Notes on a Scandal
3 journalers for this copy...
Shortlisted for the Booker Award 2003
"Zoe Heller juggles journalism and novel-writing successfully in Notes on a Scandal and manages to say something interesting and complex about moral panics and the people who get caught up in them.
Pottery teacher Sheba lets herself be talked into an affair with 15-year-old pupil Connolly; part of what is admirable about this novel is that there is no real attempt to extenuate this - it's wrong and she knows this from the start, enough to lie to herself and others about it. It's an abuse of her very limited power - he is one of the few of her pupils interested in art, not interested in perpetually disrupting her lessons.
Sheba is not alone in abusing power, though, and Heller forces us to confront this unpleasant truth about the moralising, managerial headmaster, the husband freed by Sheba's action to seduce his own very slightly older students, and the relatives who never liked her much and can now disown her. Above all, she devotes most of the novel to Barbara, the older colleague who becomes Sheba's confidante and slowly manipulates the situation to make Sheba entirely dependent on her. This is a brilliantly gloomy study in obsession - and the obsession in question is not actually Sheba's with her underage lover."
"Zoe Heller juggles journalism and novel-writing successfully in Notes on a Scandal and manages to say something interesting and complex about moral panics and the people who get caught up in them.
Pottery teacher Sheba lets herself be talked into an affair with 15-year-old pupil Connolly; part of what is admirable about this novel is that there is no real attempt to extenuate this - it's wrong and she knows this from the start, enough to lie to herself and others about it. It's an abuse of her very limited power - he is one of the few of her pupils interested in art, not interested in perpetually disrupting her lessons.
Sheba is not alone in abusing power, though, and Heller forces us to confront this unpleasant truth about the moralising, managerial headmaster, the husband freed by Sheba's action to seduce his own very slightly older students, and the relatives who never liked her much and can now disown her. Above all, she devotes most of the novel to Barbara, the older colleague who becomes Sheba's confidante and slowly manipulates the situation to make Sheba entirely dependent on her. This is a brilliantly gloomy study in obsession - and the obsession in question is not actually Sheba's with her underage lover."
Journal Entry 2 by 
ApoloniaX
at Sweepstake, A Bookcrossing member -- Controlled Releases on Monday, February 8, 2010
ApoloniaX at Sweepstake, A Bookcrossing member -- Controlled Releases on Monday, February 8, 2010
Released 14 yrs ago (2/9/2010 UTC) at Sweepstake, A Bookcrossing member -- Controlled Releases
CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:
CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES: Enjoy!
ApoloniaX sent me this book in a sweepstake I (unbelievably) won!! Thank you very much!!!! Judging from the remarks on the cover, this book is "Fascinating, brilliant and horribly addictive"! Can't wait to read it!
A very interesting, fascinating book!!! Well worth reading!!!
Journal Entry 5 by motherof11 at Camara Municipal in Albergaria-a-Velha, Aveiro Portugal on Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Released 14 yrs ago (4/13/2010 UTC) at Camara Municipal in Albergaria-a-Velha, Aveiro Portugal
WILD RELEASE NOTES:
WILD RELEASE NOTES:
Hope you enjoy this book!
Hope you enjoy this book!
Picked this one up yesterday at the 2nd Portuguese Bookcrossing Convention.
