megustaleer
8th March 2007, 09:01 AM
Is anybody familiar with the books of Bernice Rubens (http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/r/bernice-rubens/)? She has only one mention on here, as the author of an early Booker Prize Winner; The Elected Member, in 1970. Amazon Review
"The Elected Member" is the story of Norman, a mentally disturbed high-achiever in a close-knit Jewish family confined to a mental institution when his family feel they can no longer cope, and it is sensational in its achievements. It is written in such a way as to involve the reader to the highest possible degree, making him cry, laugh, and experience all the devestating emotions of the characters about which he is reading. The problems and situations it presents are for many easy to identify with, making it a book that is painful to read at the same time as being, for this very reason, impossible to put down. It is Rubens's style - pure storytelling - that makes the book so effective. Lack of too-involved description or her own opinions makes us focus on her subject instead, which is, of course, the most important thing, and the portrayal of her characters and their various reactions to Norman's illness as they face up to their own involvement with it is probably more believable than anything else I have ever read that it almost seems autobiographical.
This is a superb book, the author having gone almost too far into such a taboo issue as mental illness and the culpability of the family of the sick member. I felt guilt, I felt sadness, I felt despair...then I read it all over again.
I first came across a Bernice Rubens book on the shelf of a charity shop. It was A Five Year Sentence, and I loved the mixture of humour and sadness, and it became one of the few books that I re-read Amazon Review:
I first read this book about 5 years ago, and even now it remains my favourite of all time. The story begins with the presentation of a 5 year diary to a woman retiring from the factory where she has worked for all her life. Originally planning suicide, she is horrified to receive this gift, as she interprets it as an order to live for the next 5 years. Everything unfolds from this point, into a book quite unlike any other you have ever read. The numbing pain of a lonely existence,of desperation, hope, denial, and humour, it exposes so much of the vulnerability of human beings in such an unusual and interesting way. You will be gripped and enlightened.
Having enjoyed that so much, I borrowed A Solitary Grief from the library, and again enjoyed Ruben's portrayal of the light and dark that goes to make up the lives of ordinary people, and how fate can alter the direction of an ordered life
A Solitary Grief is a novel by Bernice Rubens about a Harley Street doctor who cannot cope with his own life. Increasingly alienated from his wife and daughter, he also considers himself unable to help his patients any longer and decides to start a new life together with a newly-found friend. However, his hopes are again shattered, which eventually leads to catastrophe.
This Welsh Jewish author wrote 26 novels between 1960 and her death in 2004, and I am surprised that I have never come across any more of her books. I would certainly have bought them, as I found the two I have read to be extremely satisfying reads.
"The Elected Member" is the story of Norman, a mentally disturbed high-achiever in a close-knit Jewish family confined to a mental institution when his family feel they can no longer cope, and it is sensational in its achievements. It is written in such a way as to involve the reader to the highest possible degree, making him cry, laugh, and experience all the devestating emotions of the characters about which he is reading. The problems and situations it presents are for many easy to identify with, making it a book that is painful to read at the same time as being, for this very reason, impossible to put down. It is Rubens's style - pure storytelling - that makes the book so effective. Lack of too-involved description or her own opinions makes us focus on her subject instead, which is, of course, the most important thing, and the portrayal of her characters and their various reactions to Norman's illness as they face up to their own involvement with it is probably more believable than anything else I have ever read that it almost seems autobiographical.
This is a superb book, the author having gone almost too far into such a taboo issue as mental illness and the culpability of the family of the sick member. I felt guilt, I felt sadness, I felt despair...then I read it all over again.
I first came across a Bernice Rubens book on the shelf of a charity shop. It was A Five Year Sentence, and I loved the mixture of humour and sadness, and it became one of the few books that I re-read Amazon Review:
I first read this book about 5 years ago, and even now it remains my favourite of all time. The story begins with the presentation of a 5 year diary to a woman retiring from the factory where she has worked for all her life. Originally planning suicide, she is horrified to receive this gift, as she interprets it as an order to live for the next 5 years. Everything unfolds from this point, into a book quite unlike any other you have ever read. The numbing pain of a lonely existence,of desperation, hope, denial, and humour, it exposes so much of the vulnerability of human beings in such an unusual and interesting way. You will be gripped and enlightened.
Having enjoyed that so much, I borrowed A Solitary Grief from the library, and again enjoyed Ruben's portrayal of the light and dark that goes to make up the lives of ordinary people, and how fate can alter the direction of an ordered life
A Solitary Grief is a novel by Bernice Rubens about a Harley Street doctor who cannot cope with his own life. Increasingly alienated from his wife and daughter, he also considers himself unable to help his patients any longer and decides to start a new life together with a newly-found friend. However, his hopes are again shattered, which eventually leads to catastrophe.
This Welsh Jewish author wrote 26 novels between 1960 and her death in 2004, and I am surprised that I have never come across any more of her books. I would certainly have bought them, as I found the two I have read to be extremely satisfying reads.