Revisit November 2021
I listened to this on audio, having forgotten my earlier response to it and expecting to like it. As it turns out, I DID like it. Not as much as Family Album, but I just really love Penelope Lively.

Audio/Libby
Driving for FFE
November 2021

SPOILER
August 2014
So I finally returned to this book and finished it. It still like the author's writing but I kinda wish I'd left this one alone. I didn't really need to read a book where the woman in the photograph committed suicide in despair over never having children. ( )

I can't say much about this novel without giving away the plot. Only that the discovery of an old photograph shakes up the lives of quite a few people. Except at the beginning, not much happens in this story, but due to the constantly shifting perspectives and the alternation of flashbacks, active memories and constant introspection, Lively has made it into a very appealing whole. In the end this novel is not so uplifting, because the most important lessons she teaches us is that people hardly know each other, and that beauty is not always a blessingt. So ,there is also quite a bit of psychology involved in this story, although you should not expect too much from it: some characters remain quite superficial. As a bonus, there is also something to pick up for garden lovers, because one of the protagonists is a garden designer. And once again Lively exposes the important role of the past in our personal lives. More on that aspect in my History account on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5728186200. ( )

22. The Photograph by Penelope Lively
OPD: 2003
format: 231-page used Penguin paperback
acquired: May 2022 read: Mar 28 – Apr 1 time reading: 7:15, 1.9 mpp
rating: 4
genre/style: somewhat contemporary fiction theme: TBR
locations: Across England, contemporary to time of writing,
about the author: English author born Cairo in 1933, who moved to England in 1945.

A widower finds a photograph of his diseased wife discretely but intimately holding hands with another man.

While the response lights up obsessive, if cooly reptilian, thoughts, emotions circling, it's still a thinner baseline to a story than I might have anticipated. But it's well written, and I enjoyed it. Each chapter is one character's perspective, and these chapters are short and fun and digestible. And the book manages to create some reflection and hints at something cathartic-like (even if Lively is just playing with this.), giving the novel a more complete feel.

I think a lot about Lively's [Moon Tiger] and all its history and playful intellect and serious emotions. This is not that kind of wow of a book. But it's a nice read. Recommended only to the curious.

2023
https://www.librarything.com/topic/348551#8113165 ( )

Really slow start for me, but as the story went on, I got more into it. ( )

this is lovely. the writing is excellent - this was my first, but will definitely not be my last, penelope lively - and the character studies are so well drawn. admittedly this is my kind of book: heavy on character and internalities, less so on plot (although there is a definite, concrete one). but there is this beautiful ache that exists with all of these characters, who don't connect with each other at all really, who don't know each other or maybe even allow themselves to be known. there is a loneliness even as they're with each other and together. this book also talks about how something small (or seemingly small) can change your perception of everything. how when that happens, your memories change to reflect this new understanding (if understanding is what it is) and how you have to reevaluate everything you thought you knew. so the plot, while thinly written, is quite big and profound, and we learn about it through the characters and how they handle (or don't) this information that comes to them.

beautifully done and written.

this is a book that probably should be read in only a few sittings. i suspect i would have liked it even more had i been able to read it that way; i was unable to give it the time it deserved and took me far too long to read. if i reread it, i expect to rate it even higher next time. ( )