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OSCAR LUCINDA Peter CAREY 9780702229787 Books

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OSCAR LUCINDA Peter CAREY 9780702229787 Books

The time is the nineteenth century, the 1860's to be exact. The place is Australia, now colonized but still a very new country in terms of its English inhabitants. The story is told through the lives of two young people. Oscar Hopkins grew up in a small, remote English village, the son of the local pastor who was also a marine biologist. There was little love shown and Oscar escapes to Oxford as soon as he can. Lucinda is a teenager who is suddenly orphaned and discovers that instead of living on a farm and its odors and work as she has always done, that her parents sold the land and she is now an heiress.

Neither are what is considered 'the right sort' in the social pecking order but both are determined to carve out a successful life for themselves. Lucinda buys a glassworks factory on a whim and then goes to England to see what it holds and perhaps find a husband. Oscar is assigned to a parish in Australia. They meet on the boat as Oscar comes to discover his calling and Lucinda returns, disappointed in her quest for love. Oscar has an intense phobia of water and is the butt of jokes about it but Lucinda sees beyond his weaknesses to a man she would like to know. They also find that each is entranced by the same vice; gambling.

Once back in Australia, things don't go as planned. Lucinda is having a hard time breaking into the top rungs of society even with her money. Oscar isn't his parishioners idea of a pastor and when one of them spies in his window and discovers the two playing cards for money, Oscar is disgraced and stripped of his parish. The two, shunned by society, form a partnership and soon both are in love, although both are determined to hide the fact from each other. Their love leads them to a strange mission and a stranger bet; to move and construct a glass church in a settlement across uncharted lands. If Oscar is successful Lucinda will give him all her fortune.

This novel won the Booker Prize in 1988 and it is clear why. Carey's ability to capture the country of his birth and the people who came to inhabit it and make it their own is amazing. The writing is luminous but it doesn't stray so far that the plot is forgotten. It moves along inexorably toward an ending few readers would expect. This book is recommended for readers of literary fiction.


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OSCAR LUCINDA Peter CAREY 9780702229787 Books Reviews

Although I found the two main characters fascinating, I found it irritating to read pages and pages about a myriad of minor characters who didn't have any roll whatsoever in the development of the story. Carey makes hyper realistic descriptions of everybody and one page later they are lost forever. However there are characters I want to know more about, about their circumstances and fate, including Lucinda herself, and they are just left behind as if there were not important either. At the end I have a feeling of frustration rather than amazement at the final development of the story.
no spoilers; just synopsis

a) don't see the movie unless you read the book...something gets really lost between the two

b)Excellent, simply excellent!!! I would recommend this book to anyone who appreciates superlative writing and a quirky story. If every book were like this one, I would be in Heaven!!!! The prose is outstanding and these characters are simply so real I thought they'd float off the page.

Oscar and Lucinda is set both in England and in Australia in the 19th century. In England, Oscar Hopkins is the son of a non-Anglican, religious fundamentalist who is also a naturalist, and up until he is about 15 Oscar grows up with the reassurance that he is among the saved. Oscar's mother died; he lives with his father in a little village called Hennacombe in Devon, in an austere house with no ornamentation; even the food is plain. One Christmas one of the cooks feels sorry for the boy and makes him a Christmas pudding, complete with raisins & a cherry; the ostentatiousness of the pudding leads Theophilus (Oscar's father) to lose it and he hits Oscar, who is then forced to cough up the pudding. Later, they are out wading in the ocean, and Oscar asks that God smite his father out of anger; just then, Theophilus has an accident that cuts him on the leg. Oscar realizes that he has to leave -- and the signs point to the Anglican Church. We next find him at Oxford, at Oriel College, where he discovers gambling. One thing leads to another and Oscar sets out to become a missionary in New South Wales but he has to go by ship...a problem since Oscar has this immense water phobia. It is on this voyage that Oscar meets Lucinda Leplastrier, returning to Australia, whose parents had died & whose mother, before dying, had their land subdivided and sold and Lucinda was now an heiress living off the profits. She is also the owner of a glassworks in Australia. Lucinda is obstinate, headstrong & like Oscar, she is a gambler. The lives of these two people come together on the ship, then meet again after Oscar discovers that there is no Missionary Work to be done in New South Wales, and that he is to be assigned to a posh vicarage instead. He meets Lucinda in a Chinese gambling house ... and things take off from there. I won't say another word... you really should read it for yourself.

The writing is excellent; the story is excellent and there are so many themes that are explored without the author ever losing track. My only complaint the end came so fast (it was a great ending but rushed) that after having savored the story for so long I felt cheated. However, the rest of the book was absolutely stunning and so rich so I can overlook this.

Please try this book...I can totally see how it won a Booker.
This is such a wonderful wonderful story. Unconventional characters and writing style. You feel for the characters. For example I felt very sorry for Oscar and I know I should have felt equally sorry for Lucinda are found I could not. Maybe because they had such different characters and personalities.

The book takes you places you least expect and is really a mental vision of Sydney and how tough it was even though the focus remained on Oscar and Lucinda.

Not a book to pass up. Sure to entertain and capture your imagination.
It is difficult to imagine two more misfit persons than Oscar and Lucinda. Neurotic, compulsive, obsessive, and oblivious, it is hard to see how they survived. Link the two together and you have chaos, misunderstanding, and frustration. This is a very creative book, a tale well told. The characters are portrayed sympathetically, but I never warmed to them. I can't believe people could make such foolish choices. The ending was very surprising. Altogether, it is a madcap story.
The time is the nineteenth century, the 1860's to be exact. The place is Australia, now colonized but still a very new country in terms of its English inhabitants. The story is told through the lives of two young people. Oscar Hopkins grew up in a small, remote English village, the son of the local pastor who was also a marine biologist. There was little love shown and Oscar escapes to Oxford as soon as he can. Lucinda is a teenager who is suddenly orphaned and discovers that instead of living on a farm and its odors and work as she has always done, that her parents sold the land and she is now an heiress.

Neither are what is considered 'the right sort' in the social pecking order but both are determined to carve out a successful life for themselves. Lucinda buys a glassworks factory on a whim and then goes to England to see what it holds and perhaps find a husband. Oscar is assigned to a parish in Australia. They meet on the boat as Oscar comes to discover his calling and Lucinda returns, disappointed in her quest for love. Oscar has an intense phobia of water and is the butt of jokes about it but Lucinda sees beyond his weaknesses to a man she would like to know. They also find that each is entranced by the same vice; gambling.

Once back in Australia, things don't go as planned. Lucinda is having a hard time breaking into the top rungs of society even with her money. Oscar isn't his parishioners idea of a pastor and when one of them spies in his window and discovers the two playing cards for money, Oscar is disgraced and stripped of his parish. The two, shunned by society, form a partnership and soon both are in love, although both are determined to hide the fact from each other. Their love leads them to a strange mission and a stranger bet; to move and construct a glass church in a settlement across uncharted lands. If Oscar is successful Lucinda will give him all her fortune.

This novel won the Booker Prize in 1988 and it is clear why. Carey's ability to capture the country of his birth and the people who came to inhabit it and make it their own is amazing. The writing is luminous but it doesn't stray so far that the plot is forgotten. It moves along inexorably toward an ending few readers would expect. This book is recommended for readers of literary fiction.