and lovelessness, misunderstanding, snobbery and social status. Peripheral Vision is memorable for its wryness and humour, truth and sadness. And kindness, it showed me the importance of clarity and kindness.
outstanding vision April 13, 2007
Leyla Sanai (glasgow)
2 out of 5 found this review helpful
Peripheral Vision is Patricia Ferguson's second novel - she also has a collection of short stories out - and, like her first novel, is shortlisted for The Orange prize, which is some achievement. And it soon becomes evident why. Ferguson is definitely a real talent.
Peripheral Vision centres around the stories of several different characters, who ostensibly have only tenuous links to each other. Sylvia is a successful consultant ophthalmologist with a small baby. She has always succeeded at everything she has turned her mind to and is perenially prepared for every possibility, so why was she not prepared - and why does she sometimes fail to cope with - the demands of motherhood?
Ruby is a '50s housewife. Having struggled through a hard childhood, she has finally come good, with professional achievement, a loving husband and a beautiful son. So when a small accident leads to devastating sequelae, she takes it personally and never stops blaming herself.
Iris is a student nurse who falls in love with a dshing young medical student. Their romance seems set for an idyllic future. Or is it? Past events and future circumstances interplay to touch their lives forever.
Ferguson is one of the rare novelists who can write absolutely convincingly about medical matters with no cringeable faux pas, so I'm assuming she is medical herself. Yet here she combines that technical knowledge with a dazzling grasp of deeper themes - parent-child relationships, love, personal battles against past ghosts. Not only is she startlingly perceptive about matters of the heart but, like true masters of the genre of quality fiction dealing predominantly with people, such as Sue Miller and Anne Tyler, her deceptively simple writing masks a markedly assured and elegant style - her prose is crisp and clean but also marvellously insightful about personal lives. This is such a beautifully written and compelling novel that one devours it hungrily and is left immediately craving a follow up. My only two quibbles are these. Firstly, the twist that links all the characters together at the end is unnecessary and far-fetched - the looser, already established ties between them would have been perfectly sufficient and the extra link adds an unfeasible element which only detratcts from the previous plausibility of the stories. And secondly, although this is no reflection at all on Ferguson, I counted at least 13 petty but glaring mistakes that shuld have been easily detected at the proof-reading/subbing stage - I'll list them below in the hope that the publishers amend them for the next pressing. But apart from these minor cavals, this is a fine and engrossing novel from a talent I'm sure we'll be hearing more from in the future. 1/2
Subbing errors:
p7 - 'her mother' listed twice
p7 - one doesn't - and never could - do gynaecology as a junior house officer - it's a senior house officer job
p50 - If Iris is 19 years old in 1953, how can she be 6 in 1938?
p76 - the chapter title is wrong surely - shouldn't it be IRIS meets May Wilding?
p113 - 'anything I should to know' ?
p (not noted) - Sylvia has been a consultant for 5 years but is only 33 years old, implying she became a consultant at 28 years of age. But medical school and JHO jobs together take 6 years, while SHO jobs take a minimum of 1 - 2 years and registrar and senior reg years together take a minimum of 5 - 6 yrs - so unless Sylvia went to medical school several years earlier than the usual age of 18, this isn't plausible. If went to med school at 18, implies went from SHO to consultant in 4 years - impossible.
p 130 - should be seemed TO leap out
p159 - a few more months more?
p284 - the there was a raid?
p290 - should be sniffS not sniff
p290 - But she supposedly got on the train one stop BEFORE Will!
p312 - Who does she say 'you're wrong' as if he's referred to Adam as her husband? He didn't use the term husband at all.
p314 - just in just the wrong place?
(I've kept names out of above to not give away story as much as possible)
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A hugely insightful novel, with keenly observed characters April 7, 2007
Mark O'MAHONY (Bristol United Kingdom)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
The reader is drawn into an intriguing, contrasting mix of time, place and person with very human and multifaceted characters, seemingly unconnected,but with growing links as each chapter passes. Personalities show themselves at turns generous, kind and even heroic, and then weak, petty or vengeful. None are truly good or bad, but their interactions drive the narrative into thought provoking scenes, and none of them escape their formative influences of class or upbringing.
This book provoked much thoughtful and enjoyable discussion at the all male Redland Reading Group.
You can't stop reading it, but you never want it to end... February 20, 2007
Clare Chambers (Kent UK)
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
Peripheral Vision is one of those rare books that makes you suspend all normal activities until it is finished. The story moves between the 1950s and the 1990s, weaving together several narrative strands, which are linked thematically and by clever plotting, so that the connections between the characters and the various dramas unfold gradually, piece by piece, the author giving away just enough of the book's central mysteries to keep you reading on ravenously. The characters are so brilliantly observed, and their problems and flaws laid bare with such precision, that you can hardly bear to close the book on them. It isn't a long book, but there is so much in it - good sons, bad mothers, love tragically lost and joyfully found, and all told in the sharpest, wittiest prose money can buy. I wish there were more books around like this, but unfortunately Patricia Ferguson's voice is unique.
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