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3 Jun
9:11pm, 3 Jun 2024
54,143 posts
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McGoohan
Top Brummie author Jonathan Coe has returned to his routes to give us this, his fourteenth novel.
Bournville tells the tale of Billy Wilder, the mysterious owner of a chocolate factory who offers five lucky children the chance to have a guided tour. Aided and sometimes resisted by Mr Wilder's assistants, the Brumpah-Lumpahs, will the children be able to solve the mystery in time?
When you have completed this tale of the unexpected, please dispose of your thoughts like a chocolate wrapper into a bin, into the thread below.
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3 Jun
9:12pm, 3 Jun 2024
54,144 posts
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McGoohan
That's probably enough chocolate jokes now. Sorry.
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3 Jun
9:45pm, 3 Jun 2024
86,334 posts
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Diogenes
I should cocoa
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4 Jun
10:55pm, 4 Jun 2024
1,413 posts
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stilldreaming
'Returned to his routes' .... you can tell this is a running forum 😉
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4 Jun
10:59pm, 4 Jun 2024
54,151 posts
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McGoohan
 - I've corrected the typo in the side/bottom bar VVVVV >>>>>
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12 Jun
10:18am, 12 Jun 2024
86,418 posts
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Diogenes
Coe is funny, kind and astute. This book is like a good bar of traditional British chocolate: it's a bit of a treat, but also comforting and satisfying. It is easily consumed, but may not be to everyone's taste.
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15 Jun
5:37pm, 15 Jun 2024
22,528 posts
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Columba
I enjoyed this, but perhaps mainly because Mary's life covered much the same decades as mine. She is/was 9 years older than me. Interesting to have the whistle-stop tour of the 2nd half of the 20th century (plus first fifth of the 21st).
But I didn't enjoy the vast number of characters, of whom I could only keep track by listing them as they came along, with page numbers, and building-up a couple of family trees in the process. A lot of them didn't come alive for me, though Mary did, and Peter.
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28 Jun
9:33pm, 28 Jun 2024
54,204 posts
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McGoohan
I once picked a Jonathan Coe book, What A Carve Up, for Book Group. It was one I’d read before and loved but my re-read for Book Group wasn’t so great. I, and most of the other readers, found it a bit of a slog and overlong.
However, Coe is one of my favourite writers and I really liked Rotters Club and Closed Circle, which, it turns out, tangentially share some characters with Bournville. I did wonder at first whether this one would grate a bit: just as you get used to a set of characters, the narrative jumps forward fifteen or so years and you have to get to know the next generation.
The thing it most reminded me of was David Nobbs, the comic author and creator of the Reginald Perrin books. Nobbs wrote another pair of books, A Bit of a Do and Fair Dos - which were filmed as the C4 series A Bit of a Do. That follows an extended family over several years, meeting them at a series of celebrations. So far, so similar. Another connection: Nobbs adapted Coe’s What A Carve Up for BBC Radio.
Where Nobbs goes for mostly for the comedy of recognisable situations, Coe has got more of a satirical edge. And boy oh boy, does he hate Boris Johnson! With just cause I might add. There’s a sort of double-thread going through it – some things change, for better or worse and some things stay the same. For instance, I really liked the slow reveal of Bridget’s colour and that there’s no nicely tied up ending of a reconciliation with Jack. Instead, she gets to have her moment of righteous anger at the passive racism of those who should stand by her against overt racism.
In short, I loved it and didn’t want it to end. I was surprised at the end and in the afterword, just how many Coe novels share characters in his own Birmingham Novel Universe. I shall read some more of them. I gave this 9/10.
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28 Jun
9:40pm, 28 Jun 2024
86,659 posts
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Diogenes
I’m really glad you enjoyed this. I was glad I chose something I enjoyed as much as I did and others have done too
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28 Jun
9:49pm, 28 Jun 2024
54,207 posts
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McGoohan
That’s nine out of ten by the way, not nine-tenths. That would have been weird.
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