The Road Home
by Rose Tremain
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List Price: ££7.99
Our Price: ££3.01
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Manufacturer: Vintage
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Paperback
EAN: 9780099478461
ISBN: 0099478463
Label: Vintage
Number Of Pages: 320
Publication Date: 2008-06-12
Publisher: Vintage
Studio: Vintage
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: My favourite read of the year
Comment: There are some writers who just create seamless prose that reads like it's always been there on the page and they just traced over the words. Well, for me, this was one of those books. I loved it from beginning to end. It tells the story of Lev, an "economic migrant" from the East, and his search for work, and life. It is probably a little too rose tinted to be real, and I doubt there are many migrants so lucky as Lev, but I so wanted him to succeed.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Ok it's a fairy tale but a life affirming one
Comment: In language serious, studied, courtly and old-fashioned RT takes us straight into the mind of our melancholy hero Lev - not Olev - cleverly written, carefully researched and up to the minute subject.
Through a haze of cigarettes, the smoking of each one has to be respectfully described, swigs of his darling vodka lisch, all vital to him despite the poverty of his circumstances. Christy and Rudi also sharing his crutches of nicotine and alcohol until they learn that they live more happily without them..
Auror, Glic, Yarbyl, Baryn, Jor are all unrecognised as actual place names so Lev comes from an unknown to us Eastern European country, of grey trade and grey money, arriving by bus and ferry to London. Journeying with the tidy figure of Lydia beside him.
Threading through the story the memory of Marina his lost loved wife, who was a strong mother, daughter in law, friend and colleague. Looking at London and Londoners through the eyes of a new comer with only his language structure to describe it. "Sucking on bottles like anxious babies"..
A clear and effective narrative - Rudi's voice is always in Lev's head, a powerful influence on him. Although later Lev overtakes Rudi and turns his life around for him. The homespun wisdom of Lev's family pushing through his thoughts. Homesickness constantly threatening to overwhelm him. Thoughts of Rudi and his Tschevi (almost a person) Lev's innocence, naivety and simplicity is appealing. Rudi's character is attractive and impressive. When he eventually becomes "The Face Of The Place' all seems right with the world.
Ina, the grim and difficult mother/grandmother/widow whose God is asleep never reacts quite as we'd hope and is like a belligerent donkey who will not be led. I felt she was an excellently drawn person, quite believable.
The themes of food and diet running through are interesting and touching. This chocolate `reminds me of sleep' says Ina grudgingly at the end in the restaurant at no. 43 Podorsky Street. Food horizons opening up with the experience of GKAshe, I remember the same when I worked in restaurant kitchens. Detailed descriptions of meals all so different, from hardboiled eggs, greasy grey goat meat kebabs onward all affected Lev and awoke his senses. Although I am amazed that Lev's taste buds actually worked after so much abuse from the tobacco and spirits. In fact Lev falls in love with food and cooking. Even in the uninspiring atmosphere of the nursing home kitchen. Food becomes his life even after the forty two years of not thinking about it. The kitchen suppers at GKAshe have a comforting reassuring feel, the crostini so delicious you can almost smell it.
As a poignant thoughtful touch RT includes characters from her other stories at least I recognised Ruby Constad from Letters to Sister Benedicta.
Truly felicitous meetings unfold through Lev's progress from his doomed home. His path is smoothed in a fairy tale way mostly by kind ladies and people who are pleased to repay the kindness of others to them. Lydia, Sulima at the first B+B, Ahmed the kebab man, hospitable Tom and Larissa (yoga aficionado). Christy Slane is far deeper and more of a character than he first appears and like all pantomime stories, his ends happily thankfully. Sophie, Sam the mad hatter, Vitas, the Ming's.
Throughout the tale we always understand what is being said to Lev but because of his limited English he only gets part of the conversations along the way especially with GKAshe (Gordon Ramsey) whose kitchen is run like an orchestra or an operating theatre. Christy talking away, his ex wife,snapping, Sophie the lover. It all gives the reader another view of our own language.
Through all of Lev's vast range of experiences you feel you are going through them al with him, they are so warmly and inclusively written. When he mucks things up in his only human way you cringe along with him and admire him for rising again to the next challenges.
So much of the story shows us how other people's voices, opinions and advice constantly ring in our heads - if we choose to let them. Also that the kindness of strangers really can turn your life around.
Lovely stuff!
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Rose Tremain does it again
Comment: This is a wonderful novel. I always enjoy Rose Tremain, and The Road Home is certainly one of my favourites.
It's fabulously written, as ever, and Lev is a sympathetic hero, though she certainly doesn't hide his faults. His flashes of anger, culminating in the book's most brutal scene, are convincingly built up - and his treatment of long-suffering Lydia is pretty shoddy.
I agree that there's the odd stereotype among the characters, but I most certainly do not share the view that this story has a fairytale ending. It's highly ambiguous - is everyone really happy and how rosy is the future?
Because Rose Tremain's novels are all so different from each other, I was surprised - and charmed - to find her using a character from an earlier novel quite prominently. Ruby Constad, an old lady who Lev comes to know, is the heroine of Tremain's much earlier novel Letter to Sister Benedicta. The poor woman's life hasn't improved along the way, but I think her appearance here shows how much Tremain cares for her. And if you realise that, you can see she's far more than the convenient plot device she might, at first, appear.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A mirror through which to view a 'Green and pleasant land'.
Comment: I enjoyed this book, which isn't surprising considering it was written by Rose Tremain. As usual the prose, construction, attention to detail, plot progression and pace were brilliant: I'm certain Rose Tremain could write a novel about a matchbox and it would be riveting and informative.
For me, Lev, the central character is in essence a mirror that Tremain holds up for us to see the England we'd maybe rather ignore or forget: the pretentious garbage of celebrity and affluence; the coldness and fickle allegiances of a morally bankrupt society; the pockets of loneliness and sadness that exist within families and institutions.
There are aspects of the book that didn't work for me. I felt Lev's character was a little one-dimensional and slightly underdeveloped. His outbursts of temper seemed incongruous and, somewhat irritatingly, his mastery of English seemed to be achieved at a phenomenal rate. I felt the ending was a little brief, not really tying together or enhancing what went before. However his work ethic, determination and pragmatism were an accurate reflection of the Eastern European workers I know.
Some of the characters in the story are memorable: the scarred, sensitive and lonely Christy; the life force that is Rudi; the driven GK Ashe. Others were less believable or bordered on parody: the farmer Midge was irritatingly underdeveloped and his cod rural speech and mannerisms annoying; I didn't find Sophie believable, a shame given her central role.
But, the negatives above can't detract from the overall quality of the book. I was held throughout Lev's odyssey and as I neared the end I actually longed for it all to turn out well for him. I finished with a feeling that my latent dislike of much of what is modern England had flowered into something approaching full blown disgust.
This book reminded me of the famous lines from Burns:
'Oh wad some power the Giftie gie us
To see oursels as others see us!'
Customer Rating:
Summary: Beautifully written but predictable tale
Comment: Fascinating to read so many rave reviews. I read this on a very long train journey and if I hadn't been stuck there would probably have abandoned it. Rose Tremain has a wonderful prose style and she organizes her plots really well with lots of development, but the novel didn't grip me at all. Characters were boring, situations obvious (mobile phone going off during concert, stereotypical rich/poor London, even more stereotypical run-down anonymous ex-eastern bloc country etc), the ending warm & cosy. Did nobody else find Lev deeply tedious? She is very good at doing her homework, so the top-class restaurant, police treatment of migrants, retirement home, and lots of other stuff were thoroughly credible. But I felt disappointed; maybe I'm just expecting too much.
Norman Housley
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