Tag Archives: Patrick Gale

Sweet Obscurity by Patrick Gale

I had high expectations following the perfection of Notes from an Exhibition, and while I don’t love Sweet Obsurity quite as much, I still enjoyed the journey.

Familiar themes appeared: Mental illness. Artistic characters – though this time music which is Patrick’s love. The wild Cornish coast. He does write characters well and I do feel completed at the end of the novel.

His books are like eating a roast dinner – you feel satisfyingly full at the end.

A bit about the plot. Eliza is looking after her sister’s child, is married but separated from a counter-tenor (he sings high) who is now living with a publicist. The story of her sister and the daughter – our main hero – is the thread that holds this novel together. The messy lives (quite believable) of the characters build the story and we learn some interesting stuff along the way. This review says it all really.

Eliza joins a singing group at one point and perhaps it’s because I’ve just joined a choir – but that really resonated with me. 🙂
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It’s an interesting story, well told, satisfyingly chunky (as the BBC reviewer says) and a good read.

You can see how his writing led to Notes from an Exhibition. I wonder if reading more of his novels would lessen my opinion of Notes. Whether they would become samey.

Time will tell as I will surely look out more of his novels in the library.

I’ve started my next novel – Miss Webster and Cherif by Patricia Duncker – The Poshi recommends this highly and gave it to me for my birthday. So far I’m liking it. 🙂

Notes from an Exhibition

I heard about this book on Tony Delroy’s Nightlife program and while I never take book recommendations from radio programs the reviewer was so taken with this novel by Patrick Gale that when I saw it in the bookshop on Lygon St in Melbourne after dinner with my brother the other week, I thought I’d give it a go.

It is a story about a bi-polar artist and her family. She dies and the story of her and her family is slowly revealed in flashbacks while the present brings us to resolution. In fact when you think about it Patrick has written this book as one might view a painting.

You don’t look at a painting in a linear view… your eye is captured and you’re drawn to bits and pieces of the “story” the artist is trying to portray. When you stand back and view the complete artwork, you get a wholistic view.

Bob Dylan tried to do this with his song “Tangled up in Blue“.

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“…and I then realised that what we were doing was arranging an exhibition, we were thinking, well, this one [chapter] will really offset that one, and it will set up a sort of vibration.”

I can’t tell you how satisfying a read this is. The characters are so engaging. The art – you wish Rachel really existed so you could go to an exhibition. I’m even intrigued now with Quakers. I have been dragging out the end to make it last just a little bit longer. It has replaced Perfume by Patrick Suskind as my all-time favourite book. And Perfume has been top of my faves list for more than a decade.

It was – to quote Stephen Fry – “Complete Perfection”.

Transcript of an interview with Patrick Gale