What do you think?
Rate this book
Lord Jim at Home
When Dinah Brooke’s second novel, Lord Jim at Home, was first published in 1973, it was described as “squalid and startling,” “nastily horrific,” and a “monstrous parody” of upper-middle class English life. It is the story of Giles Trenchard, who grows up isolated in an atmosphere of privilege and hidden violence; who goes to war, and returns; and then, one day—like the hero of Joseph Conrad's classic Lord Jim— commits an act that calls his past, his character, his whole world into question.
Out of print for nearly half a century (and never published in the United States), Lord Jim at Home reveals a daring writer long overdue for reappraisal, whose work has retained all its originality and power. As Ottessa Moshfegh writes in her foreword to this new edition, Brooke evokes childhood vulnerability and adult cruelty “in a way that nice people are too polite to admit they understand.”
Out of print for nearly half a century (and never published in the United States), Lord Jim at Home reveals a daring writer long overdue for reappraisal, whose work has retained all its originality and power. As Ottessa Moshfegh writes in her foreword to this new edition, Brooke evokes childhood vulnerability and adult cruelty “in a way that nice people are too polite to admit they understand.”
264 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1973
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 80 reviews
October 10, 2023
In the last three books I have read, I have had several moments of open-mouthed horror so my October has been quite spooky enough already. It started with Radcliffe by David Storey, then Black Narcissus by Rumer Godden, and now continuing with Lord Jim At Home by Dinah Brooke, a perfect example of 'domestic horror'.
Lord Jim At Home, originally published in 1973 and re-issued in 2023, follows Giles Trenchard from his infancy to adulthood as he grows up in a privileged English household though his upbringing is far from privileged and bordering on outright abuse. We see a psychopath being made.
This book is a portrait of upper-class hypocrisy and its rules, rituals, all of which seemingly make up civilized society, but is teeming with something almost animal-like underneath. It's also a portrait of power dynamics and exploitation of authority - the power of a parent over their child, the husband over the wife, the master over his servant. Reading this book reminded me of the experience of watching a Yorgos Lanthimos movie. One is shocked at times, sad at others, and then there are times, one wants to laugh really hard but can't because something absolutely sickening is happening right then. It's that kind of a disorienting ride. All of this is delivered through a distant, clinical writing though what one experiences is almost an uncomfortably intimate look at manifestations of violence in an ordinary domestic space.
This is for fans of Mariana Enriquez, James Purdy and Shirley Jackson. I am excited to read more from McNally Editions.
Lord Jim At Home, originally published in 1973 and re-issued in 2023, follows Giles Trenchard from his infancy to adulthood as he grows up in a privileged English household though his upbringing is far from privileged and bordering on outright abuse. We see a psychopath being made.
This book is a portrait of upper-class hypocrisy and its rules, rituals, all of which seemingly make up civilized society, but is teeming with something almost animal-like underneath. It's also a portrait of power dynamics and exploitation of authority - the power of a parent over their child, the husband over the wife, the master over his servant. Reading this book reminded me of the experience of watching a Yorgos Lanthimos movie. One is shocked at times, sad at others, and then there are times, one wants to laugh really hard but can't because something absolutely sickening is happening right then. It's that kind of a disorienting ride. All of this is delivered through a distant, clinical writing though what one experiences is almost an uncomfortably intimate look at manifestations of violence in an ordinary domestic space.
This is for fans of Mariana Enriquez, James Purdy and Shirley Jackson. I am excited to read more from McNally Editions.
November 1, 2023
goes so hard
January 4, 2024
Sublime prose
October 31, 2023
Guess u guys (England in the 70s) aren’t ready for this one yet…. But your kids are gonna love it
November 22, 2023
Finally, an exception to prove the rule. A re-published novel that didn’t feel like an overhyped cash grab and that finally seems to make the swathe of resurrected duds worth it. ‘Lord Jim at Home’ has restored my faith in anything with the label rediscovered slapped onto it. A scathing criticism of the hypocrisy and arbitrary torture of life in the British upper-middle class, ‘Lord Jim at Home’ is a novel that still feels impressively fresh and powerful today.
My favourite thing about ‘Lord Jim at Home’ was how exceptionally well written I found it to be. Its characterisation was well done, not in a traditional in-depth almost character study kind of a way, but in a clever sketching out of the outlines of characters who therefore become universal or allegorical. Those that you can trace and transpose to so many stories and situations to tell a wider criticism of a type of person, rather than just one specific individual. It’s just as hard to do this as to spend the time to make a character feel individual and vividly real (not that they don’t here), and I was impressed by how much Brooke gave and withheld to execute this masterfully. The prose generally was pretty magnificent too, riveting and insightful, cutting exactly where it intended to. I also thought it was well measured too, with just the right amount of horrific for the necessary effect, but never gratuitous (I’m looking at you ‘American Psycho’). The other thing I really enjoyed was the ending, not even the final turn of the novel, but really those last few pages where Brooke pulled back the curtain of the story itself to really bring home the crux in a more abstract, yet somehow even more lucid way. The effect of changing the narrative style like this just briefly, right at the end, really cemented how much I had enjoyed it, and how fresh and different it felt overall as a novel.
I’d say maybe my only kind of criticism is the book kind of feels like it’s cleft in two at a certain point, and these parts feel more separate than I would have liked. It’s not that both parts aren’t individually great, or even that they don’t fit. I suppose it’s rather that it feels like Brooke went so far out on a thread that she almost started a different, slightly separate novel, but had to reign herself in and bring it back into focus. There are vast parts of her describing the horrors of war when you almost forget who Giles is at all; he seems such an afterthought. Thankfully, the section is gripping enough without him and so this is a pretty petty gripe all thing considered, given that I still thought the entirety of the content was exceptionally good, and it didn’t really affect the novel negatively overall.
I would suppose that this novel really was a victim of being misunderstood in its time, and I’m sure the fact that it was written by a woman didn’t help it much back then either. It definitely seems unfathomable to me that something so well conceived and executed would be dismissed and forgotten in this way. I suppose there’s always just garden variety bad luck, and many novels have been lost this way too, but that might be a little too convenient. I hope this restores some of Brooke’s lost but well earned reputation, and I hope her other books see some sort of resurgence as well. I know I would love to read them.
My favourite thing about ‘Lord Jim at Home’ was how exceptionally well written I found it to be. Its characterisation was well done, not in a traditional in-depth almost character study kind of a way, but in a clever sketching out of the outlines of characters who therefore become universal or allegorical. Those that you can trace and transpose to so many stories and situations to tell a wider criticism of a type of person, rather than just one specific individual. It’s just as hard to do this as to spend the time to make a character feel individual and vividly real (not that they don’t here), and I was impressed by how much Brooke gave and withheld to execute this masterfully. The prose generally was pretty magnificent too, riveting and insightful, cutting exactly where it intended to. I also thought it was well measured too, with just the right amount of horrific for the necessary effect, but never gratuitous (I’m looking at you ‘American Psycho’). The other thing I really enjoyed was the ending, not even the final turn of the novel, but really those last few pages where Brooke pulled back the curtain of the story itself to really bring home the crux in a more abstract, yet somehow even more lucid way. The effect of changing the narrative style like this just briefly, right at the end, really cemented how much I had enjoyed it, and how fresh and different it felt overall as a novel.
I’d say maybe my only kind of criticism is the book kind of feels like it’s cleft in two at a certain point, and these parts feel more separate than I would have liked. It’s not that both parts aren’t individually great, or even that they don’t fit. I suppose it’s rather that it feels like Brooke went so far out on a thread that she almost started a different, slightly separate novel, but had to reign herself in and bring it back into focus. There are vast parts of her describing the horrors of war when you almost forget who Giles is at all; he seems such an afterthought. Thankfully, the section is gripping enough without him and so this is a pretty petty gripe all thing considered, given that I still thought the entirety of the content was exceptionally good, and it didn’t really affect the novel negatively overall.
I would suppose that this novel really was a victim of being misunderstood in its time, and I’m sure the fact that it was written by a woman didn’t help it much back then either. It definitely seems unfathomable to me that something so well conceived and executed would be dismissed and forgotten in this way. I suppose there’s always just garden variety bad luck, and many novels have been lost this way too, but that might be a little too convenient. I hope this restores some of Brooke’s lost but well earned reputation, and I hope her other books see some sort of resurgence as well. I know I would love to read them.
Read
November 2, 2023I demand that all of Dinah Brooke's books are republished STAT.
March 11, 2024
(3.5)
I am so conflicted about this book!!! First part: LOVED. Literally from the first page it was so creepy and strange and gripping. And then there was this 75 page ish interlude that was so boring I was actually irritated. In the final 50 pages it picked back up again and i enjoyed it, but by that point i was sort of out of it.
Sooooo it was great, kind of.
I am so conflicted about this book!!! First part: LOVED. Literally from the first page it was so creepy and strange and gripping. And then there was this 75 page ish interlude that was so boring I was actually irritated. In the final 50 pages it picked back up again and i enjoyed it, but by that point i was sort of out of it.
Sooooo it was great, kind of.
July 8, 2024
Este título captó mi atención en la newsletter de libros de The New York Times, que me gusta mucho porque nunca recomiendan novedades, siempre recomienda dos títulos relacionados de una manera muy laxa con un tema y siempre son libros de hace años que puedes encontrar de segunda mano. Esta novela de Dinah Brooke venía recomendada, creo recordar, por estar relacionada con la maternidad y, por algo que no puedo explicarte, me llamó la atención y la compré online en una librería de Irlanda porque no está traducida.
Es una novela rarísima con un estilo preciso y acerado en la que cada frase se siente como un corte de bisturí, como una nueva herida. Es como leer un informe policial, una autopsia pero peor, porque destila una crueldad que casi casi está a la par con la de Claus y Lucas, de Agota Kristof. No es un libro para pusilánimes. Lo que nos cuenta Dinah (que publicó esta novela en 1973 y poco después se hizo budista, se cambió el nombre, se metió en la secta de Osho y pasó seis años en la India) es la historia del joven Gilles, el primer hijo de una acomodada familia inglesa, como esas que todos hemos visto mil veces en series y películas. Dinah opta por una narración en presente, casi a ojo de águila, con cero implicación emocional por parte del narrador. Hasta la página 63 no conocemos a nadie por su nombre: conocemos al Príncipe, al Rey y la Reina, al Abuelo, a la Enfermera, al Chófer y a la Otra Enfermera. Todo eso contribuye a la sensación de estar leyendo un atestado policial porque, además, lo que se retrata son una serie de hechos crueles, perversos y malvados sin justificación alguna por parte de los protagonistas más allá de su poder para cometerlos. El maltrato infantil disfrazado de educación esmerada es terrorífico. A partir del momento en que sabemos que El Príncipe se llama Gilles salimos de la infancia y acompañamos al muchacho durante su vida, en un internado también terrorífico, luego durante la Guerra Mundial (primero en el Ártico y luego en el Pacífico), la vuelta a casa y su vida como un diletante al que su padre, El Rey, pretende enderezar y no lo consigue. El final llega de golpe y de una manera brutal. ¿Es Gilles así por su educación o es intrínsecamente malvado? Es una novela que, si bien no se puede decir que «guste», porque es incómoda de leer por lo que provoca, se lee con admiración por el punto de vista que la autora adopta y que no es fácil de mantener: ese narrador equisciente que en las primeras páginas incluso le permite hablar desde el punto de vista de un bebé, de sus pensamientos y sus sentimientos.
Es una novela rarísima con un estilo preciso y acerado en la que cada frase se siente como un corte de bisturí, como una nueva herida. Es como leer un informe policial, una autopsia pero peor, porque destila una crueldad que casi casi está a la par con la de Claus y Lucas, de Agota Kristof. No es un libro para pusilánimes. Lo que nos cuenta Dinah (que publicó esta novela en 1973 y poco después se hizo budista, se cambió el nombre, se metió en la secta de Osho y pasó seis años en la India) es la historia del joven Gilles, el primer hijo de una acomodada familia inglesa, como esas que todos hemos visto mil veces en series y películas. Dinah opta por una narración en presente, casi a ojo de águila, con cero implicación emocional por parte del narrador. Hasta la página 63 no conocemos a nadie por su nombre: conocemos al Príncipe, al Rey y la Reina, al Abuelo, a la Enfermera, al Chófer y a la Otra Enfermera. Todo eso contribuye a la sensación de estar leyendo un atestado policial porque, además, lo que se retrata son una serie de hechos crueles, perversos y malvados sin justificación alguna por parte de los protagonistas más allá de su poder para cometerlos. El maltrato infantil disfrazado de educación esmerada es terrorífico. A partir del momento en que sabemos que El Príncipe se llama Gilles salimos de la infancia y acompañamos al muchacho durante su vida, en un internado también terrorífico, luego durante la Guerra Mundial (primero en el Ártico y luego en el Pacífico), la vuelta a casa y su vida como un diletante al que su padre, El Rey, pretende enderezar y no lo consigue. El final llega de golpe y de una manera brutal. ¿Es Gilles así por su educación o es intrínsecamente malvado? Es una novela que, si bien no se puede decir que «guste», porque es incómoda de leer por lo que provoca, se lee con admiración por el punto de vista que la autora adopta y que no es fácil de mantener: ese narrador equisciente que en las primeras páginas incluso le permite hablar desde el punto de vista de un bebé, de sus pensamientos y sus sentimientos.
Read
January 21, 2024Oh how good it is to be an underdog! To be incorrigibly, unmentionably stupid. To stupid to get up in the morning without a kick up the arse, too stupid to think, too stupid to understand. Too stupid to be responsible for your own life or death.
February 22, 2024
The chicken-and-egg of privilege and monstrosity. Unlike anything I’ve ever read before
March 12, 2024
What a bizarre book. I’m not sure I really liked it but it was interesting. I read along with the audio and I’m not sure I would have managed on my own, honestly. The writing style is very different than I like, but the audio helped, though I wish it were narrated by a Brit. Very strange book…
February 9, 2024
Fizzles out in the third act, but the first is rivetingly dark and the second, a tour of the British Navy in both theaters of WWII, is some of the most brutal war writing I've ever read.
January 19, 2024
I came across a stray recommendation for this book from some author or other and bought it on a whim. I was glad I did. It reminds me of the best of Patricia Highsmith: the writing is cool and detached, yet strangely captivating. The story is well told and builds to an unexpected climax (no spoilers here!). Some of the scenes are on the disturbing side, and the whole paints a less than flattering picture of English society, or rather, perhaps chronicles the decline of that society in a number of different ways. Well worth a read.
June 12, 2024
4.5 I think but I really loved this so rounded up. This is such a strange book and the foreword by Ottessa Moshfegh really sums it up well- this is a character study of a character that is barely a character; Giles is such a nonentity in his own life it’s deeply fascinating.
September 22, 2023
Love what McNally is doing with these out of print editions. I thought the brashness in Dinah’s writing was something I don’t remember reading. Decades old this book still resonates. I don’t necessarily agree with Otessa Moshfegh’s foreword that it took her 3 weeks to read the first 75 pages cause she had to put the book down and walk around. I felt the opposite, I didn’t put it down. It moves fantastically. Well worth the read!!!
April 1, 2024
a very nasty piece of work on the horrors of bourgeois good behaviour that is also totally engrossing. Coldly clinical prose that I have encountered very little analog to; every word is exactly where it should be. As for the plot: Giles operates by an internal logic that both 1) alienates the reader, hopefully and 2) tracks completely perfectly. Not wanting to spoil anything here, but, why shouldn't he behave exactly as he does?
Was actually smiling while reading the final pages of this one, talk about sticking the landing. Hoping that Brooke's other novels find their way back into publication in the near future.
Was actually smiling while reading the final pages of this one, talk about sticking the landing. Hoping that Brooke's other novels find their way back into publication in the near future.
December 1, 2023
Picked this up at a bookstore because I liked the cover and oh my god it’s a new favorite. It’s so alarmingly and unapologetically English and the writing is unlike anything I’ve read before. Somehow both sensuously clear yet elusive and dreamlike, I couldn’t put it down. Not sure I would recommend it to everyone as it’s quite particular but I loved it.
May 6, 2024
One of the most disturbing and shocking books I've read in a long time. Truly dark and with fantastically inventive and provocative writing. The middle section of the book sometimes dragged a little for me but this was still an excellent, albeit deeply strange, read.
December 23, 2023
4.5 ⭐️
Read
August 4, 2024tbh I skimmed half the book then skipped to the end this shit was so boring sorry
May 14, 2024
I am very enthusiastic about my recommendation of this. Anyone who likes fucked up characters and exploring the seething underbelly of the upper middle class- go buy this book. The rhetoric was something I had never read before. It reads almost like an epos- similar to Kleist Nibelungen Epic. I loved it. Dinah Brooke showed massive talent crafting this.
April 22, 2022
Wowie wow. That was a wild ride. I'm kind of glad I didn't know much going in, so I won't say much here. But there are twists and turns.
4.42 stars
Soon to be reissued by McNally Jackson.
4.42 stars
Soon to be reissued by McNally Jackson.
January 17, 2024
Very detailed description of his life as an infant and when he was in the Navy ( this dragged on). Some unnecessary descriptions and a little graphic.Sometimes a little long winded. Ending is surprising and a little random as the story is quite slow before this. Can't say I liked any characters.
December 31, 2023
A dark, labyrinthine, cerebral Bildungsroman — its narrative swamped in a kind of grotesque humor and sparkly dread which had me both cheering on its protagonist and wishing he would be put out of his misery.
For readers who enjoyed: The Secret Friend, American Psycho, We Need To Talk About Kevin, and Eileen
For readers who enjoyed: The Secret Friend, American Psycho, We Need To Talk About Kevin, and Eileen
May 10, 2024
tbh torn on this one. i loved the beginning a lot and the descriptions were v otherworldly and disgusting which i like but the end just seemed cliche at this point. i think ive just been reading so many books that are the same style as this but the endings are just so boring and predictable atp
i got bored by the half way mark ish
i got bored by the half way mark ish
November 30, 2023
There’s a scene in Lord Jim at Home where a man meets a horrific death at sea. We are deep in the midst of WW2, and Giles Trenchard, the main protagonist of Brooke’s novel, has joined the Navy as an Ordinary Seaman. His ship, the Patusan, is under fire from a pair of Japanese destroyers, and the galley has been hit. As Price, one of Giles’ shipmates, tries to reload a torpedo, he is sliced in two at the groin by an enemy shell – the force of which carries the top half of his body over the rail, splashing ‘into the sea for a nice swim’. His legs, on the other hand, remain on deck, held together purely by the trousers as his limbs fold at the knees. It’s a gruesome scene, and yet there’s something mordantly funny about it too, typified by the cartoonish image Brooke plants in the reader’s mind. This tension between the cruelly grotesque and savagely comic is vital to the success of this book. It is by turns witty, merciless, shocking, and repulsive, but the sparkling quality of Brooke’s prose and the singular nature of her vision carry the reader through.
First published in 1973 and recently reissued by the ever-reliable publishing arm of Daunt Books, Lord Jim at Home is an unflinching coming-of-age story, rooted in the brutality of the privileged upper classes. Born in the interwar years, Giles Trenchard is the eldest son of Austin Trenchard, a powerful, austere solicitor and his wife, Alice. The Trenchards live in Cornwall, and Brooke emphasises the mythic, fable-like quality of her story by referring to Giles as ‘the Prince’ while his parents are termed ‘the King’ and ‘the Queen’. Nevertheless, this is a fairy tale of the darkest kind – pitch-black and unyielding like a piece of polished jet.
Bullied and disdained by his father and cruelly neglected by his mother, Giles is starved of love and affection – an abandonment exacerbated by the chilly atmosphere of the nursery, presided over by an abusive nanny who locks Giles in a cupboard by day and straps him down in bed at night.
A child should be quiet and malleable. He should have no desires. He should have no will. (p.12)
Mealtimes are especially torturous affairs as the nurse seeks to exert her control over the impressionable infant Prince. In a scene reminiscent of Edward St Aubyn’s Patrick Melrose novels, the nurse grabs young Giles by the scruff of the neck and dangles him out of the nursery window when he fails to eat his lunch – a heinous combination of bitter spinach and congealed scrambled egg, the latter resembling vomit.
‘Do you want me to drop you? Will you eat your spinach?’ The friendly green lawn swings dizzily below him. There is a bush with yellow flowers growing against the house. It would be nice to dig in the flower bed. Perhaps find a snail or a worm. His legs and arms make tiny kicks in the air. A brightly speckled thrush swoops past him and picks a snail out of the flower bed and dashes it against a stone. (p. 40)
To read the rest of my review, please visit:
https://jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2023...
First published in 1973 and recently reissued by the ever-reliable publishing arm of Daunt Books, Lord Jim at Home is an unflinching coming-of-age story, rooted in the brutality of the privileged upper classes. Born in the interwar years, Giles Trenchard is the eldest son of Austin Trenchard, a powerful, austere solicitor and his wife, Alice. The Trenchards live in Cornwall, and Brooke emphasises the mythic, fable-like quality of her story by referring to Giles as ‘the Prince’ while his parents are termed ‘the King’ and ‘the Queen’. Nevertheless, this is a fairy tale of the darkest kind – pitch-black and unyielding like a piece of polished jet.
Bullied and disdained by his father and cruelly neglected by his mother, Giles is starved of love and affection – an abandonment exacerbated by the chilly atmosphere of the nursery, presided over by an abusive nanny who locks Giles in a cupboard by day and straps him down in bed at night.
A child should be quiet and malleable. He should have no desires. He should have no will. (p.12)
Mealtimes are especially torturous affairs as the nurse seeks to exert her control over the impressionable infant Prince. In a scene reminiscent of Edward St Aubyn’s Patrick Melrose novels, the nurse grabs young Giles by the scruff of the neck and dangles him out of the nursery window when he fails to eat his lunch – a heinous combination of bitter spinach and congealed scrambled egg, the latter resembling vomit.
‘Do you want me to drop you? Will you eat your spinach?’ The friendly green lawn swings dizzily below him. There is a bush with yellow flowers growing against the house. It would be nice to dig in the flower bed. Perhaps find a snail or a worm. His legs and arms make tiny kicks in the air. A brightly speckled thrush swoops past him and picks a snail out of the flower bed and dashes it against a stone. (p. 40)
To read the rest of my review, please visit:
https://jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2023...
November 9, 2023
This book received rave reviews in The Guardian, so in a 'senior moment' I ordered it. I found it gratuitously horrible and, in the end, unreadable.
When I got to the scene when the little boy has to sit alone at the table until he eats the cold gristly meat that is put in front of him, I suddenly remembered the same humiliation happening to me in 1950s Belfast, at the junior school of the self-styled 'Eton of Ulster'. A child who hated all meat except bacon, I had to sit alone in the dining hall of this execrable establishment of terrible teaching and compulsory games, after all the other boys had finished their pudding and left, in front of a plate of cold, veinous meat and, I think, pickled beetroot and congealing white sauce. I steadfastly refused, and was eventually released without further punishment (or pudding) - unlike the poor kid in this ghastly book. It was at this point that my dredged-up memory made me refuse to read any further.
The book is certainly not 'a parody of upper middle class life'. It has the ring of awful truth. But I got the feeling that the author was revelling in some kind of sadism - much worse than than that of the Marquis de Sade's Justine which seems quite playful in contrast.
Ironically for this review, I later had to read the original Lord Jim at the slightly-less-oppressive upper school. I disliked it in the same way that I disliked Moby Dick. Recently, however, I read an excellent and endearing biography of Conrad, so I was intrigued when I read about this reprint. However, a certain aura of glee on the part of the writer makes me class it as child abuse pornography with pathetic revenge conveniently tacked-on.
(Perhaps I sound 'over-sensitive'. But I am not a fragile reader. In my adolescence I revelled in Zola and Balzac. I was deeply affected by The Brothers Karamazov. Much later, I enjoyed the then-notorious Last Exit to Brooklyn).
All of the horrors inflicted on the baby, child and boy in the first part of this novel certainly occurred in homes and schools all over the British Empire (and were even worse for kids ripped from the bosoms of indigenous families by Christians and government departments), but probably not all on one individual. Instead of a gratuitously-horrific and disturbing story, it would have been better if the author had written a sober, sociological work drawn on the research she might have done for this novel...which could so easily be treated (especially by guilty parents) as perverted fiction.
When I got to the scene when the little boy has to sit alone at the table until he eats the cold gristly meat that is put in front of him, I suddenly remembered the same humiliation happening to me in 1950s Belfast, at the junior school of the self-styled 'Eton of Ulster'. A child who hated all meat except bacon, I had to sit alone in the dining hall of this execrable establishment of terrible teaching and compulsory games, after all the other boys had finished their pudding and left, in front of a plate of cold, veinous meat and, I think, pickled beetroot and congealing white sauce. I steadfastly refused, and was eventually released without further punishment (or pudding) - unlike the poor kid in this ghastly book. It was at this point that my dredged-up memory made me refuse to read any further.
The book is certainly not 'a parody of upper middle class life'. It has the ring of awful truth. But I got the feeling that the author was revelling in some kind of sadism - much worse than than that of the Marquis de Sade's Justine which seems quite playful in contrast.
Ironically for this review, I later had to read the original Lord Jim at the slightly-less-oppressive upper school. I disliked it in the same way that I disliked Moby Dick. Recently, however, I read an excellent and endearing biography of Conrad, so I was intrigued when I read about this reprint. However, a certain aura of glee on the part of the writer makes me class it as child abuse pornography with pathetic revenge conveniently tacked-on.
(Perhaps I sound 'over-sensitive'. But I am not a fragile reader. In my adolescence I revelled in Zola and Balzac. I was deeply affected by The Brothers Karamazov. Much later, I enjoyed the then-notorious Last Exit to Brooklyn).
All of the horrors inflicted on the baby, child and boy in the first part of this novel certainly occurred in homes and schools all over the British Empire (and were even worse for kids ripped from the bosoms of indigenous families by Christians and government departments), but probably not all on one individual. Instead of a gratuitously-horrific and disturbing story, it would have been better if the author had written a sober, sociological work drawn on the research she might have done for this novel...which could so easily be treated (especially by guilty parents) as perverted fiction.
August 4, 2024
This odd little book is worthy of Otessa Moshfegh, who wrote the introduction and narrates the audiobook.
In some ways it is a standard story of a wayward failed child of a privileged family. Giles is neglected, unloved, mostly invisible to the world, and having no ability that is praiseworthy other than a modest talent for cricket. He is abused by his nanny as a baby and his parents are too distant and caught up in their own lives to pay attention or care. And they are far from being exemplary human beings so poor Giles starts out in life scraping from the bottom of the gene pool. We want to have sympathy for him. Surely, he will escape this world and distinguish himself in some fashion, maybe with cricket, maybe in the navy during the war, but it is hard for the reader to ever really care. The parents are borderline sociopaths, and Giles is a full-blown example of the condition. He never cares about others or himself. We know that something horrible is going to happen, but we don't know what. When it finally comes, it is seemingly out of nowhere, unsurprising after the fact, but it completely took me aback when it happened.
The style of the narration is interesting. I can't think of another book quite like it. Everything is distanced and told in flat voice. Gile's isn't presented as the narrator, but it's the way that Giles himself would write a book, if he could ever have found the desire and focus to do so. It put me off a little, but I think that aspect of it was intentional. It was very effective in conveying the mood of the book.
The book is well-written and the horrible characters are all completely believable, but there's no greater game at stake here, just a sad story of a privileged life gone wrong - bad people who are made that way by their basic natures and the society that they live in.
In some ways it is a standard story of a wayward failed child of a privileged family. Giles is neglected, unloved, mostly invisible to the world, and having no ability that is praiseworthy other than a modest talent for cricket. He is abused by his nanny as a baby and his parents are too distant and caught up in their own lives to pay attention or care. And they are far from being exemplary human beings so poor Giles starts out in life scraping from the bottom of the gene pool. We want to have sympathy for him. Surely, he will escape this world and distinguish himself in some fashion, maybe with cricket, maybe in the navy during the war, but it is hard for the reader to ever really care. The parents are borderline sociopaths, and Giles is a full-blown example of the condition. He never cares about others or himself. We know that something horrible is going to happen, but we don't know what. When it finally comes, it is seemingly out of nowhere, unsurprising after the fact, but it completely took me aback when it happened.
The style of the narration is interesting. I can't think of another book quite like it. Everything is distanced and told in flat voice. Gile's isn't presented as the narrator, but it's the way that Giles himself would write a book, if he could ever have found the desire and focus to do so. It put me off a little, but I think that aspect of it was intentional. It was very effective in conveying the mood of the book.
The book is well-written and the horrible characters are all completely believable, but there's no greater game at stake here, just a sad story of a privileged life gone wrong - bad people who are made that way by their basic natures and the society that they live in.
February 21, 2024
Lord Jim at Home by Dinah Brooke is a re-issue from 1973, which apparently was met with horror on its first publication. I can see why, but I loved it. It is repulsive, disturbing, grotesque, and mordantly funny - I laughed out loud many times and then felt bad about laughing. It's a clever writer who can make a reader feel both delighted and appalled in the same moment. Dinah Brooke's writing is clear and crisp, and the images she creates in the reader's head are vivid and nightmarish.
Lord Jim at Home is a story in three parts about the life of Giles Trenchard, born between the wars into an upper middle class family where he is cruelly treated by his father and his first nursemaid. He learns to keep his head down, and by doing this he survives school and escapes to the Navy. The second part is about long stretches of time doing nothing, and an hour or two of intense and terrible fighting. When Giles returns to England he finds he doesn't fit in anywhere, can't understand what he's supposed to be doing, and the third part is completely unexpected and yet makes complete sense in a weird and very dark way. Highly recommended.
Lord Jim at Home is a story in three parts about the life of Giles Trenchard, born between the wars into an upper middle class family where he is cruelly treated by his father and his first nursemaid. He learns to keep his head down, and by doing this he survives school and escapes to the Navy. The second part is about long stretches of time doing nothing, and an hour or two of intense and terrible fighting. When Giles returns to England he finds he doesn't fit in anywhere, can't understand what he's supposed to be doing, and the third part is completely unexpected and yet makes complete sense in a weird and very dark way. Highly recommended.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 80 reviews