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ClareR (5854 KP) rated A Net for Small Fishes in Books

Feb 17, 2021

A Net for Small Fishes

Lucy Jago | 2021 | Fiction & Poetry, History & Politics, LGBTQ+

10.0

(1 Ratings)

Book Rating

I could end this review quickly and just say “I loved this book”, because I did. I loved it. I love well written, historical fiction with a foot firmly set in reality, and A Net for Small Fishes certainly fulfils that requirement for me. The attention to detail shows just how much research must have gone in to this - even down to the fastenings on the dresses, the makeup the women wore and the ‘simples’ they made up to ease ailments.
This is a story that I already knew a little about: I read The Poison Bed by E. C. Fremantle on The Pigeonhole about 3 years ago, where the story was told from Frances Howards point of view, and A Net for Small Fishes does nothing to contradict that story. They both illustrate really well how women were expected to conform and be perfect, docile, brood mares for their influential husbands, and in Frankie’s case, how political marriages weren’t always happy ones. It also illustrated how desperation to escape a loveless marriage made two women take desperate action. As so often happens throughout history, the women in this story are punished for the barefaced cheek they had to want better lives for themselves. It’s a frustrating conclusion - but I could see that it was inevitable. It showed that it didn’t matter if you were a woman in one of the most influential families in the country or a doctors widow, you toed the line or suffered the consequences. But what a journey they had!
This is such a good story, as real life often is, and it’s a book that’s going on the Keeper shelf (yes, I bought a copy after I read it on The Pigeonhole - that’s how much I liked it).
Many thanks to The Pigeonhole for serialising this, and to Lucy Jago for contributing to the conversation.

Kudos

ClareR (5854 KP) rated The Wife Who Got A Life in Books

May 25, 2021

The Wife Who Got A Life

Tracy Bloom | 2021 | Contemporary, Fiction & Poetry

7.5

(2 Ratings)

Book Rating

I loved this book. I’ll be honest and say that I thought I’d made a mistake when I first started reading it, but the further I read, the more I laughed (and cried), and the more I loved it!

Cathy the main character, is a 48 year old version of Adrian Mole. I’m sorry, but I had to go there! There are a lot of similarities: the humour, the long-suffering diary writer, the clueless and self-absorbed family. But this is most definitely written by a 48 year old woman.

Cathy is very relatable in an exaggerated way - but hey! This is fiction, not a memoir! She’s dealing with older teenagers, a husband that works away from home in the week and is utterly clueless as to what’s going on in his family’s lives, ageing parents, one sister who thinks she’s hard done by and should have everyone running around after her, and another who is detached from her parents and siblings and doesn’t understand what’s going on with them! Communication is a key skill in any family, and sadly lacking in this one.

When Cathy decides to put herself first for a change, I practically cheered out loud, and her cooking solution was genius!

I think I laughed through most of this book, had a good cry a couple of times, and by the end I was sure that Cathy Collins should have another book. I’m not sure though - I like where this ended. But I’d still read it (I’m beginning to sound like Cathy). It was a perfect balance of humour, sadness and the ridiculous - how can anyone not want more of that?!

Many thanks to The Pigeonhole for helping me out with my NetGalley reading (again!), Tracy Bloom for reading along, and Harper Collins for my e-arc through NetGalley.

Kudos

Kirk Bage (1775 KP) rated Alphaville (1965) in Movies

Jan 28, 2021

Alphaville (1965)

1965 | Mystery, Sci-Fi

8.3

(3 Ratings)

Movie Rating

This is one of the best bad films I have ever seen. It looks cheap (at one point the camera-man is clearly entirely visible in a mirror), the story is preposterous, the dialogue is insane, the characters behave like no one in reality ever, and it is sci-fi in name only, as no attempt whatsoever has been made to stretch the budget to anything remotely futuristic – and yet, I loved it! Perhaps it reminded me of Blake’s 7 and Doctor Who, and therefore my happy childhood relationship with cheap sci-fi? Or it could have been that there are so many essential ideas and tropes that exist in my favourite big budget sci-fi films, such as Blade Runner (for which it is an obvious influence), that it felt familiar and friendly from the start. Part hard boiled detective story and part pulp fiction fantasy, as with most Godard, I am discovering, it is all about mood and chic, not remotely about the plot.

Eddie Constantine is awful as an actor, but he looks and feels perfect here. And Anna Karina is entirely lovely, oozing intelligent sexuality and seductive vibes in every scene. Not a heroine that needs the man to save her, but a strong and independent woman as much the hero of the story as the trenchcoated lead. Every noir stereotype is adhered to without fail, punctuated with the bizarre and the incongruous whenever possible. Without this film existing there would be so many good things from The Prisoner to Predestination that wouldn’t have been the same. Groundbreaking and charming without even trying. It grows in my imagination as a cult entity by the week – I can’t wait to watch it again fairly soon.