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Cargando... Tom Bedlam (2005)por George Hagen
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Inscríbete en LibraryThing para averiguar si este libro te gustará. Actualmente no hay Conversaciones sobre este libro. Good beginning but begins to get implausible when he moves to South Africa and the coincidences start to build up. Bit of a weak ending but nice story overall. ( ) I found this a frustrating book - there are serious flaws, but also some good writing and storytelling. The first part of the book, set in Victorian England, is a struggle. The author just doesn't seem to create a Victorian world - it seems more like modern characters placed on a period set. As an example, one character describes her delinquent son as "angry" with the world. While the boy, born in prison and taken from his mother to Australia at age 8 might have good grounds to be angry with the world, such a description is anachronistic for an era where criminality was thought to be inherited and could be identified from bumps in the head! Later in the book, much of the narrative concerns Tom as a parent of four growing children. But some of the stories of behaviour of the children seem to be anecdotes from the personal experiences of the author. Again, while development of children may be universal and timeless, how this development is expressed in behaviour is more closely linked to the environment of the times. But, after the faltering start, and if you can ignore the jarring notes, there is a something special hidden here. The characters grow, and the reader becomes interested in them and wants to know their outcomes. By the end, I found myself dealing with a real page turner. This may not be a great book, but I can't help feeling that Hagen has a good book inside him. Read January 2014. Though it may not really change your life, this is an enjoyable and incredibly satisfying book that I looked forward to reading every day since I cracked open the cover. Many reviews emphasize the Dickens-like quality of it which is true, particularly for the beginning half. However, I think it's also just one of those books where you enjoy the spirit of the main protagonist throughout his entire life including both his adventures and his hardships. At the end, you feel like you know him personally, even if he never existed at all. sin reseñas | añadir una reseña
Growing up fatherless in Vauxhall in the 1860s and working in a porcelain factory, young Tom Bedlam doesn't have it easy. Yet he is a positive spirit, cunning in his pursuit of love and a steadfast friend. Everything changes when his perfidious father turns up, followed by the revelation that Tom had an older brother, who disappeared at birth. Tom's desire to find him and unite his family proves an elusive but compelling quest. Sent to a boarding school where he learns the power of the ambitious over the meek, Tom makes a Faustian pact that will haunt his adult life, as he strives to be the husband and parent his father was not. Ranging from London to South Africa, from the Boer War to the final months of the First World War, Tom Bedlam captures the spirit of the times as it portrays a man wrestling with his loyalties, affections and conscience - until he realises that the simple bonds of family can prevail against human folly and the march of progress. Dramatic, whimsical and shot through with lively humour, this is a novel as beguiling as it is affecting. No se han encontrado descripciones de biblioteca. |
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Google Books — Cargando... GénerosSistema Decimal Melvil (DDC)813.6Literature English (North America) American fiction 21st CenturyClasificación de la Biblioteca del CongresoValoraciónPromedio:
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