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the complete review - fiction

The Accidental Woman

by
Jonathan Coe

general information | review summaries | our review | links | about the author

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Our Assessment:

B- : well written, but too cold

See our review for fuller assessment.

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The complete review's Review:

       Jonathan Coe's first novel, The Accidental Woman is a study of Maria, an aimless, often indifferent woman, more at the mercy of fate than able to direct her life. The first girl from her school to get a place to Oxford, the novels follows her peregrinations at the university and then beyond. It is partially a university novel, but Coe does not take the predictable and well-trod road, choosing a different vantage point (as he also does, more successfully, in A Touch of Love).
       The novel covers some fifteen years, and though stylistically accomplished (Coe is a clever and engaging writer), his characters here did not truly grip us. "Three years later, and it is still raining," he writes, moving the story forward. "I tell a lie, of course, there have been intervening periods of sunshine, but they do not concern us," he allows. It sums up the best and worst of the book. Clever, yes, and well constructed -- but too much dreariness hanging over it. Not enough sunshine.
       Maria is a successful figure, but it is not a success that appeals to us greatly. A mannered piece, it lacks the humour of Coe's later efforts.
       An interesting and fairly short literary piece, it is lukewarmly recommended.

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Links:

• Penguin publicity page

• Amakina
• @louiser89
• Tom Conoboy's writing blog
• Typographical Era

• The complete review's Jonathan Coe page
• Official site

• Bournville
• The Closed Circle
• The Dwarves of Death
• Expo 58
• The House of Sleep
• Like a Fiery Elephant
• Middle England
• Mr. Wilder and Me
• Number 11
• The Rain before it Falls
• The Rotters' Club
• The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim
• A Touch of Love
• What a Carve Up ! (also: The Winshaw Legacy)

• See Index of Contemporary British fiction at the complete review

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About the Author:

       Born in 1961, Jonathan Coe attended Cambridge and Warwick universities. He is the author of several novels.

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