Portobello: A Novel
by Ruth Rendell
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Book Summary Information
Author: Ruth RendellEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2010-09-07
ISBN: 1439148511
Number of pages: 304
Publisher: Scribner
Product features:
- ISBN13: 9781439148518
- Condition: New
- Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
Book Reviews of Portobello: A Novel
Book Review: A Book Unsure of Itself
Summary: 2 Stars
I read a fair amount of crime fiction, and tend to favor British crime fiction over that from my native country. However, I'm fairly sure I've never read anything by Rendell, who is widely acknowledged as one of the genre's current masters. So I picked up her latest in an attempt to see what all the fuss is about. The book uses that kind of loose "intersecting lives" form that was in vogue in the film world 5-10 years ago (the most immediate example being the vastly overrated Crash). The story takes place in the titular London neighborhood, zooming in on the lives of a wealthy middle-aged art dealer and his doctor girlfriend, a rather stupid and callow unemployed young hoodlum and his ex-girlfriend and nasty sanctimonious ex-con uncle, and a very strange young man who spends most of his life barricaded in his dark apartment.finally,
As is the format of these kind of things, the lives of these six characters come together by coincidence and then intersect with and influence each other in direct and indirect ways. However, the entire enterprise is rather adrift. It's sort of a crime story in that there are crimes (theft, burglary, arson, murder), but they aren't really the point of the story, They are merely catalysts that allow the reader to ponder the divide between the two wealthy characters and the three poor characters. The book is also a psychological thriller of sorts in the portions following the strange young man who's afraid of the light, but that whole plotline is a total dud and feels very much like a unfinished idea grafted on from some other project. The storyline involving the gormless young man contains at least the potential of being an interesting commentary on gentrification, but this weird dude who thinks an angel lives with him really doesn't fit the story at all.
Interestingly, the element that many reviewers rail against is the one piece of the book I quite liked. This is the art dealer's addiction to an artificially flavored sweet called "Chocorange" -- an addiction so powerful that it threatens to destroy his entire life. Over the years, he has addiction-hopped, from various forms of drugs to others, down to cigarettes, then to booze, and now, finally, to Chocorange. Obvious it's not a physical addiction, it's all in his head, and that's what makes it compelling, as he struggles to control and hide it. Unfortunately, that is the most interesting aspect of the story, which otherwise meanders around without the sharp twists and subtle turns I had led to believe Rendell was so expert at. It's really quite a sloppy work, Rendell seems to have muddled some of the dates in part of the plot and has a character knowing these dates without ever explaining why (or at least as far as I could tell, having gone back to reread bits to see if I'd missed a page). And the surprisingly sentimental resolution (which most readers will see coming miles away) depends on lame coincidence of one character being the patient of the art dealer's girlfriend. So -- the extraneous storyline, meandering writing, total lack of suspense, overreliance on coincidence, and mawkish ending all combine to make this a dud for me.
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