Entertainment For Lively Minds
One Day
Posted by Bob on 14 June 2010 - 1:58pm.
It's About:
Twenty years in the lives of two friends. Emma and Dexter cop off just as they're graduating from Edinburgh in 1988: Emma's taken a double first in English and History and Dexter's scraped a 2:2 in Anthropology. She's sardonic, political and Northern. He's well-heeled, beautiful and hedonistic. It's not a promising start, but they entangle regularly over the next couple of decades, and it's soon clear that they're each the most important people in the other's life.
The main characters are so convincingly drawn that, for once, the old trope about feeling as if you really know them is true. Emma's easy to like: she's funny and sexy and intelligent and conscientious without being too irritatingly perfect. Dexter, I think, is the real achievement here: he's basically an utter twat for the vast majority of the novel, and yet I loved him. Not "liked". Loved. The sadness in his character fairly broke my heart.
Length of read:
Medium
Might appeal to people who enjoyed:
You might expect a comparison with "Starter For Ten", but this is a much less frothy affair, albeit with Nicholls's characteristic ten-pages-a-minute readability. It actually reminded me most of "The Rotter's Club" by Jonathan Coe in that it's hilarious, beautifully written and plays off the comedy of the two charaters' lives against a constant back-note of unbearable sadness.
One thing you've learned:
That I really need to stop reading wonderful books like this on the train. I cried, as is my wont, like a small girl.
Yes
Wonderful book, and you are right Dexter is a twat in the book but I really liked him too. Kudos to the author for making this happen.
One Day
Thought book was wonderful, even though not my usual thing. Spent at least a month recommending it to everyone I could.
Me too
I can’t remember the last time a book impressed and moved me as much as this. I’d read and enjoyed both Nicholls’ previous novels, but One Day is a real step up in class.
It’s also virtually impossible to write about in detail without giving away important stuff and spoiling it for others, so I’ll stop there!
Agreed re. spoilers.
I've heard it described, here and elsewhere, as "not exactly great literature but..." - presumably because it's not linguistically showy or trendily "edgy". But, here's the thing: it made me think about the world around me and evaluate things which are really important, and it made me cry, and I believed every word of it. If that's not great literature, then I can't think of a convincing definition of great literature.
that was my comment
and I stick by it :-)
Haha.
Well, fair enough. I respectfully disagree. :-)
Grrrr
I had the misfortune to stumble across a particular plot point while I was only a third of the way in. It didn't ruin the novel for me at all, but I still think some people should be permanently denied internet access. And then thrown down a well. And then killed.
Shit.
I'm so sorry to hear that. Spoiler merchants are right cunts. For some reason, many of the kids I teach have the overwhelming desire to spoil stories for the others, actually. The number of times I've been teaching "Of Mice And Men" or whatever and some little tool with an older brother shouts "X DOES BLAH BLAH TO Y!" at the top of his voice halfway through the first chapter. It makes me incandescent.
BTW - even though everyone in the English-speaking world has read "Of Mice And Men", I'm taking no chances. Someone plot-spoiled it for me when I was at university, and I've never forgiven them.
Shamefacedly
I have to admit that I've not (yet) read of Mice and Men, though I have seen a stage production.
I'm unashamed that, like you, I cried while reading One Day on the train. I also woke my wife up when sobbing (quietly I thought) while reading the last chapter. A truly enjoyable book.
I think it's okay to relate this one
as the Spoiler Rule apparently mitigates films that have 'been on telly', but I'll never forget the tube platform cinema poster for the Ususal Suspects a few days after it came out, sporting an arrow biroed over the top of a certain actor with the words "This is Keyser Soze!!"
PS: Great review of One Day, idiotbear!
Bought by accident
Ran out of books to read on holiday in Cornwall and it was bought to make up the numbers in a buy one get one free offer in WH Smiths. It is the most enjoyable book I have read for a long time and there were a number of incidents that made me laugh hysterically and more that made me cry. Not many books can do that. As you say it was the complete believability of the characters - I have known girls exactly like Emma and unfortunately even more guys like Dexter but his better side was eventually exposed. Great review.
Splendid
Both the book, and your review Mr Bear.
Just read this on holiday
It is indeed excellent. I then passed it on to Mrs Cakes and had to wait until she'd finished it before being able to talk about it. Not easy.
I found it very moving. Partly, I guess, because I'm of a ballpark similar age to the main characters.
I think that what made Dexter so real though, was the descriptions of binge drinking, its warped logic and its aftermath. Many of us have, I suspect, been there and it makes Dexter, against all odds, something of an everyman.