Bournville
Jonathan Coe
From the bestselling, award-winning author of Middle England comes a profoundly moving, brutally funny and brilliantly true portrait of Britain told through four generations of one familyIn Bournville, a placid suburb of Birmingham, sits a famous chocolate factory. For eleven-year-old Mary and her family in 1945, it's the centre of the world. The reason their streets smell faintly of chocolate, the place where most of their friends and neighbours have worked for decades. more
354 pages, Hardcover
First published Viking
3.85
Rating
4674
Ratings
588
Reviews
Jonathan Coe
39 books 2353 followers
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.Jonathan Coe, born 19 August 1961 in Birmingham, is a British novelist and writer. His work usually has an underlying preoccupation with political issues, although this serious engagement is often expressed comically in the form of satire. For example, What a Carve Up! reworks the plot of an old 1960s spoof horror film of the same name, in the light of the 'carve up' of the UK's resources which some felt was carried out by Margaret Thatcher's right wing Conservative governments of the 1980s. Coe studied at King Edward's School, Birmingham and Trinity College, Cambridge, before teaching at the University of Warwick where he completed a PhD in English Literature. In July 2006 he was given an honorary degree by The University of Birmingham.
-
Retrieved 10:55, February 2, 2009 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan...
Community reviews
Just as he did in his Middle England trilogy, Coe here has given so much space to describing events of the period in question that it often reads as much like a short history of modern Britain as a novel. It's a frustrating habit of Coe's, but I nevertheless adore his books. His writing is wonderful, his stories are clever and deep, and his left-wing politics are always spot on. Although this was by no means my favourite of his novels - The Rotters Club and What A Carve Up. share that particular crown - it was a consistently good one, and it wins bonus points for ridiculing that awful, awful arserag, Boris Johnson. more
2. 5 starsshort review for busy readers: Definitely not one of Coe's best. Good concept and well-written, but muddled and tedious in plot, overly biased/blatant in approach, and lazy in the characterisation of too many characters who are only shades different from each other, with very few exceptions. Slow read. Not recommended, esp not as a place to start with Coe's work. more
plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. I've only read one other Coe novel - Middle England - and from that limited experience it seems that Coe has a tried-and-tested formula: state of the nation novels focusing on a specific (or a number of specific) events in recent(ish) history, and a tight cast of characters who spend a fair chunk of the narrative ruminating on politics and current affairs in said moment in history. Coe's latest offering heads back to an area he knows well: the West Midlands. Educated in Edgbaston, one gathers from the epilogue that many of the locales featured in Bournville are/were familiar to him in his younger years. Currently living in the West Midlands myself I was interested in a novel which featured the area so prominently, but I think the book was a bit of a letdown in that regard - the sections on the history of Bournville were interesting though. more
If you enjoy sweeping family sagas, populated by wonderful characters, balanced narratives with stellar endings, then like me, you will love this novel. “Everything changes, and everything stays the same. ”My review is published in the November issue of Goodreading magazine. more
Μια αναδρομή σε στιγμές μιας οικογένειας, από το μακρινό 1945 και την ημέρα της νίκης, τη λήξη του δεύτερου παγκόσμιου πολέμου, μέχρι τις μέρες του Covid και του Brexit, περνώντας από την ενθρόνιση της Ελισσάβετ, το Μουντιάλ της Αγγλίας του 1966, το χρίσμα του Καρόλου ως πρίγκιπα της Ουαλίας (κάποιοι διαμαρτυρήθηκαν ότι ο πρίγκιπας της Ουαλίας θα έπρεπε να είναι Ουαλός), ο γάμος Καρόλου-Νταίάνας, το θάνατο της πριγκίπισσας Νταιϊάνα και "τη μάχη της σοκολάτας" στο ευρωκοινοβούλιο και με αρκετό τρυφερό σαρκασμό για τον Μπόρις Τζόνσον. Λίγο άνευρο και μερικές φορές προβλέψιμο, αλλά συνολικά ευχάριστο στο διάβασμα, με αναφορές σε ταινίες του Τζέιμς Μποντ που η θέασή τους έγινε μια μικρή παράδοση για την οικογένεια και κάπου εκεί, εμβόλιμη… μια σταδιακή αλλαγή στάσης απέναντι στη μοναρχία, από την λατρεμένη αποδοχή, στο σκεπτικισμό και την κριτική (κάποιοι στέκονται ιδίως στις άσκοπες υπερβολικές σπατάλες των τελετών). Οι χαρακτήρες είναι ενδιαφέροντες και… 2,5διάστατοι, ένας "κακός" να υποστηρίζει τη μοναρχία και το συντηρητισμό σε κάθε του μορφή, αλλά και το Brexit (για το οποίο είναι σαφές ότι οι Βρετανοί δεν έχουν ακόμα συλλογικά κατασταλαγμένη άποψη), ενώ ένας άλλος, πολύ χαριτωμένα ερωτώμενος αν έχει κάνει ποτέ του κάτι τολμηρό αναφέρει την ένταξή του στο SDP (μετριοπαθέστερο των εργατικών της εποχής κόμμα). Βέβαια, η επιλογή των χρονικών στιγμών που "τραβάει φωτογραφίες" ο Coe, δίνει μάλλον προβλέψιμες συζητήσεις (και τους εξίσου δεδομένα προβλέψιμους προβληματισμούς που τις δημιουργούν), αλλά ίσως είναι και «δίχτυ ασφαλείας» στη γραφή του. Ωστόσο, μια από τις στιγμές που αποκαλύπτεται a posteriori με τους Ουαλλούς εθνικιστές-ακτιβιστές-επαναστάτες και την αποτρεπτική δράση ενός μέλους της οικογένειας, ξεφεύγει από το μοτίβο της προβλεψιμότητας. more
What should it be called, this special place. You might have thought, for the people who named it, that with its almshouses and playing fields, its miniature boating lake and white-flannelled cricketers, the village was built as an archetype - a parody, almost - of a certain notion of Englishness. The little stream which wound through its very centre was called the Bourn, and many expected that Bournbrook would be the chosen name. But this was a village founded on enterprise, and that enterprise was to sell chocolate, and even in the hearts of the Cadburys, these pioneers of British chocolate manufacture, there lurked a residual sense of the inferiority of the native product, compared to its Continental rivals. Was there not something quintessentially, intrinsically European about the finest chocolate. more
I've enjoyed Jonathan Coe's comic novels for two decades, but white this was perfectly readable, it is not one of my favorites. Coe revisits multiple generations of a Birmingham family at crucial moments in postwar British history: V-E Day, Queen Elizabeth's coronation, the 1966 World Cup, Prince Charles' investiture, Charles & Diana's royal wedding, Diana's funeral, the Covid lockdowns. Instead of the clever wit and irony that leavened his previous State-of-the-Nation novels like The Rotters' Club, Coe's satirical vision here is motivated here by anger and preachiness, and his sociological observations felt obvious and on-the-nose. I share Coe's utter antipathy for Boris Johnson's mendacious clownishness, and horrified disbelief about the self-destructiveness of Brexit, but these elements didn't add up to an emotionally satisfying novel. Thanks to Europa Editions and Netgalley for an advance copy, in exchange for an honest and unbiased review. more
si saranno messi d'accordo. qualche rivista avrà lanciato una sfida per un libro sul tema. sarà una pura combinazione . Ci deve comunque essere un motivo per cui i due autori inglesi che preferisco hanno deciso, pressoché contemporaneamente, di scrivere un libro su una famiglia inglese più o meno negli ultimi settant'anni*, con ragazzi e ragazze che diventano adulti, poi genitori, poi maturi, poi vecchi e intanto i loro figli sono arrivati a loro volta ad essere maturi ed i nipoti sono già in rampa di lancio, mentre l'Inghilterra passa attraverso l'energia del dopoguerra, l'entusiasmo dei sixties, la folle corsa all'edonismo degli anni ottanta fino alla poco dignitosa epopea di un primo ministro con una capigliatura biondissima perennemente spettinata (ad ognuno il suo: a noi ne toccò uno con i capelli malamente trapiantati). Dal canto mio, nel corso della mia presenza su questo sito ho già avuto modo di dire che considero Coe un genio per i quattro libri che ha scritto in gioventù (lo so che li conoscete, ma li cito lo stesso: La banda dei brocchi, La famiglia Winshaw, La casa del sonno ed Il Circolo chiuso), e, siccome si tratta di libri che io non sarei stata in grado di scrivere neanche campando trecento anni, non posso certo rimangiarmi il giudizio. more
Только перечитав недавно несколько старых, еще викторианских романов Херберта Уэллза, понял на этом Коу, до чего и он викторианск. И, конечно, мастер "ебаного кошмара" - набирающих обороты абсурдных ситуаций, вызывающих невольное содроганье, в которых неловко за всех, но ржешь тем не менее. Но роман прекрасен и уютен снова, и как часть саги, и сам по себе, потому что в деле воспевания британских скреп (не без доли яда, конечно, что само по себе британская скрепа) Коу - прямо Голсуорзи нового и новейшего аремени. И, как ни странно, это о нас нынешних, хотя, конечно, нихера мы не англичане. "Приходят времена, когда каждый должен выбрать сторону". more
I Lamb e i WindsorIn passato ho seguito con piacere i libri di Jonathan Coe, ma da qualche anno (direi da “Disaccordi imperfetti” in poi, con la parziale eccezione di “Middle England”) mi sembra che l’autore accusi un deficit di ispirazione che lo porta ad eseguire il compito con il consueto mestiere ma senza i guizzi di estro ed inventiva che caratterizzavano soprattutto “La casa del sonno” o “La famiglia Winshaw”, ma anche le opere minori. “Bournville” va ascritto a tutti gli effetti alla categoria “saga familiare”, accompagna le vicende dei Lamb per tre quarti di secolo, con la particolarità di scandirne le tappe tramite gli avvenimenti della recente storia inglese e della famiglia reale; il personaggio centrale, l’unico che seguiamo in tutto il percorso esistenziale da nipotina a bisnonna, è Mary Lamb, che nella postfazione l’autore afferma ispirata in parte alla propria figura materna. Attorno a lei ruotano tutti gli altri familiari, per lo più racchiusi nel distretto di Bournville, sobborgo di Birmingham noto per la fabbrica di cioccolato. E con questo abbiamo pressoché esaurito gli argomenti perché uno dei limiti del romanzo è che in primo piano non accade granché di rilevante e i personaggi senza eccezione appaiono stereotipi del conservatore rampante, dell’artista con tendenze gay, dell’anziano padre incapace di accettare una nuora di colore e così via. Per contro assumono un rilievo considerevole i fatti della famiglia reale, dall’incoronazione di Elisabetta al matrimonio di Carlo al funerale di Diana, vere e proprie cerimonie nazionali che trascinano l’intera popolazione e creano dolorose fratture ed insanabili incomprensioni anche fra tranquilli consanguinei. more
Comforting nostalgia all the way through, three hundred and fifty-five pages of well condensed clichés written in the most simplistic style. No, this book was not for me I am afraid. For others, maybe, I hope. Someone in a previous GR review of this book (Kay Dunham) described the style as similar to that of the Famous Five, this is exactly it. It does try your patience, though, to be treated like that as a reader: everything being spelled out for you, it makes you feel stupid at times. more
Io ho mollato a metà. Ma la noia. Ma dov'è finito 'quel' Coe che decenni fa mi fece innamorare della banda dei brocchi o della casa del sonno. E anche recentemente avevo trovato Middle England capace di riappacificarmi un po' con questo autore ma qui, che gli è successo. Mi è davvero dispiaciuto, ma sembra scritto da un altro. more
Have to read this - I live there. Well, bored. It had some interest certainly, some humour. But I'm not really one for having great gobbets of history in the form of the King's VE Day speech, the 1966 World Cup commentary, the TV commentary on Di & Charles' wedding etc. interwoven with a family history by numbers. more
Ενα υπέροχο βιβλίο γραμμένο απο τον Jonathan Coe. Είναι μια ιστορική ανδρομή μιας οικογένειας απο το Birmingham. Ξεκινά με την λήξη το Β Παγκ Πολέμου, την Στέψη της Ελισάβετ, τον θάνατο Τσώρτσιλ, το παγκοσμιο κυπελο ποδοσφαιρου αγγλιας γερμανιας, τον Κάρολο οταν έγινε Πρίγκηπας της Ουαλίας. Τον Βασιλικό Γάμο Καρόλου Νταιάνα, τον θάνατο Ντιάνα, αναφορά στον Μπόρις, στο Μπρέξιτ και τέλος στην πανδημία. Και φυσικά μεγάλη αναφορά στην Cadbury σοκολάτα που λατρεύω. more
Everything changes, and everything stays the same. That is the overriding mantra of John Coe’s latest book, which tells a nation’s story through generations of the same family. It’s ambitious, it’s clever, and it works. Wet in the southwest side of Birmingham, Bourneville was designed to house chocolate factory workers. It focuses foremost on Mary, who is a child during VE day, and overwhelmed by the patriotism and the joyousness of triumphing over the Germans. more
Ο Coe που ζεστένει τις καρδιές μας και μας κάνει να ξεκαρδιζόμαστε στα γέλια. more
3. 5. Everything changes and everything stays the same. Bournville is an enjoyable family saga, centred on the memorable Mary - inspired by Jonathan Coe's own mother - whom we first meet in her little village on VE Day. Then an 11-year-old growing up in the literal shadow of the Cadbury's factory, and the metaphorical shadow of WW2, we follow Mary as she grows up, finds love and work and has a relatively normal British life. more
Το 4 μπήκε λόγω συγγραφέα. 3. 5 θα ήθελα κανονικά να βάλω. Ωραίο ήταν, είχε ενδιαφέρον αλλά έχουμε διαβάσει καλύτερα από τον Κόου. . more
Jonathan Coe is chronicler of contemporary events. It’s a style of writing from which he does not waver. If I was to be critical there’s a sense of his writing by numbers; If I'm being positive its apparent that the course of history is endlessly fascinating and so there is a pipeline of lived life for Coe to draw on. Should the next novel be in the offing, Coe already has a ready made opening setting with the death and state funeral of Queen Elizabeth II. The political backdrop has also thrown up extraordinary events already, in the UK, with Johnson and Truss demonstrating how fertile this ground continues to be. more
This was a bit slow for me, jumping from time line to time line- a multi generational tale explored through seven events from VE Day through to Covid. It’s hard to get behind the characters with this approach. Many thanks to Netgalley for an arc of this book. more
Коу (опять) написал великолепный роман про время. про то, как оно обходится с людьми и как люди обходятся с ним. равно уважительно и бездарно. роман о семье, где все разные и где любовь передаётся по наследству не всем. роман о стране, в которой гордость растёт из боли и ада, а потому не позволяет гражданам смотреть друг на друга открытыми глазами. more
Το τελευταίο μυθιστόρημα του, ιδιαίτερα αγαπημένου στην Ελλάδα, Jonathan Coe, με τίτλο Bournville, είναι έργο της συγγραφικής του ωριμότητας, στο οποίο κινείται με χαρακτηριστική άνεση στο χρόνο, από το ξέσπασμα της πανδημίας στο τέλος του Β Παγκοσμίου πολέμου∙ στο τόπο, από το Mπέρμινχαμ στο Βερολίνο, την Ουαλία και τις Βρυξέλλες∙ και σε διαφορετικούς αφηγηματικούς τρόπους. Έτσι, έχουμε ένα ζωντανό έργο που χωρίζεται σε 7 κεφάλαια, καθένα από τα οποία λαμβάνει χώρα γύρω από κάποιο σημαντικό γεγονός στη Βρετανία, με αρχή τους εορτασμους για την λήξη του Β Παγκοσμίου Πολέμου. Ιστορικές ομιλίες παρατίθενται τμηματικά με σχολασμό των ηρώων σε κάθε κομμάτι τους. Μέσα, λοιπόν, από την ιστορία μιας οικογένειας ο Κόου σφυρηλατεί τη σύγχρονη ιστορία του έθνους. Η ματιά του πάντα καυστική, σαρκαστική αλλά και διεισδυτική, μας οδηγεί στην κατανόηση της ανθρώπινης κατάστασης στην Αγγλία σήμερα και τους λόγους για τους οποίους φτάσαμε εδώ. more
Ma quanto è bello scoprire un autore di cui non si è mai letto nulla e rendersi conto di avere decine di libri da recuperare. Con questo romanzo la mia wishlist si è magicamente allungata. Bournville, ultimo romanzo di Jonathan Coe, è il racconto di un luogo di una famiglia legati a filo doppio. Una fabbrica di cioccolato, un piccolo borgo alle porte di Birmingham e quasi un secolo di storia inglese, questi sono gli ingredienti che fanno di questo romanzo una chicca imperdibile. Immaginate un luogo nato per ospitare tutti i lavatori di una fabbrica; un piccolo borgo immerso nel verde, nel quale è vietata lavadita di alcolici e bambini sono liberi di scorrazzare per strada. more
Being aware of the homes built to support the workers, I was keen to read this one. Bournville is the name of the town which sprung up around Cadbury's factory in Birmingham and this is the story of four generations of a family who lived there. Tied in, as you would expect, with the world of chocolate manufacturing it paints a picture of the social changes in Britain from the post-war era to the present day. I expected to enjoy this novel as I was born in the late fifties and was familiar with the events covered. There are some amusing moments and it is enlightening to be reminded of how things have changed over the years. more
This book has an interesting and ‘novel’ structure, excuse the pun: it is the story of one woman’s life, and that of her family, told in the context of seven memorable occasions in their lives and the life of the nation – the UK that is. Those occasions are as follows:VE Day, 8 May 1945;The Coronation of HM Queen Elizabeth II, 2 June 1953;The World Cup Final: England v West Germany, 30 July 1966;The Investiture of Charles, Prince of Wales, 1 July 1969;The Wedding of Charles, Prince of Wales, and Lady Diana Spencer, 29 July 1981;The Funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales;The 75th Anniversary of VE DayThe sections deal with her/their thoughts and feelings on each occasion, the relationships within the family and how those develop as they grow up, change, have families of their own (or not), and their reminiscences about the past and their lives. It is an easy read but is not always light – it has its poignant moments, and may just make you shed a tear or two at times. It is also a sort of social history of the UK, reminding us of how much things have changed since the war (World War 2, of course, which in the UK is often known just as ‘the war’). It is also a potted history of Cadbury’s, the English chocolate maker so loved by the Brits and, now that it is owned by an enormous American company that has ruined it in some ways, is also known throughout the world owing to the new owners’ excellent marketing abilities. more
I was born and grew up by the Lickey Hills and my father worked at Bournville until I was thirteen and for Cadbury’s all his working life. He was involved with politics and joined the SDP. Despite the similarities between the lives of the characters in this book and my own family, I felt no connection or resonances. The centring of this book around royal events possibly didn’t help as they did not stand out in my memory. This is probably unfair, but the style of writing kept reminding me of The Famous Five. more
Coe uses some big 20th century historical moments to situate and contextualise his vivid characters. I love books that remind us that we are living through and part of history. We exist in time and space. Coe is telling stories within larger stories and it’s all delightful. This is impressively as good as Middle England. more
3,5/5I must say, there was some great writing but I am a little disappointed. It just feels a little empty, like a collage of very different things that don’t necessarily make a sound, finished plot. In the end it all feels superficial and scattered, despite done beautiful moments. . more
Perhaps not as immersive as Coe’s other books but still a skilful state-of-the-nation novel and a kind of companion piece to Middle England. Nice to see Bournville and Aberystwyth represented on the page too. more