Oscar and Lucinda – Peter Carey

I had been waiting to read a “real” book by Peter Carey ever since reading his minor Bliss and absolutely loving it – luckily, as is often the case, the Amnesty International Book Sale in Blackheath had the solution to this problem (for 1 £…).

I liked the book, but in all honesty I’m not quite sure it’s Pulitzer-worthy (then again, reading the shortlisted titles, I’m also quite positive Chatwin’s Utz wouldn’t have been a good candidate either) – I found it a bit long (well, unsurprising given the size…), could have done without much of the background stories of Oscar and Lucinda’s families, probably the gambling world doesn’t attract me too much anyway, and I just didn’t get too excited by the big voyage of discovery in Australia.

The book does, however, have a number of great ideas, like the ways in which Oscar fights his phobia of the Ocean, the discovery (for me) of Prince Rupert’s Drops, and the transportation of the glass church, which reminded me of Fitzcarraldo and is a literary picture that many authors can spend an entire career waiting to develop.