Customer Reviews

Oh Dear Silvia (Unabridged)

5 star:		(165)
4 star:		(114)
3 star:		(71)
2 star:		(62)
1 star:		(39)

 

 

Dawn French has a great concept. Silvia lies in hospital in a coma. Her family and 'friends' come to visit her and, whilst sitting with her, recall old memories and reveal their inner secrets. Their lives have all been influenced by Silvia in one way or another and we learn more and more about their pasts as the visit count increases.

The problem is that the story and the way it's told just isn't very good. The story is neither funny, dramatic, romantic or poignant. It sometimes tries to be all at once and normally fails. It's characters are dull - as Silvia thought of some of them herself when she was alive and well - or just downright annoying. The characterisation and accent of Winnie, Silvia's caring nurse, teeters from stereotypical to a wee bit racist. The story development is slow, some of the hospital visits are the same or similar to those which preceded them. That may be representative of real life but an exciting book it does not make.

It was a real struggle to get through. Only in the final few chapters did the book pick up a bit and become a tiny bit compelling. Then it was over. The resolution was minimal, the final reaction 'meh'. Rest in peace.

This second novel by Dawn French is easy to read but in the early parts difficult to interweave the various contributions of the narrators into a cohesive piece of work. Persevere, it is worth it. Silvia Shute has fallen three floors from a balcony. She is in intensive care in a coma on life-support including mechanical ventilation. She is the younger sister of the eccentric Jo. They lost their mother at a young age and their army-trained father went off the rails. Sylvia divorced dependable Ed after showing little love for him or their two children, Jamie and Cassie who after leaving home had no love or respect for their mother.

This background is the canvas on which the author paints the past and mysteries of Silvia through a series of monologues delivered by family and friends. She is inert and unresponsive 'like a marble sarcophagus'. The content of the monologues alternate between love and hatred, sibling rivalry and jealousy with Ed in particular, 'dead inside'. The prose jumps from straight dialogue to charming descriptions particularly of the woods where Silvia and Ed spent much of their courtship. The dismal outlook and depressing medical predicament of this tragedy are broken by episodes of humour. The Indonesian Tia (Silvia's cleaner) spends her moments relating the contents of current gossip magazines in an amusing format. Jo refuses to give up hope and reality of waking her 'frozen sister' with a series of bizarre, funny and hilarious attempts to stimulate some response.

The novel is held together by Silvia's Jamaican nurse, Winnie. She treats Silvia with the repect she gives all her patients and is the only one with no axe to grind, no anger, hate or questions but only wishes good things for Silvia. She is a totally professional caring person.

There are some subplots, some improbable and others rather repetitive. The circumstances surrounding the ill-tempered, violent, possessive Irish Cat (a GP),are an important part of the novel, yet do have some improbable features. The descriptions of her native Connemara are attractively portrayed.

I enjoyed the book. I felt although the narrators were speaking individually, they were able, at last, to express their true emotions withought the worries of feedback. Almost a stage-play situation. Dawn French then pulls it all together with the unexpected and surprising revelations, explaining the secrets of the protagonists' lives. Well-worth reading and well-written.

By giving this book only 2 stars I am not trying to imply it is a bad book but it was not to my taste. Maybe it is my fault for buying a book that is outside of my normal genre but I wanted to try it as it was by Dawn French who I do like a lot on the telly.

I only got up to page 60 odd before giving up but later thought it would be fairer to the author to give it another go. I got to page 100ish before giving up again and passing the book to my missus.

Basically this is a book that revolves around the thoughts and feelings of the friends and family of Sylvia. Unfortunately Sylvia is in a coma and cannot answer back and these thoughts and feelings are expressed at visiting times at the hospital. I just thought that the mundane thoughts of Sylvia's visitors was quite boring and I had no desire to carry on.

I am sure that when the missus reads it she will have much better views than mine.

One thing I did not like was the authors habit of underling words quite frequently. I thought that this indicated that Ms French has not got the confidence in her readers to understand the book.

I love Dawn French ...... as an actress. I was so looking forward to downloading my FIRST Kindle book (Kindle was my Christmas present)So, after all the faffing about, setting it up and creating an account, Dawn's book was my choice. As with any book, the first few chapters are getting to know the characters and the story. Sorry to say that Dawn didn't do this well and the reader had to pick up other bits of information throughout the book. The characters hadn't been thought out thoroughly enough. To be honest, there were some little funny parts in it but it was a bit of let down. Dawn's PR agents did a damn good job of promoting the book but she should stick to acting.... which she excels at.

This is the exact antidote to the wonderful 'A Tiny Bit Marvellous' and is turgid, depressing and incredibly bleak. I found the story to be far-fetched, and the characterisations weak and unbelievable. I couldn't find it funny that's for sure. I wouldn't recommend this. It'll just depress you.

Think Ms French tries too hard. The narrative is really boring in parts (e.g. the unnecessarily long - several pages - description of Silvia's ex husband planting a tree with his granddaughter!) It's fairly repetitive and slow. Felt the same about her autobiog Dear Fatty - too many pages devoted to Lenny and how much she loved him etc....
Will persevere but can't wait to get to the end. Sorry Dawn. Perhaps stick to TV and stage comedy - it's what you're brilliant at!

I couldn't finish this. I found the format of internal monologues of people visiting a totally non-responsive subject very unrewarding. It has occasional flashes of humour (as you would expect) but this did not compensate for the slightly hysterical and wholly unconvincing premise of the novel.

I've just joined a book club and this was the first book chosen for us all to read, and I'll be honest and say that it wouldn't have been one I would have chosen to read otherwise. I've not read anything by Dawn French before but I admire her as a comedian/actress. The problem I found was that Dawn writes the way she speaks and so when I was reading the book all I could hear was her voice, doing all the different accents. The premise of the book is very interesting and explores the notion of how we are all different things to different people, but I just found the characters to be flimsy, one dimensional and unbelievable. Some parts of the story are touching and poignant but in other chapters it dissolves into farce and I found the humour rather infantile. Like someone said in another of the reviews, the story would make a great play rather than a book.

I was really excited about reading this book. I had read Dawns autobiography and thought it to be well written. So you can imagine

my disappointment when I found myself skipping whole pages of this text and skim reading some chapters. I was able to glean from my skim reading the most basic facts needed ,and find the one chapter in the book of any real importance to the plot line. Sorry Dawn but I didn't find it a great read, it was a page turner but for all the wrong reasons.

A clever idea with a good story line,and some nice touches, but somehow it doesn't quite work - just not written too convincingly, nor flows too well. Quite enjoyed reading and wouldn't have given up on it, but not the best book I've read recently.