RaveTimes Literary Supplement (UK)A mesmeric, cool and deeply intelligent exploration of (among other things) early man’s relationship to time and space. It is huge in scope, finely mapped by Kushner, who – sentence by sentence – steers us exactly where she wants us; a novel about navigation.
Amy Liptrot
RaveTimes Literary Supplement (UK)Liptrot avoids over-analysis: the reader is given a gap to get in, between the author and the scene, where they can form their own thoughts ... This gap could be read as a pose, a coolness, a circling over events as if from a great height. It could become frustrating, but in each book Liptrot eventually comes down to land on something, and it is the wait that gives the whole its brilliance.
Sally Rooney
PositiveThe Times Literary Supplement (UK)There is nothing subtle about this repurposing. There is a fatalism here: the cards are what they are, the author cannot change the pack, she only shuffles them, deals them out, plays them ... The emotional logic of the whole novel could not be further from what one might assume of a millennial novelist. And often this feels like part of Rooney’s joke ... laced with humour ... The gently mocking presence at work beneath all this never eviscerates the characters, it is very loving towards them, and it offers no invitation for us to dissect. If some books instruct us on how to read them, this one doesn’t seem to mind: you can take Beautiful World as a straightforward love story, hear the ribbing, or the Marx. But the seam that we should be able to peel up and peek under, so we can delight in the workings of character, plot and self, has been perfectly sealed, as if to avoid confrontation. And this is a cop out: a capitulation ... The triumph of Beautiful World is that two very beautiful characters who have always been in love with each other overcome the slightest of obstacles to do exactly what the whole of modern society is set up to help them do. If you love them, it works.
Jeanette Winterson
RaveThe Times Literary Supplement...[a] [playful and inventive novel ... There is a merged ocean of thought within it; ideas slip between characters and time frames. It stands against the prediction that such a merging of self and other would undo the necessity of literature. Frankissstein reincarnates as it evolves, each part deepening the part before it ... The story of [Franksenstein\'s] creation has been told many times over, but Winterson galvanizes it ... Winterson does not predict that an evolved intelligence will move towards hatred taking the shape of love but rather will be a plane without a surface, a blissful state of consciousness, and one achieved without harming the other. Isn’t it strange, how radical this sounds today, to have such faith in love?
