It can be tedious. A beautifully written book about several families whose lives intersect, between London and Sheffield, an industrial (coal) city. Take two random families living on the same street and write a novel spanning 20 years that chronicles their lives and fortunes and you have Philip Hensher’s The Northern Clemency. Empathy, argues Amitav Ghosh. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. I almost wish I hadn't read that before because I found myself comparing as I went through the book, and usually finding this book not quite measuring up, though I don't really feel like that anymore now that I'm finished. Skip to main content.sg. But it's well worth it. Didn't like this book as much as I thought I would. Then you can start reading Kindle books on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required. 'The Northern Clemency" is a 600-page multigenerational epic set in the northern English city of Sheffield, famous for steel, coal mines and the retrenched male … Refresh and try again. I think what they have in common is a number of central characters in one or (in this case) two families, and a story that is told from different characters' points of view. But I couldn't get away from the irritating feeling that the sentence construction was a lot more convoluted than it needed to be - I found myself re-reading certain sentences several times, just to understand what they were trying to say. Reviewed in the United States on October 17, 2015. An epic chronicle of the last 20 years of British life from the Booker longlisted and Granta Best of Young British novelist, Philip Hensher. There was a problem loading your book clubs. I mostly read before turning out the light at night. The pace is both lamentably slow but also extremely confusing with no real link to the next period. AbeBooks.com: The Northern Clemency (9781400044481) by Hensher, Philip and a great selection of similar New, Used and Collectible Books available now at great prices. Names appear from nowhere with no connection to the rest of the story. The story is nearly epic in scale - it follows the lives of several townspeople who live in an industrial village in Northern England during the 70s and the 80s. Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 21, 2014. A great read! We move through early childhood to mature adulthood of several of the characters, and although it's a little tough sometimes to keep the names straight, it is possible with a little bit of extra attention. I stalled there for about a month by reading other books and entire issues of the LA Times, unable to commit to finishing the Northern Clemency. . A rambling storyline at times grippingly told, at times told so hurriedly perhaps the author had places to get to. No_Favorite. Read this book using Google Play Books app on your PC, android, iOS devices. Good enough to read over 700 pages but nowhere near as good as I thought it was going to be. Well-written with intricate details about every day life, my only criticism is that the book could have been a hundred pages shorter. Find all the books, read about the author, and more. Full content visible, double tap to read brief content. The Northern Clemency begins in 1974, in a Sheffield of smoking chimneys and steaming slagheaps (though these things are never actually described), and winds up in 1996, by … Expansive and deeply felt, The Northern Clemency shows Philip Hensher to be one of our most masterly chroniclers of modern life, and a storyteller of virtuosic gifts. What was the most irritating aspect of this book though was the way in which he uses repetition. Reviewed in the United States on October 18, 2009. Hello Select your address All Hello, Sign in. However, I almost dreaded going to bed because of this book, which I found unremittingly dreary. One word to sum up this behemoth of a book is a chore. In one paragraph we are told that it really is a beautiful day three times. Told in a series of chronologically brief (but syntactically interminable) episodes over the course of decades, Hensher serves up two families worth of bland characters leading flat lives. Set in Sheffield, The Northern Clemency charts the relationship between two families: Malcolm and Katherine Glover and their three children; and their neighbours the Sellers family, newly arrived from London. Of the many ways to categorize and parse fiction, the division between "character-driven" and "plot-driven" is a worthwhile (and limited) as any. I think that was my favourite part of The Northern Clemency - I loved the entirely credible but multi-layered and conflicted (and sometimes playful) conversations between the characters, like between Daniel and Helen. The finest American novelists tend toward the mythopoetic (Ellison, Morrison, Cormac McCarthy, Faulkner, Hawthorne, Melville) whereas the best Brits tend toward the secular and social. Awards: Kindle Book. I will concede that the author effectively paints the Thatcherite/miner strike mood of the time. . It's also ripping good social history. I kept on moving this book down on my queue just because of its length, but in the end I zipped through it. [1] He has published a number of novels, is a regular contributor, columnist and book reviewer for newspapers and weeklies such as The Guardian, The Spectator , The Mail on Sunday and The Independent. Excerpted by permission. Enter your mobile number or email address below and we'll send you a link to download the free Kindle App. And I'm so glad I did. I'm so glad I did. What is it about Brits and novel-writing? Hensher was born in South London, although he spent the majority of his childhood and adolescence in Sheffield, attending Tapton School. I wouldn't recommenced this book to just anyone. July 12, 2012 Philip Hensher’s 'Scenes From Early Life' What makes this novel/memoir set in war-torn Bangladesh special? On the day they move in, neighbor Malcolm Glover has disappeared, convinced that his wife is having an affair. Hensher doesn't do any of that -- he focuses (very well) on the characters' daily lives, and the way they grow and change while remaining recognisably the same people. T he Northern Clemency is a … Extremely well done. Well-written with intricate details about every day life, my only criticism is that the book could have been a hundred pages shorter. The Glovers are long-time residents of Rayfield Avenue, and the Sellerses have just moved up from London. Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. The writing is fantastic and sometimes so elegant you just want to read a sentence again because it is so well said. We’re all weird. I liked all the "Briticisms". It is quite long and is broken up into books rather than chapters. Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. . It's one of those wonderfully crafted books that goes so far into human nature, into the pieces of atypical, illogical behavior that, despite their strangeness, are still universally sympathetic. Expansive and deeply felt, The Northern Clemency shows Philip Hensher to be one of our most masterly chroniclers of modern life, and a storyteller of virtuosic gifts. The period and place is nicely captured with big events such as the miners' strike rumbling on in the background but the emphasis is mainly on the domestic interactions and it is all the better for this. Welcome back. A brilliant book. The writing is generally very good, although this was one of those books in which I not infrequently stopped and reread sentences, wondering exactly what the author. The social backdrop of a novel usually becomes apparent through historical events, fashions or figures of speech. After viewing product detail pages, look here to find an easy way to navigate back to pages you are interested in. Indeed, the individual quirks of the characters, when magnified by Henshaw’s writing, serve this same normalizing function. There is not one character who is not authentic and so well-realised, you feel you know them as friends by the end of the book. Hensher’s eye for detail is precise and his touch sure. I’ve seen reviewers describe these as “dysfunctional” families, but one of the points of this work is presumably to illustrate that every family defies any norm or prescribed standard. 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