I don’t understand why this novel won the Booker. It had nothing new to say about families, society, child abuse, marriage or mental illness. The passages dealing with the grandparents were boring and at times confusing. The narrator/protagonist left me indifferent, in fact annoyed. The so-called Gathering occupied about 15 pages in the whole novel. I found this a very disappointing read. I don’t know what it says about the quality of the Booker 2007 entries. I intend to read Mr Pip and probably On Chesil Beach soon.

While this is very English, some may say annoyingly so, it is almost a love story. It speaks of a lost time which will never come again.

Maybe old silent films just aren’t for me but I found the acting in this laughably atrocious, and it’s not really a film to laugh at. I was also horrified at the racism but perhaps that was normal then.

Gruesome, but very worthwhile.