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Bournville: From the bestselling author of Middle England

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Covid και του Brexit, περνώντας από την ενθρόνιση της Ελισσάβετ, το Μουντιάλ της Αγγλίας του 1966, το χρίσμα του Καρόλου ως πρίγκιπα της Ουαλίας (κάποιοι διαμαρτυρήθηκαν ότι ο πρίγκιπας της Ουαλίας θα έπρεπε να είναι Ουαλός), ο γάμος Καρόλου-Νταίάνας, το θάνατο της πριγκίπισσας Νταιϊάνα και "τη μάχη της σοκολάτας" στο ευρωκοινοβούλιο και με αρκετό τρυφερό σαρκασμό για τον Μπόρις Τζόνσον. The chocolate wars on the definition of the amount of fat allowed was strangely fascinating, but I felt that there could have been more on Brexit than a few opposing opinions. I had heard good things about Jonathan Coe, this is was the first of his books I read, it will take a fair bit of convincing to get me back to it anytime soon.

You get the feeling Coe even disliked Princess Diana, given the sex scene he places during Tony Blair's speech at her funeral.If I was to be critical there’s a sense of his writing by numbers; If I'm being positive its apparent that the course of history is endlessly fascinating and so there is a pipeline of lived life for Coe to draw on.

You might have thought, for the people who named it, that with its almshouses and playing fields, its miniature boating lake and white-flannelled cricketers, the village was built as an archetype - a parody, almost - of a certain notion of Englishness. Bournville is a rich and poignant new novel from the bestselling, Costa award-winning author of Middle England. It just feels a little empty, like a collage of very different things that don’t necessarily make a sound, finished plot. This was a satisfying read and my only negative observation is that the generational shift and the alternating time shift within sections made it difficult to reconcile how each character was related by birth to one another. Coe uses some big 20th century historical moments to situate and contextualise his vivid characters.So why were they chosen as the glue which should hold the entire narrative together if they have no impact? That is the overriding mantra of John Coe’s latest book, which tells a nation’s story through generations of the same family. We have the King’s speech on VE Day; the next time we visit the family in Bournville is for the coronation in 1953. E’ curioso che quasi in contemporanea, ma con ben altro piglio e personaggi meno pallidi e più sfaccettati, anche Ian McEwan abbia pubblicato un romanzo fiume biografico che a sua volta interpreta in filigrana la recente storia d’Inghilterra, benché in quel caso il racconto sia meno corale e molto più incentrato sul protagonista e sulle figure femminili che ne condizionano l’esistenza.

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