Clayhanger

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CLAYHANGER - Rated
As a former print worker in the old fashioned days I found his descriptions of the print trade interesting but as well as giving graphic descriptions of the potteries he also brings his characters to life. I set about reading all Arnold Bennett's books but I only found this one a great read.

A novel with great integrity - Rated
A boy grows up, meets, loses, then finds again, a girl. This is a weighty volume, packed with detail and interesting characters. A great deal of its success comes from the character of Edwin Clayhanger, a person with a kind of shambling charm. You are led to empathise with Edwin completely; you see everything from his point of view, and you hear his thoughts. This book creates a very real world. There are some archaic turns of speech, which sometimes get a bit irritating, and a bit too much authorial comment, but it's a very readable book.

An engaging read. - Rated
The story of a man from leaving school to middle age, set in an industrial town in the English midlands at the end of the 19th century. Sounds boring, but it isn't. Slow for the first few chapters, but then I found it unputdownable, you really get interested and want to know what happens. Lots of description of the environment of the time. No sex or violence, written not long after these actual times, so some bits of old fashioned prose. This aside, reminded me of Len Deighton's style of writing. I was a bit doubtful about buying this book, but I'm pleased I did.

Bennett's masterpiece - Rated
This book is the crowning achievement of one of the most under-rated writers in the English language. The characterisation, the pain and the sheer intuitive understanding of the human condition combine to make this truly a masterpiece. Snobs may look on Bennett as 'middle-brow' or dated; this book proves he is no such thing. Finer than Old Wives Tales, it entrenches the realist style he learned from France (Zola,Flaubert etc) within a setting that brought out his best; the potteries. And throughout you find the eye for detail, the joy in the 'interestingness of existence' (his own phrase). Rediscover this forgotten gem.