The Great Lover: A Novel
By Jill Dawson
3.5/5
()
About this ebook
“A brilliant, complicated man is the centre of Jill Dawson’s The Great Lover, and while she draws extensively on historical records of Brooke and his contemporaries, it is her decisions as a novelist that make this account of his life fascinating as well as faithful. . . . . The story that emerges is strong, satisfying, and memorable.” — The Times (London)
An imaginative, fascinating novel about one of the most enduringly popular and romantic figures of the First World War—the radical, handsome young poet Rupert Brooke.
Jill Dawson
Jill Dawson is the author of Trick of the Light, Magpie, Fred and Edie, which was short-listed for the Whitbread Novel Award and the Orange Prize, Wild Boy, Watch Me Disappear, which was long-listed for the Orange Prize, The Great Lover, and Lucky Bunny. She has edited six anthologies of short stories and poetry, and has written for numerous UK publications, including The Guardian, The Times, Vogue, and Harper's Bazaar. She lives in Norfolk with her husband and two sons.
Read more from Jill Dawson
The Tell-Tale Heart: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Lucky Bunny: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related to The Great Lover
Related ebooks
Simply Divine Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAn Autobiography By Anthony Trollope: An autobiography of one of England's most celebrated authors Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Essential Novelists - John Buchan: swift-paced adventure stories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Thirty-Nine Steps Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5GEOGRAPHY & PLAYS: A Collection of Poems, Stories and Plays Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Uncollected Short Stories: 'You were not quite right in your imaginary description of him'' Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings7 best short stories by Gertrude Stein Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAdventures Of A Motorcycle Despatch Rider During The First World War [Illustrated Edition] Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPortrait of a Man with Red Hair Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Palliser Novels & The Chronicles of Barsetshire: Complete Series Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAnthony Trollope - An Autobiography Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Notable Woman: The Romantic Journals of Jean Lucey Pratt Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5JOHN BUCHAN Ultimate Collection: Spy Classics, Thrillers, Adventure Novels & Short Stories, Including Historical Works and Essays (Illustrated): Scottish Poems, World War I Books & Mystery Novels like Thirty-Nine Steps, Greenmantle, Huntingtower, No Man's Land, Prester John and many more Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMy Brilliant Career/My Career Goes Bung Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Return of Mr. Campion Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Richard Hannay Collection - Volume I - The Thirty-Nine Steps, Greenmantle, Mr Standfast Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Rodney Stone Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe World in Pieces Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Sleep Of Reason Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mark Twain's Letters - Volume 6 (1907-1910) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSing Me To Sleep Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTHE CHRONICLES OF BARSETSHIRE & THE PALLISER NOVELS: The Warden, The Barchester Towers, Doctor Thorne, The Small House at Allington… Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsI Married a Best Seller: My Life with Arthur Hailey Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Wintersmoon Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFrances and Bernard Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5An Autobiography by Anthony Trollope (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsShort Tales and Tall Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMore than an Actor: The Story of Peter H. Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMidsummer Night in the Workhouse Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Rodney Stone (1896), by A. Conan Doyle (novel) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Biographical/AutoFiction For You
Crow Mary: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Other Einstein: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Mystery of Mrs. Christie: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Only Woman in the Room: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Euphoria Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Diamond Eye: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Count of Monte Cristo Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Curious Life of Elizabeth Blackwell Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Carnegie's Maid: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Wolf Hall: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lady Clementine: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Post Office: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Second Mrs. Astor: A Heartbreaking Historical Novel of the Titanic Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5America's First Daughter: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Well-Behaved Woman: A Novel of the Vanderbilts Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Quiet Madness: A Biographical Novel of Edgar Allan Poe: Great American Authors, #1 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWomen: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Her Hidden Genius: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Confessions of Nat Turner: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bring Up the Bodies: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Postcard Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Jubilee Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Edge of Lost Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Accidental Empress: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Anna and the King of Siam Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Shame: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Caroline: Little House, Revisited Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Nothing Holds Back the Night: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Auschwitz Lullaby: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Empress Orchid: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for The Great Lover
53 ratings9 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5In this imaginative story the author uses the voices of her fictional character Nell Golightly, a housemaid at the Orchard Tea Rooms (where the poet lodges) and Rupert Brooke to create a very effectively executed dual narrative. Brooke, an extremely complex, not very likeable person, who often treated women badly, was confused about his sexuality and worried about his sanity, was portrayed with great sensitivity and insight. Nell's more grounded, passionate, yet innocent personality, afforded a powerful and engaging balance to the story. I found that the two voices remained distinct and convincing throughout, but that each added depth to the character development of the other. Consequently, as a literary device it worked well for me.Jill Dawson's writing vividly conjured up a compelling sense of time and place, and her descriptions of Fenland pursuits , such as eel-catching, bee-keeping and fen-skating, were powerfully evocative. She captured well the contrasting lives of the privileged and the working classes, as well as the sense of a society on the verge of massive social change. I enjoyed the construction of the novel: it begins with a letter from Brooke's illegitimate, now adult, daughter in Tahiti, who is requesting information about her father. Eventually this letter reaches Nell, now an elderly widow, still living in the area; it reminds her of her relationship with the poet and, observing that most biographers set too much store by facts, and not enough by feelings, she responds. The heart of the novel is then an account of her and Brooke's life during the period 1909-1915. The final section includes a letter from Brooke, laying out his last wishes in the event of his death, as well as his poem "The Great Lover", which he wrote whilst living in the South Seas.The fact that the author had researched her subject so comprehensively enabled her to blend extracts of contemporary correspondence (from, to and about the poet) with her imaginative portrayal of him, in a consistent and generally convincing way.For anyone who delights in the poetic use of language, who enjoys a well-crafted story - and who is prepared to envisage a "warts and all" Brooke- this is a book to savour.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Great Lover is a fictional novel based upon the life and loves of the WWI poet Rupert Brooke. Brooke was part of the influential artistic circles of the day, mixing with the likes of Virginia Stephen (Woolf) and Lytton Strachey, and ringleader of his own influential group of socialites at Cambridge - many of them members of the Fabian Society - who became known as the Neo-Pagans. Renowned for his good looks and boyish charm (W. B. Yeats famously referred to him as "the handsomest young man in England") Jill Dawson has weaved a fabulous fictional novel around his love interests and search for self.Whilst the Cambridge friends and lovers are all based on factual research, in this novel Dawson creates a fictional love interest with a maid Nell who works at the Orchard Tea Rooms in Grantchester where Brooke stayed and spent a lot of his time over a number of years. She uses Nell and Brooke's voices to narrate the story, and whilst their part of the story is purely fictional, they are an instrument to tell an imagined account of many of the real aspects of Brooke's friendships and love interests, some of which is taken from actual letters Brooke sent around this time.I've mostly found Jill Dawson to be a strong writer who excels in weaving great fictional stories out of nuggets of factual stories from the past, and The Great Lover was another very enjoyable read. Rupert Brooke is the out and out star of the show in this novel; Dawson conveys a very vivid picture of his magnetic attractiveness mixed with geniality and boyish good humour, of his pull and popularity amongst the Cambridge set, and his dark doubts and insecurities around his literary talent, sexuality and understanding of love. Having finished the novel I almost feel like I'm going to miss being in his company - for me that's great writing.It's not a perfect novel - despite only being 300 pages long I found it slow to engage me for a while, but once I became immersed in Brooke's world and social circles I wanted to stay there longer as a fly on the wall.4 stars - closer to 3.5 for the first part of the novel, and much nearer to 4.5 by the end. Jill Dawson remains on my list of unsung modern favourites.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5This was a Reading Group choice, so with an open mind I read the first 100 pages and decided that I couldn't continue.Not knowing anything about Rupert Brooke, other than his proffesion, his tortured mind about his sexuality, made uncomfortable reading. The rest of his entries were entertaining, when he teases Nell, but parts I really didn't understand.Nell's entries seemed much more straight forward, and I wanted to read her entries only, but that is not the way to finish.A shame reallly, because it could have been so much more. Not the book for me.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Review for the unabridged audio version.This is a difficult book to review, given that it is based on the life of a poet who lived early last century (1887 - 1915). It is therefore a bit pointless to bemoan the fact that he appeared entierly self-centred and sexually obsessed, presumably that is how he was, but it didn't make for enjoyable listening. This is another audiobook that I may well have abandoned if it had been a regular book.Rupert Brooke lived a relatively brief life, dying from septacemia from a mosquito bite while on active duty in WWI, hardly a triumphant death. He was not a particularly prolific poet but is probably best known for his highly charged war poems.This narrative is largely told from the point of view of Nell, a ficttional character, who cares for him while he is living at The Orchard, Granchester. It is a flippant time, with Rupert and his fellow Cambridge students, wealthy and without a care beyond boating and sex. It's not all of the heterosexual variety either. Nell becomes just another of his potential conquests, though there does appear to be something meaningful lurking there, if he could ever have a meaningful relationship?The story is pulled together by a letter sent from Tahiti, supposedly written by Rupert's daughter from his relationship with a Tahitian beauty, Taatamata, wanting to know more of the father she had never met. The letter finds its way into the hands of Nell, one of the many who had fallen in love with Rupert during his brief life. Nell thus narrates what she knew of him and Rupert's own voice fills in the parts she could not have known.Jill Dawson's prose was faultless, I think my reservations with the book revolve around the behaviour and character of Ruper Brooke himself; his endless self-questioning and search for sexual understanding became quite tiresome.The narration of this audio version was excellent, with Patience Tomlinson reading Nell's passages and William Rycroft, those of Rupert. Unfortunately there are some parts where the female narrator reads Rupert's voice and this did not ring true.I would read another book by Jill Dawson but would not recomend this one unless you are a great fan of Rupert Brooks' writing.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I greatly enjoyed listening to the audio version of this book, which tells the story of the poet Rupert Brooke, from his point of view and from that of a housemaid who works in the place where he stays while in Cambridge. The story is told in alternating voices, Nelly and then Rupert. I think the author used a great deal of information from Brooke's life and letters; with the exception of the invented character of Nelly, much of it seemed quite accurate. The reading of it is lovely and the whole story very touching (despite Brooke's classism and self-absorbtion and agonizing over things:). By the time I got to the end and the narrator read Brooke's poem, "The Great Lover," as a kind of epilogue, I was by the side of the road, weeping. I recommend it.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5April, 1982. Ninety year old Nell Golightly receives a surprising letter from Tahiti. A 67 year old woman would like to know something of her father, whom she never met. Somehow her letter finds its way to Nell, who worked as a maid, many years ago, at the Orchard House in Grantchester where the lady's father lived for a time. The man she is inquiring about is the English poet, Rupert Brooke.This letter forms the basis for Nell's story. Beginning in 1909, she relates her life as a young woman working to support her brothers & sisters after their parents have died, and her meeting and infatuation with the young Cambridge student who comes to live at the Orchard. Rupert Brooke (his picture is above, beautiful isn't he?) is charismatic, charming, talented, even slightly wicked. Nell watches his interactions with women (and men) and despite both she finds herself romantically captivated and intellectually challenged by this fascinating man:"Here we stop...and I acknowledge to myself the one hard fact that, despite my nature, it has taken me so long to face. There is no request Rupert could make of me that I would refuse. Whatever the pledge between me and God, this is the truth."As a counterpoint to Nell's story, we get Rupert's own, told from his perspective in alternating sequences. Here it is revealed how much of his outer persona is a sham. He is terribly unsure of himself, sexually inexperienced, not confident of himself as a lover or a writer. He longs for peace, time to think and be alone with his thoughts, though he is constantly and almost randomly infatuated with different people."...There are only two ways of approaching relationships. One is only to allow love on the supposition that it may lead to marriage-the other is- the wandering way. And there are people made for the first way and perhaps people made for the second. But to introduce those made for the first to people made for the second is to invite pain and endless trouble....I'm a wanderer."~Rupert Brooke, in a letter to Phyllis Gardner, 1913The impetus to escape leads him to the Orchard House and eventually to Tahiti, where some of his best poems were written. "I think I've always been a sucker for a sexy, brilliant, impossible man."~Jill Dawson I love the above quote from the author's essay at the back of the book about how she came to write The Great Lover, "The First Tiny Throb: How a Novel Begins." I found her portrayal of Rupert Brooke fascinating, as the man himself must have been. I loved Nell, her intelligence and courage, her ability to look past her social class, her gentle confidence. Rupert was interesting but Nell was the star of this beautifully written novel.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Before reading this novel, I'd never heard of Rupert Brooke before. I was drawn in to his life immediately as the novel began with letters from Brooke's unknown Tahitian daughter to whomever might be living at the Orchard Tea Gardens where the child, now an elderly woman, was told her father had once lived. Her letter is answered by Nell Sanderson, formerly Nell Golightly. She does her best to answer Arlice's questions without passing judgement. Instead, she sends her some of her father's writing as well as her own diary-like entries from the time period in which she knew Rupert. From there, the novel flows between Nell and Rupert's voices to tell the story of his life, beginning in 1909.Dawson has written a very interesting novel that captures both the essence of two young British people from different social classes as well as the early 20th century in which they lived. Rupert is from a more privileged background. Although he's had little contact with the poor with the exception of domestic workers, he falls in with a set of friends interested in advancing Fabian socialism. While he has grand ideas for how the social order should look, his opinion of his fellow man is actually quite humorous. He is a brilliant illustration of how human beings pigeonhole each other, regardless of our politics.Nell made this novel for me. Rupert, while interesting and eccentric, was in many ways the stereotypical privileged young man in search of pleasure with whomever is available at the time and living a life of ideas. He does encounter adversity, but he's not a hardy person. Nell, on the other hand, has had to work hard for everything in life. Even her father's love wasn't something that came easily. Her voice was authentic and true. Her focus was on the here and now. She was a practical and that showed in how she did her best to care for her siblings and in her politics. She may have felt betrayed by her heart, but she didn't suffer fools readily. She may not have been as educated as she would have liked, but there is one scene that shows that she's a good judge of literature. I wanted her to be free to find what would make her happy in life.My Final ThoughtsThe more I read about Great Britain in the late 19th to early 20th centuries, the more drawn I am. Because of the morality of the times, much of what is really happening is subtle. It's like an underground current that is revolutionary by conservative at the same time. Jill Dawson captured this very well in The Great Lover. I was especially impressed with the way she mastered by Rupert and Nell's voices. I would recommend this novel too those interested in poets, pre-WWI Great Britain, and 20th Century socialist movements.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Great Lover is a fictionalized account of the poet Rupert Brooke’s life from 1909-1914. Using his letters and poetry as a base, it interweaves narration by Brooke with that of Nell, a maid at the Orchard in Grantchester, where Brooke and some other well-known people of that era (including Virginia Woolf) went to stay. The Great Lover describes Brooke’s personal and artistic doubts and uses Nell as a character to react to those as well as some of the issues of the period, including women’s and workers’ rights. Brooke was interesting, if not necessarily likeable, and I loved Nell as a character. The best part of the book was its immersive quality; it gave you a real sense of both the physical and social atmospheres of the time. I wanted to love it, but I only liked it a lot, but it was still very good.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Faction. The troubled character of Brooke is especially convincing during his breakdown. Irritating letters from the "future" open the story. Annoyingly named Nell(ie) Golightly as female bee-keeper's daughter protagonist - with all the metaphors to match. Looking forward to discussing with reading group. February 2010.
Book preview
The Great Lover - Jill Dawson
%ToD?mՙ \틽l~.!ۣ0u 2&:iewrb3?q2)q4Sjnry:DЖh/<us;)¢SÄw]B?i\թ.SF{˱}:[J&MؤF]l`[ey쐺aSL(i1@1|>a2 6sۚç9hpJZ[{I W[ [rrX6 (cm-/2+f+tCG>FY]@ &!@=el3ጇ0h6