Just finished this, its OK
Full of Zen-like Shamanism, the search for Happiness etc
Nothing explained in helpful detail, interesting sentences pop up every twenty pages
When he goes and becomes a beach bum in Portugal, nothing is mentioned of the estranged wife and child.
About to appear as a film with Nick Nolte, the guy has like 10 other books based on this recipe.
Just finished this, its OK
Full of Zen-like Shamanism, the search for Happiness etc
Nothing explained in helpful detail, interesting sentences pop up every twenty pages
When he goes and becomes a beach bum in Portugal, nothing is mentioned of the estranged wife and child.
About to appear as a film with Nick Nolte, the guy has like 10 other books based on this recipe.
Two Caravans follows the fortunes of migrant workers hoping to finance dreams which have propelled them from home and family.
For plot and style think "Darling Buds of May" with a touch of "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich"
We encounter them picking strawberries, labour exploited to maximum profit by an avaricious farmer, expert in creative tax evasion and general penny pinching.
Despite the low pay, a quiet harmony exists within the group, maintained by Yola the farmer’s gang mistress who keeps a firm but motherly check on daily life.
The group is disrupted when 2 workers, one innocently, the other more directly, precipitate a violent dispute between the farmer and his wife.
Thus begins the workers’ journey through an array of jobs, scams, bosses, gang masters, crooks and gangsters as the dirty reality of piece work at, or below, the minimum wage is mined to comic and at times tragic effect.
The author’s style is quirky.
When writing in the third person she is capable of vivid, flowing, descriptive passages conjuring images of warm strawberry scented fields or the hellish interior of a factory chicken house.
Some good deeds shine in this naughty world.
The team celebrate Emanuel’s birthday with a party, enriching the base bread and sausages provided by the farm owner with fresh rabbit and herbs gathered from the wild.
A kindly Asian shopkeeper provides nutritional advice alongside tinned pilchards and a stressed business man regains some calm at the end of a fishing rod.
However I found the author’s frequent switch to first person narration tedious.
It neither advanced the plot nor gave characters extra depth. There was a repetitive “Ukrainian” or “religious” view of events which lacked the freedom of expression which their native language should have allowed those inhibited by spoken English
The inclusion of “Dog” was truly pointless.
The cast of characters is large andseveral are removed abruptly by ferry or gunpoint as a convenient but disappointing plot device.
Overall – an entertaining read, but a tighter plot with fewer characters would have made a better book
what's the idea for this book club then... do we all post a review or are we having a free for all natter about it at the end of the month???
I finished it this morning.
Hey PJ - I found the Dog's POV sections really pointless and skipped past them! I almost gave up on the book around the same place Tuff did, around 1/3 through, but somehow struggled through. It got a lot better further along.
The story was quite depressing, examining the lives of migrant workers in the UK, how dull and terrible the work they do is, and how little security they have in their lives. The characters at times have so little and yet can be happy some days, and terribly envious of the richer people in the UK at other times. Overall the writer keeps the mood upbeat through humourous misunderstandings, but I still felt quite depressed reading it.
What really annoyed me was the use of pidgin English to demonstrate the Ukrainian accents, so irritating. I did laugh at Emmanuel's misunderstanding of Marta's name as Martyr!
Overall I'd give it 6.5/10. Glad I finished it, but not really a great read.
What we reading next? I just bought Labyrinth by Kate Mosse (no, not the model!).
