Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #250227 in Books
• Published on: 2008-05-02
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 272 pages

Good Book Guide
`A powerfully moving psychological novel.'

Sunday Times Culture
'He communicates his young narrator's predicament with urgency, intimacy and unexpected poignancy.'

The Times
'Admirers of the author's ability to immerse himself wholly in the mind of a given individual...will not be disappointed.'

Customer Reviews

When We Were Good
In Matthew Kneale's new novel, we are in the hands of Lawrence, a nine-year-old boy who at the beginning of the novel is living with his mother Hannah and younger sister Jemima. Father is in the background, muttered about darkly, feared and avoided and - so far as we can tell - the perpetrator of some unspeakable outrage. So much are the family in terror of him that they leave Britain and decamp for a time to Rome, where Hannah lived for a time in happier days. When not recounting their adventures in Rome with old friends, Lawrence occupies himself with stories about Roman emperors from his Horrible Histories book, or imparting information about every boy's favourite topic (after dinosaurs): outer space.

Lawrence's story is told with childlike energy and simplicity, not to mention an authentically lax grammar and spelling ("I had seen mum when she got worreid but I never saw her like this, this was worse. She just lay in bed looking up at the cieling with her eyes"). The book is even set in a slightly blocky, crude typeface. These are tools to be used sparingly, and fortunately Kneale never lets his creative use of language get in the way of the story. Even so, at first I thought we had another identikit child narrator, an affectless voice like Christopher Boone from The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time or Roddy Doyle's Paddy Clarke.

"We were coming back from the supermarket, we went to a further away one where we never went before so it would be all right, and it was an adventure mum said, we must be really quick, we must be like birds diving down and getting some food and flying away with it in their mouths."

And then I began to find myself thinking about the characters when I wasn't reading the book, and I realised that in its candid way, Lawrence's narrative had wormed its way rather deeper than I thought. And as I read on, and began to work out the truth of the story, his asides began to take on a deeper resonance. The Roman emperors, like the celestial bodies in the Milky Way and beyond, depicted how so much of our lives - and children's lives in particular - are dictated by forces outside our control.

"Sientists have known for ages that something terrible will happen to the sun. This is sad but there is nothing scientists can do, they can't stop it with any invention, even something really clever from the future, because the sun is too big you see, it will just happen anyway. ... But then scientists discovered a really good thing which is called gravitational lensing. ... Perhaps the scientists will see another planet with their gravitational lensing, it will be lovely and green, it will be beautiful. Then everybody will be all right after all. They will build a huge space craft and escape there before the sun goes out."

The story also reminds us that there was one thing even the richest and most powerful Roman emperor could not protect himself against. And the central revelation, while not entirely surprising, is plausible and gives the book a greater richness and depth. It makes you root for Lawrence and his family in a quite emotional way, and want everything to be OK for them, which is a simple achievement that many longer and denser books would struggle to manage.

'Actually' - this was fab!
I loved this book. The voice of Lawrence is written very well... I loved the spelling mistakes, the way he says 'actually' in almost every sentence and that he gives animal characters to everyone he meets, what a great idea! I might start doing this myself! I also loved the stories about the Roman Emperors and Space, black holes etc than ran alongside the main plot.

It made me laugh alot but underlying everything is the readers tragic realisation that Hannah, his mother is becoming more and more unwell. Rome is colourfully described and each character well drawn (thanks to Lawrence's animal characters!). I haven't read any other Matthew Kneale books but I certainly will now...

When I Was Enchanted
The other reviewers have outlined the plot of this book so I won't, but I will say it was one of the most enjoyable - and at the same time sad - books I've read in a long time. Lawrence is the most delightful, credible narrator, and my heart was breaking for him as he tried to blot out his more serious concerns by resorting to childish tactics (like nagging his mother into buying him a remote control car that he didn't really want). His loyalty to his family, and his relationship with his charming little sister, and his hamster (for whose safety I feared throughout the book) are incredibly touching without ever being over-sentimental or mawkish. Like the previous reviewer, I didn't much like the end which is the only reason this hasn't got five stars. I thoroughly recommend it as an excellent, and not too demanding read.