Do You like book Saville (1978)?
This novel epitomizes one of my favorite quotes:"Literature is the art of discovering something extraordinary about ordinary people, and saying with ordinary words something extraordinary." ― Boris PasternakReading this book really is an extraordinary experience! I found much of it to be very comforting, very homey. I found other parts to be quite disturbing. This novel affected me in ways that I'm still trying to sort out. I suspect this is a story that I'll continue to think about, to try to come to terms with it, for a long time.
—John
This is a book that is going to stay with me for awhile. I enjoyed the minutiae of Saville, but I also found the tone to be just so well handled. It is a tone of bleakness, frank existence, and of struggle.Struggle to get out of a place, struggle to make others see a place as you see it, struggle to seek approval, struggle to give approval, struggle to please. This was what really struck me most, was the parent-child dynamics being played out. Michael Reagan and his violin, Batty going to jail (just as was expected of him), Stafford doing as he pleases because he comes from money, and then we have our Saville. Colin's parents put him through school to give him a way out of the pit, to give him hope, and more opportunity than they had. Plenty more opportunity than his grandparents had. And in the end, as Saville tries to find his own identity and pressure his brothers to do the same, he is convinced that rather than doing him a favor, his parents have forced him in to "prostitution." His sense of duty to the family, supplying wages and staying at home, has turned to bitter resentment that he claims he has no way out of.So, when he finally does leave, is it permanent? I don't see Saville's departure lasting long...As for the other characters in the novel, I was especially intrigued by Michael Reagan and his behaviors, especially in to adulthood. While Colin's parents supported him, MR's father ridiculed his violin playing and berated his mother for supporting him, leaving Michael with no real sentiment or attachment to them as they fell ill. Oh Saville's women... It seemed that he was closer to his mother than his father, and he has this righteous sense of propriety when it comes to his brother's behavior with women, but then Saville turns around and runs off with the easiest girl on the block... and then finds himself in bed with a married woman. All in all, I found Colin to be just... spineless when it came to relationships. Throughout the novel, there is a never-ending sense of people entering and leaving Saville's life. They may return often, they may not, but he is always able to shrug them off and walk away... By detaching Saville from the pit, have his parents prevented him from having any real ties to anything?
—Katy