Product Description

Peter Carey's novel of the undeclared love between clergyman Oscar Hopkins and the heiress Lucinda Leplastrier is both a moving and beautiful love story and a historical tour de force. Made for each other, the two are gamblers - one obsessive, the other compulsive - incapable of winning at the game of love.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #75275 in Books
• Published on: 2008-05-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 544 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Oscar Hopkins is a high-strung preacher's kid with hydrophobia and noisy knees. Lucinda Leplastrier is a frizzy-haired heiress who impulsively buys a glass factory with the inheritance forced on her by a well-intentioned adviser. In the early parts of this lushly written book, author Peter Carey renders the seminal turning points in his protagonists' childhoods as exquisite 19th-century set pieces. Young Oscar, denied the heavenly fruit of a Christmas pudding by his cruelly stern father, forever renounces his father's religion in favour of the Anglican Church. "Dear God," Oscar prays, "if it be Thy will that Thy people eat pudding, smite him!" Lucinda's childhood trauma involves a beautiful doll bought by her struggling mother with savings from the jam jar; in a misguided attempt to tame the doll's unruly curls, young Lucinda mutilates her treasure beyond repair. Neither of these coming-of-age stories quite explains how the grown-up Oscar and Lucinda each develop a guilty passion for gambling. Oscar plays the horses while at school, and Lucinda, now an orphaned heiress, finds comfort in a game of cards with an odd collection of acquaintances. When the two finally meet, on board a ship bound for New South Wales, they are bound by their affinity for risk, their loneliness and their awkwardly blossoming (but unexpressed) mutual affection. Their final high-stakes folly-- transporting a crystal palace of a church across (literally) godforsaken terrain--strains plausibility, and events turn ghastly as Oscar plays out his bid for Lucinda's heart. Yet even the unconvincing plot turns are made up for by Carey's rich prose and the tale's unpredictable outcome. Although love proves to be the ultimate gamble for Oscar and Lucinda, the story never strays too far from the terrible possibility that even the most thunderstruck lovers can remain isolated in parallel lives.

About the Author
Peter Carey was born in 1943 in Australia and lives in New York. He is the author of the highly acclaimed selection of short stories, The Fat Man in History, seven novels, Bliss, Illywhacker (shortlisted for the 1985 Booker Prize), Oscar and Lucinda (winner of the 1988 Booker Prize), The Tax Inspector, The Unusual Life of Tristan Smith, Jack Maggs (winner of the 1998 Commonwealth Writers Prize) and True History of the Kelly Gang (winner of the 2001 Booker Prize), and a book for children, The Big Bazoohley. Oscar and Lucinda was made into a film starring Ralph Fiennes.

Customer Reviews

Nice guys finish last
Reviewer: Bianca from Marlow UK
All that denial and pain and hopes of redemption getting dashed... I felt like my heart had been attacked with a cheesegrater by the time I finished, this book is SAVAGELY sad. Squint, though, and you will see a glittering dark humour in the tragedy as unworldly Oscar is brought down to earth with a crunch and independent Lucinda sees the precipice she approaches too late so high does she hold her head. But they are the most wonderful characters (of course they are, if Carey hadn't made me feel so tenderly for them I wouldn't want to beat him up right now).
Carey's prose has a haunting sensuality to it, especially considering that any sex which does go on is very much on the periphery, just out of sight. Instead, like the luminous descriptions of sea life so lovingly written by Oscar's bible bashing father, every sentence tingles with the beauty of minute observation. It heightens your senses so delicately that whenever pain and discomfort descend upon a character (most of the time) it positively stings. And wrap up warm when reading the Devon chapters.
A 'Spectator' review calls it Dickensian, which should give you some idea of the scope, the complexity, and the universe of characters delineated within. Like Dickens you will find Carey has an eye for detail and an appreciation of the ridiculous which is often biting. These frail creatures play out their lives on the backdrop of colonial Australia, a place where progress is at war with the harsh forces of nature and frail notions of 'civilisation' tainted with the blood of the culture it seeks to replace.
And I haven't even mentioned the gambling, but then I think that it is better understood as a device, a prism would be an appropriate comparison considering the glass theme. Through this prism we see the complex characters of Oscar and Lucinda refracted into bands of conflicting desires and compulsions. Also this idea of Oscar's, that to chose God and a life of renunciation is itself a gamble; the bet of your worldly life for the winnings of the afterlife.
It's not a sure thing that you'll enjoy this book, but take a chance on it anyway, that's my tip.

It's all in the telling
Never has a story of two such peculiar individuals been so beautifully told. At first, I'll admit the novel for me was slow to begin with and being an impatient reader, I struggled to get into it. Although please carry on, for although the plot will not necessarily drive you quickly onwards, the characters Carey creates will hopefully grip you as they did me and almost force you to carry on reading. Simply, there are no disposable characters; the story is pushed forward by the actions of the characters and not what is usually seen where writers create simple characters to fit into the story (Think Rosencrantz & Guildenstein).

The setting of the novel is equally impressive; Carey brings 19th century Australia back into existence for the purpose of shaping and testing his creations, and it is through these conflicts that you will learn to love and hate the author for what he does to your characters. Carey isn't satisfied to give a simple description of Australia, he must make sure you feel the anger of the natives, the pressures of society in 19th century Sydney, the atmosphere in the gambling houses.

Running throughout the novel are many themes, some grand, some not, but all relevant. For instance what makes a good father? or Son?, what are the aspects of faith? is love always an obsession? Every chapter has within it a deeper story to tell.
All this adds up to an amazing book, one that I'm sure I'll read countless times in my life.

Absurd and Delightful
I can understand why people may give up on this book but alas! Do continue, for the time you devote will pay off spectacularly.

It took me a few attempts to finish reading this novel; Carey's intensly descriptive attention to detail takes some getting used to. However, by the time I had really 'got into it' my personal dedication to the characters had become great and I became engrossed by the two protagonists: Oscar and Lucinda.

The short and neatly contained chapters act almost as stories in themselves and within these small bursts of narrative subtly emerges an outline of the harsh reality of a nation in its infancy. Like the English in an unsympathetic Australian climate we see two peculiars, a square peg and an odd bod, raging and scurrying through the expectations of society.

Nothing prepered me for the impact this book had on me and its electrifying ending shook me to the core. The story and its protagonists are absurd and obscure, intense and strangely romantic but moreover; utterly delightful.