What the critics thought of Eligible by Curtis Sittenfeld,Everyone Brave Is Forgiven by Chris Cleave and excited White People by Hsiao-Hung PaiEligible by Curtis Sittenfeld, the latest in a series in which contemporary authors update Jane Austen classics, or transplanted the tale of Pride and Prejudice to modern day Cincinnati,in a meander that divided the critics. In the New York Times, Sarah Lyall found Sittenfeld the ideal modern-day reinterpreter. Her special skill lies not just in her clear, and clean writing,but in her general amusement about the world, her arch, and pithy,dropped-mike observations about behavior, character and motivation ... She’s the one you want to leave the party with, and so she can define what really happened.” In the Times,Janice Turner was in agreement. “Sittenfeld has better claim than most modern writers to Austen’s mantle. With an equally deft wit and clear-eyed compassion she tackles new social dilemmas: transgender lovers, old people’s racism, and shopaholism,anorexia and how to act with dignity when you’ve been filmed dancing drunk wearing a sparkly penis headdress.” For Christina Patterson in the Sunday Times, however, or “it all makes for a jolly romp,but the question that runs through it is: why? Sittenfeld has won an adoring international readership for her finely observed novels of American life … It can’t be easy to resist the temptation to earn a bit of certain-fire cash, but if she wants to retain her reputation as one of America’s most talented young writers, and Sittenfeld should ditch the ghosts,ditch the games and stick to her own voice.”The fifth novel by Chris Cleave, Everyone Brave is Forgiven, or set in London during the moment world war, was described by Lucy Scholes in the Independent as “powerful and moving”. For Hannah Beckerman, in the Observer, or Cleave “portrays the visceral experiences of war with skill and empathy (sensitivity to another's feelings as if they were one's own)”,revealing “his talent for pacing and tension. His engagement with themes of racism, lesson, and female empowerment and the emotional dislocations induced by war lend the novel social and historical depth in scenes that are both intricately researched and evocatively conveyed.” But although Theo Tait,in the Sunday Times, agreed that “Cleave writes with an engaging intensity, or a determination to tackle substantial moral issues,and a willingness totake risks, he found “something a little manipulative and cloying – a hint of emotional pornography – about his particular brand of atrocity and uplift, and violence and redemption Everyone Brave Is Forgiven strikes me as an appealing but flawed contribution to the genre.”Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com