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Title: The Choir by Joanna Trollope ISBN: 0-425-15718-0 Publisher: Berkley Pub Group Pub. Date: April, 1997 Format: Mass Market Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $7.50 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.78 (9 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Classic Trollope
Comment: As a devotee of Joanna Trollope, I had always avoided this one book, due to the dreary book notes that invariably describe it as some row or other about a boys' school choir. I simply could not imagine such a topic holding my interest for more than five seconds, Trollope or not.
But it did.
Far from being the dismal plot described above, it turns out to be probably one of Joanna Trollope's very best, both in the writing and the plotting. Yes, it does take place in a boys' school, which is closely affiliated with the town's cathedral. The main characters are all quite Britishly normal, thank you, and not a bit precious. On the contrary. We have a runaway wife who always returns, a bored-stiff housewife (mother of a choir boy) who begins a torrid affair, four utterly horrid teenaged and twenty-ish offspring of the cathedral's long-suffering dean, and much, much more.
When a group of disaffected socialist (seriously) townspeople decides that the choir is antiquated and must go, that the headmaster's house must be sold out from him and his family and made into a town social hall, and that the catherdral, the deanery, and everything in between is a haven for the rich, the close-knit and relatively peaceful community is torn apart. Trollope's skill, as always, is in somehow effortlessly drawing us into the real feelings and anguish of very ordinary people who become less ordinary as they face the crises of their lives. In that, she is like her ancestor, the great English novelist of the 19th century, Anthony Trollope. Unlike any other of Joanna Trollope's books, this one most closely reminds this reviewer of the senior novelist's brilliant works.
As always, the end is not a happily ever after, but, as the British say, a "sorting out" of feelings, personalities, and lives. Some come out the better--others collapse.
"The Choir" is simply a wonderfully written work of art, and I am glad to have read it, and doubly glad to be able to recommend it to any reader who loves a finely drawn novel.
Rating: 4
Summary: Girls' Voices not the Issue
Comment: the novel, which deals with church politics and life in a small community. I agree that the number of characters reduces the depth in which each is presented, but this is a technique deliberately chosen, as with Dickens, when socio-ecclesiastical-political matters are at the forefront. 'The Choir' is a well-written novel, an enjoyable read, with more serious concerns which never bog it down in authorial pontification.
Rating: 3
Summary: Interesting, but too many characters
Comment: In "The Choir," Trollope focuses on a village that has to deal with change. The cathedral choir, that was established in the 1500s, is threatened by lack of money and, perhaps, by the sense that the choir may not be all that relevant anymore in a changing society. The people in the village respond in very different ways to the situation, all the while preoccupied with their own personal dramas. The idea of the relevance of traditional values is very interesting. But at the same time, it takes away at times from the close observation and character development that usually makes Trollope's novels so much fun to read. There is so much going on in this novel, and there are so many major characters, that it's hard to feel connected to any of them. To me, Trollope is much better when she narrows her scope to a smaller group of people, as she did for example in "The Men and the Girls." "The Choir" is just as well-written as anything else Trollope has done, but she doesn't allow the characters room to develop, and the effect of that is that they all stay flat. If she had halved the number of significant characters, this book would have been much better.
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Title: A Village Affair by Joanna Trollope ISBN: 0425171094 Publisher: Berkley Pub Group Pub. Date: October, 1999 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: The Rector's Wife by Joanna Trollope ISBN: 0425155293 Publisher: Berkley Pub Group Pub. Date: October, 1996 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: Men and the Girls by Joanna Trollope ISBN: 0380724081 Publisher: Avon Pub. Date: 01 May, 1995 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: The Best of Friends: Joanna Trollope by Joanna Trollope ISBN: 0425169375 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: April, 1999 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: A Spanish Lover by Joanna Trollope ISBN: 0425162346 Publisher: Berkley Pub Group Pub. Date: March, 1998 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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