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Jan 2022
12:16pm, 31 Jan 2022
50,960 posts
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McGoohan
"This is a photocopy, haven't read it yet," says one 1-star review on Amazon. Wise words indeed.
Can you say wiser ones, here, below?
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Feb 2022
1:28pm, 2 Feb 2022
66,869 posts
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Diogenes
Downloaded nicely onto my phone. Smooth transaction, A1 audiobook experience, would recommend.
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Feb 2022
5:42pm, 7 Feb 2022
21,574 posts
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Columba
I liked this very much, - but am going to re-read, to fill in any gaps in allusions that I will probably have missed first time round.
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Feb 2022
9:32pm, 23 Feb 2022
21,604 posts
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Columba
Nearly finished 2nd reading, and oh what a very good book this is. No wonder it won the prize.
I particularly like the way that the thread of the story gets passed (like a baton?) from one incident/character to another; even non-human "characters" sometimes as when a dove crashes against the glass of a window, is picked up (gingerly) by one wing-tip, carried out into the garden and quickly buried in a shallow grave, dug up soon afterwards by a pair of jackals, then the story follows the jackals as they traverse their territory and move us on to the next item in the story.
And incidentally that blood-stained white-feathered dove alludes briefly to the white-feathered baby owl that Astrid recalls from her childhood, wondering what happened to it and shying away from a memory of bloodstained white feathers.
I also liked (but I realise some may not like) the way the author frequently steps back a bit and reminds us that the story is his creation ("it happened like this, - or shall we say it happened like that? - Yes, perhaps that would be better").
Of course, we all like Amor, we have to like Amor. But Astrid, though prickly and easily dislikeable is actually a complex character and we have to feel sorry for her, floundering in the morass of her own temperament. And Anton; we just watch him hopelessly lurching down and down. (Of course, he should never have made that apology. His downward path may well have stemmed from there, a fatal failure to be true to himself, though we know why he did it, he needed the money. But what doth it profit a man, if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul? Perhaps I'm making too much of this; there were plenty of earlier indications of fatal flaws in his character).
Salome is a thread that runs right through the story from beginning to end, always there, rarely seen.
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Mar 2022
11:28am, 2 Mar 2022
86,489 posts
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Hanneke
Amor is the epithomy of pure, selfless love... She had the quiet courage to reject all things material but in the end, did that get here where she really wanted, needed to be? The gift of the property to Salome and her son became a double edged sword and what good would the money she was also gifting do, other than buying of Amor's regret of not having been able to force through her mother's last wish?
But by then, it didn't matter any more, one way or another. Amor was able to move on, unencumbered by the heavy yokes of the familiar past. A family that was never really hers, apart from Salome, the mother surrogate, and, briefly, her mother. Only Salome appears a constant in the Swart's lives.
I can go on, as the book, for its simplicity of structure: Ma, Pa, Astrid, Anton: 4 chapters, those who die... There are so many multi-layered meanings and interpretations, I would be here a while...
Rests to say:
Galgut's use of language is sublime! Utterly sublime! Like Columba, I love the way he is in control of the narrative and shows himself regularly. I also love the way in which he weaves the history of a nation, the falling apart of white supremacy and almost disappearance of Apartheid, the influence of the Protestant church... Zionism... The complexity is great, the execution bloody brilliant!
Best book I have read in a very long time.
I will be keeping it.
I already want to read it again, to unravel more layers hidden within.
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Mar 2022
9:42pm, 5 Mar 2022
67,757 posts
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Diogenes
I finished The Promise this evening. No review as yet, but just to repeat that it’s one of the best books I’ve read for a long time.
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Mar 2022
12:51pm, 20 Mar 2022
53,629 posts
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LindsD
I really liked this, but I must admit to being a little bit disappointed as Dio had said it was the best book group book we had ever chosen and it wasn't that for me - not that I could tell you what was without looking at the list, but not this. I did really enjoy it, though. The format with the deaths reminded me a bit of The Immortalists, which I have liked better with a bit more distance from reading it. I thought the characters were interesting and well-drawn, and I liked the incidental telling of SA history and SA attitudes/fears/politics. I also liked the parallels between the different characters with different religions and the observation of the death rituals. And the changing of the perspective. I gave it a 9.
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Mar 2022
12:54pm, 20 Mar 2022
53,630 posts
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LindsD
After reading back, I also liked the authorial interventions - can't remember the name for that.
And I really liked Anton and was shocked and sad when he died.
I also wasn't sure whether the house really was promised to Salome. Amor didn't hear that exactly, she just wanted to hear it and filled in the gaps.
I also think I will read it again.
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Mar 2022
4:28pm, 20 Mar 2022
68,184 posts
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Diogenes
9 is pretty good. I’m not sure any other the other choices have earnt that from me.
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Mar 2022
5:08pm, 20 Mar 2022
53,638 posts
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LindsD
That's a good point
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The Rest of Our Lives - July Book Group discussion thread
Jul 2025