Scan barcode
octavia_cade's review
4.0
I read and reviewed the two short memoirs collected here separately, so this is basically just for my own records. The rating is an average of what I gave the individual pieces. A World Away, by Mervyn Peake's wife Maeve Gilmore, is a stunning piece of writing about their life together. I gave it 5 stars, as it was genuinely outstanding. The memoir by their son Sebastian, however, A Child of Bliss, only earned 3 stars from me. While it has interesting parts, it suffers from lack of focus and is simply not as well-written as his mother's. There's also a lack of consistency between the two accounts, which is interesting in itself. People remember things differently, after all, and gathering together different perspectives does give a broader picture. I'm curious as to the train story, though - when Mervyn Peake was a child his family travelled on the Trans-Siberian railway. Maeve remembers Peake telling the story as if his brother was nearly left behind at a station; Sebastian remembers Peake telling the story as if it were Peake himself who was nearly left. There's a similar confusion when it came to a letter that teased Peake for giving children nightmares (and their parents' therapy bills!) with his illustrations. Maeve recalls the letter as being from Walter de la Mare, Sebastian recalls it being from C.S. Lewis. I don't point these out as shortcomings in the collection, by the way, because they're not - more as points of interest in how memories differ.
I should note that there are some strange formatting choices in this book. A Child of Bliss seems to be in a different font. It's certainly in a different sized font, and the indent for each paragraph is surprisingly and offputtingly large - the first line of each starts about a third of the way across the page. I'm afraid I don't see the point of this; it makes the whole book look patched together.
I should note that there are some strange formatting choices in this book. A Child of Bliss seems to be in a different font. It's certainly in a different sized font, and the indent for each paragraph is surprisingly and offputtingly large - the first line of each starts about a third of the way across the page. I'm afraid I don't see the point of this; it makes the whole book look patched together.
caseyot's review
3.0
Maeve Gilmore's books was much more affecting than Sebastian Peake's contribution, which I thought could have done with closer editing. The grief and pain and love in A World Away was palpable.
More...