Looking for the possible dance, by A. L. Kennedy
Publication date: 1993
Edition: New Ed edition (February 14, 1994)
Publisher: Vintage (Rand)
Format: Paperback
Genre: Novel/regionalism (not sure about the second); In the library I found it in the category women, family and relationships
Source: Public Library
Time needed for reading: 3-4 hours
Price: Well I saw this book on Amazon Marketplace for 0,77 US-Dollar with a postage of 5 $. But I also saw it for 150$...So I will go with the price directly set by Amazon. which is 9.99 € or about 14 US-Dollar
Summary: Mary Margaret Hamilton was educated in Scotland. She was born there too. These may not have been the best possible options, but they were the only ones on offer at the time. Although her father did his best, her knowledge of life is perhaps a little incomplete. Margaret knows the best way to look at the moon, how to wake on time and how to breathe fire. now she must learn how to live.
Edit because I think I have been misunderstood:
Well...rating this book proves to be quite hard; my third try now. You have to know that, when I got this book, I raged. I hate the genre, I hate the things it is about and most importantly I hate books written by women - not because they are unable to write(think of Inkheart for a moment), no, but because nearly every book I read and did not like was written by a woman. (This may be the cause because there are less books written by women - at least in the book store I frequent- or it may be because, at least I think, they tend to write more emotions into their works - to much for my liking)
As my taste of literature is not universial this becomes important to you because this book my have gotten a better rating were I not biased. Nonetheless I tried to be as neutral as possible - while I do not know whether I was successful I hope that this review helps.
So, without further ado the review:
Firstly the book is about, well nothing really. A bit about working class, a bit about love and about every-day life. It all begins with a dance of Margaret (the protagonist) and her father. This dance is what keeps the book spinning. She always remembers her father and everything he ever taught her - as a consequence she always compares everybody with her father or with the things her father told her about life, about simple things like the moon and about moments - how life is just a chain of moments, one after the other. Now they are here and then they are gone, forever and always and they will never come back; after all they are just moments, but each one precious.
I think that may be the core message of the book. The message about moments and about inter-human relationships. These seem to be quite boring (which they often are I assure you) but the author portrays these relationships with a frightening similarity to reality. The senseless, the kind, the foes and those who seek to exploit you, all have characters representing them in this book. The relationship between them and Margaret (and as a result between them and you) is not just described or portrayed but you are rather able to live them and feel them.
The second part that was nicely done in this book was a guy called Mr. Webster. You never really get to know what he does for a living but you get to know that he is a murderer and a criminal of various wrongdoings.
He tells about a murder he committed and about a punishment he subjected himself to. Rather than going into prison he sentenced himself to eight years. He denies himself all forms of happiness or satisfaction, to never feel delight in keeping contact with other persons or to never enjoy the rain or the smell of the earth.
He later on appears in the book and crucifies Margaret's semi-boyfriend because he dared to defy a client of his. It is quite interesting because you were able to admire this man for his honesty and his self-punishment and, while he talked, for his knowledge about humanity. But now you are disgusted - a bit with the author and a bit with yourself because you liked him while you did not know him.
The author did a really good job creating this person. Firstly because she set a good pace with Webster in this otherwise very long book and because Webster is you and you are Webster. Crime is our everyday partner in life and the dark abyss of the human soul is very well known to us. A step to far and you will be like Webster.
We give people like Webster the possibility to make money with crimes and it is very easy to get things you want Webster's way. On the other side Webster is a person teaching you about life and its cruelties - and to live with or rather despite the cruelties.
The main negative aspect is that the pace of the book is rather slow, often boring. Sometimes you get told about all the meaningless things in life which you know but you don't want to acknowledge and as a consequence you don't enjoy the reading. Sometimes the book seems a bit about a big Freud-complex (father-daughter-daughter-father) and thus does not concern you. You will think: Why do I even read this shit?!
Sometimes the time in which the story is set seems so far in the past that you think all these problems of working class they had back then was never my world, why shall I invest my free time into it? That's a good question really...
About the writing style of the author, well, she writes quite good but, not perfect mind you. She does a decent job in creating and writing relationships. The characters have a good amount of depth (ironically Webster has more than the protagonist) and it reads itself fluently. The great drawback is the pace. It is very often to slow, the reading mutates into a test of patience. She tries to do it fast through telling the story as reflections of the past while the protagonist is on a train to London - sadly you don't feel like on a train but rather like on a carriage to South Africa...starting at the North Pole! Even the dance which starts and ends the book and symbolizes two eras and relationships does not manage to give the story a faster pace - the 256 pages will feel like the 1000 of Frank Schätzing's "Limit" and even those will set a faster pace and you feel throughly drained after them. But this book, well, a good nights rest is more absorbing.
So the book gets a rating which is quite good. I would point this book out to people who like psychology or analysis of inter-human relationships but not to those who like action or suspense.
Surprisingly I did like the book if just a little bit...many parts of it were just too emotional for my liking and boring. In contrast the description of humans, relationships and the human psyche was quite interesting for me.
Whether it deserves to be on the 1001 book list is questionable. But what is not questionable is that this book covers an interesting topic (at least for some) and certainly should be read, even if just as a book on the 2002 list.
My rating: 5,9 out of 10 (after the 480 credits total table)