Scan barcode
jackieeh's review
2.0
Yikes. I am very, very glad I didn't succeed in getting my hands on this while I was still writing my senior thesis, because I would have felt compelled to shoehorn it in somewhere it didn't belong. It's not the uneven writing (to put it generously) and the queasy close third/third person omniscient that gives away several games far too soon. It's the characterization of Anthony Blunt as a poker face-less (obviously not the case) dedicated Communist (you'd think, but no). I'll never make excuses for anything he did, but I've researched him enough to know that he deserved better than this.
Thankfully, he also received better, more complex characterizations elsewhere, in the texts that actually deserved to be in my senior thesis.
But enough bashing. The one redeeming feature of this otherwise not so great book was the late-night Wikipedia kick it sent me on last night. It all started when I Googled Vita Sackville-West. (Since she was the one I knew the least about, she came off as the most interesting and consistent character.) This led me down the Bloomsbury rabbit hole, where I'd been before, but never this deep. Eventually, two hours past my bedtime and picking my jaw up off the floor after reading about the life of Angelica Garnett, I decided that A Friendship of Convenience wasn't a completely useless book after all.
Thankfully, he also received better, more complex characterizations elsewhere, in the texts that actually deserved to be in my senior thesis.
But enough bashing. The one redeeming feature of this otherwise not so great book was the late-night Wikipedia kick it sent me on last night. It all started when I Googled Vita Sackville-West. (Since she was the one I knew the least about, she came off as the most interesting and consistent character.) This led me down the Bloomsbury rabbit hole, where I'd been before, but never this deep. Eventually, two hours past my bedtime and picking my jaw up off the floor after reading about the life of Angelica Garnett, I decided that A Friendship of Convenience wasn't a completely useless book after all.
More...