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The Northern Clemency
by: Philip Hensher

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Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours Binding: Hardcover
EAN: 9780007174799
ISBN: 0007174799
Label: Fourth Estate Ltd
Manufacturer: Fourth Estate Ltd
Number Of Pages: 736
Publication Date: April 01, 2008
Publisher: Fourth Estate Ltd
Studio: Fourth Estate Ltd
Sales Rank: 1631

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Editorial Review:

Amazon.co.uk Review:
An ambitious novelist who attempts something on as broad canvas as Philip Hensher does here is a rarity – add to that a fastidious attention to period (i.e. 1970s) detail, and – most daunting of all – a large panoply of points of view, shared among several protagonists. But in The Northern Clemency, Hensher accomplishes all of that – and more – with both precision and panache.

Essentially, this is an (upmarket) family saga, detailing the lives of a pair of families who live on opposite sides of a street in Sheffield in the 1970s, bringing to life a host of characters whose problems – and ultimate destines – both disturb and move the reader. Philip Hensher couches all of this in prose that performs a fascinating balancing act: it is as descriptive and nuanced as one might wish, but it is also extremely refined -- in the sense that there is nary a wasted word; everything here absolutely justifies its place, and Hensher suggests to the careful reader that he has lavished the most forensic of attention on the craft of his novel.

Perhaps the perfect audience for The Northern Clemency is the modern reader who has lamented that contemporary fiction lacks the heft and reach of the great novelists of the past. Such a reader will find that a taste for the substantial is more than fulfilled by Hensher’s highly accomplished saga. --Barry Forshaw

Customer Reviews

Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating:

- Trollope for the 21st century
Witty, sharp and satirical Hensher's novels were late 20th century takes on Evelyn Waugh, so who would have thought that in the 21st century he would become Anthony Trollope? The Northern Clemency is a great baggy monster of a novel and the tale of the Sellers and Glover families and their myriad acquaintances is a darkly comical work that reminded me of Trollope's lesser known The Bertrams. The writing is economical despite the prolixity of the work and its amazing flow is only occasionally slowed by some rather clunky and at times purple prose. His recreation of 70s and 80s England is astute and the occasional descent or ascent into the surreal is very entertaining considering the novel's resemblance to a 19th century tale of family dysfunction, ... Read More:

Rating:

- State of the kitchen
`So the garden of number eighty-four is nothing more than a sort of playground for all the kids of the neighbourhood?'

Hensher's book starts with the neighbouring adults discussing the adolescent children of the Glovers at a party which could have been thrown by Abigail herself - down to the party menu of coronation chicken and vol-au-vents. Hensher uses food rather than music to provide his date signposts. At the end of the novel Daniel, who is portrayed at the start lolling on a chair fantasising about swingers' parties with swapped car keys, spends three hours reading a novel in his trendy restaurant. It begins `So the garden....' What the ? 738 pages, hours of reading investment, and that's how the book ends? With a postmodern loop? ... Read More:

Rating:

- A great English novel
In a nod to the nineteenth-century narrative tradition that it seems to have been plucked from, Hensher's latest novel can be dubbed both a tale of two cities and, for this reader at least, a tale of two books.
A book laden with dust-jacket claims heavy enough to sink a battleship - a "condition-of-England" novel, a "condition-of-humanity" novel, "reminiscent of the great nineteenth-century Russian novels" - it bored with kitchen-sink details for 300 pages before setting off on an engrossing ride through 20 years of English history. Politically centred about the 80s miners' strike in Sheffield, it also examines the bloating of the middle-classes and the death of 70s-born radicalism.
It's also a book rooted heavily in the everyday, as Hensher ... Read More:

Rating:

- To err is human, to forgive divine
As there have been many reviews already for this book that have covered the plot, rather than retread that ground I thought it would be better to focus on something else that has received less coverage, namely the title of the book itself and some of the references it makes, particularly as many reviews have expressed puzzlement as to what the book is actually "about".

Why is the book called the Northern Clemency? Well part of that's clear as much of the action is set around Sheffield in a time span running from the 70s to the present day. The other part is less obvious, but as you read this weighty tome (700+ pages) some running themes become apparent, not the least of which is the capability of people to forgive and understand the sometimes ... Read More:

Rating:

- Left me unsatisfied
I bought 'The Northern Clemency' on the strength of a reviewer suggesting it is a modern-day J B Priestley and yes it is a sort of family saga, the characters are fairly well portrayed, the writing is excellent (especially the dialogue) and I much enjoyed the first 500 pages or so. But then I began to wonder where the book was going. What was the author aiming at. How were the strands going to get tied together.
And frustratingly the characters and plot (for want of a better word, as this is a book without a constructed plot)just rambled on until the author seemingly decided he'd done enough.
He left this reader feeling cheated.

Books : The Northern Clemency