The Forgotten Waltz

So I started this blog mostly because the lovely commute I now take everyday has led to me absolutely devouring novels, which is fan-tas-tic because for years I have loved reading and not been able to read as I had no time in my day, if I picked up a book I would do nothing else but read, not good when trying to run a household and hold down a full time job! Anyway, anyway, I have been reading so many books that they are passing through my memory like water - I remember that I loved the last book I read, or the one before but can I remember the title, the author, what it was about???? No I can't!

So this is where I decided I would record my thoughts on these marvellous stories and novels that I have been powering through - and then I forgot to record them!

New start from today then - I just finished Anne Enright's The Forgotten Waltz on the train this morning. I really enjoyed it. More than I expected to I must admit. What made me enjoy it? There's a deceptive simplicity to the novel, there's something very real and honest about it. This honesty may appear contradictory in a novel that has deception at the core of it's tale of the fall out from an adulterous relationship.

Perhaps an element of the connection was in the topicality within the novel, it reflected very strongly, for me the wierd mores and social expectations that grew in a certain class of Irish society during boom times. The decline of a relationship and growth of another could be a metaphor for boom and bust in Ireland but I don't think that was Enright's intention. Rather she draws out these real people through a quite singular voice, circling around the image of Evie, the 'special' child, with her treatment by her family indicative of the behavior of 'grown ups' in Ireland in the 2000's.
This is terribly waffly but suffice to say you should read The Forgotten Waltz as it is an easy read that draws you in and is a very very solid characterisation of boom and bust Ireland.