Her style is slightly richer than many modern novels, with the occasional rhythmic, almost poetic turn of phrase. Such a combination would be bound to appeal even if Alderman’s writing wasn’t as beautifully languid and elegiac as it is. It turns out that the book is the spiritual love-child of The Secret History and Brideshead Revisited, which are two of my favourite novels and, moreover, most of it is set in Oxford.
Her first novel Disobedience had very good reviews but I’ve never got round to reading it and I remember having picked up The Lessons somewhere before, but only for long enough to read the prologue, which didn’t do much for me. Perhaps it’s simply that I wasn’t familiar with Alderman’s writing. But Mark's influence is still strong.Last time I went to the library, this book was one of the spoils that I carried off: in retrospect, it’s odd that I hadn’t read it before.
After graduation the group fragments, each locked in his or her own suddenly adult, pedestrian world. In The Lessons a close-knit group of friends forms at Oxford around the mercurial, charismatic figure of Mark, whose rackety trust-fund upbringing has left him as troubled and dangerously unpredictable as he is wildly promiscuous. A modern-day Brideshead Revisited- a group of friends at university, then several years after, when hopes have been shattered and friends and lovers betrayed After graduation the group fragments, each locked in his or her own suddenly adult, pedes.
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