The Privileges by Jonathan Dee
My rating: 4/5 cats
this is my best goodreads.com win so far. i entered to win this one because i really liked Palladio, even though i can’t remember anything about it, really. just flashes: advertising, a woman, secrets…but i remember being really impressed with it all those years ago. (someone else should read it and refresh my memory, please) and i have the feeling the same thing will happen to me with this one. it’s not that there’s no story; although it is more of a character(s) study than a huge event-riddled tale. the om. narr. just sort of flits from one character to another like a butterfly, lingering momentarily to capture one or the other’s restlessness, dissatisfaction, discomfort or yearning. ah, the struggle for the idle rich to fill their days…it’s not that i’m not sympathetic; it must be really shitty having a private jet ferrying the kids to and fro—it just rankles a little to see these people at loose ends because they have nothing to do with their time—while i resent not having enough time to do everything i need to do because that pesky job keeps getting in the way. if i had enough money for a jet, i tell you i would buy myself some really great shelving units. focus: the book’s strongest part is the beginning—the whole wedding storyline could have stood alone as a short story and been satisfying all by itself, and i would have been fine with it. it’s really wonderful—the pacing of that first part had me really excited to keep reading. his writing is just luminous. (i have never used that word in my life, and i never shall again, but this time, it’s apt.) reading the back of this, i was like “why did i want to read this again?,” and it’s just because of the strength of his writing. give it a chance. particularly if you are a young heiress with too few distractions.
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