Perhaps we’ll find it in his next novel, but it can’t be found here. Well, what do you think? At his high school, Merton Grange, Charlie has a few friends but doesn’t connect well with any of them. Like Nicholls’s breakout big hit One Day, it is a Bildungsroman with a breezy literary bent. It feels, however, as if Nicholls is playing it safe. That’s the question posed in Sweet Sorrow, the new novel from David Nicholls that just might be the sweetest book to brighten your late summer. A former literary editor of the Times, she has twice judged the Man Booker Prize. The most important news stories of the day, curated by Post editors and delivered every morning. But the book never achieves lift-off: there isn’t enough at stake. And his mother, like Fran, is little more than a cipher, a trope of an energetic and efficient woman who has had enough of her gloomy husband and finds herself a new man and a job at a golf club. “A beautiful paean to young love... Sweet Sorrow is a book that does what Nicholls does best, sinking the reader deep into a nostalgic memory-scape, pinning the narrative to a love story that manages to be moving without ever tipping over into sentimentality, all of it composed with deftness, intelligence and, most importantly, humour. But the consolation of art must be bolder and more brutal. One Day draws on Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles (Nicholls had adapted the novel for the screen the year before his own book was published); here, we have a bit of Shakespeare, the story of his two doomed young lovers an undercurrent beneath the text. to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. Combined with the humor he brings to this adolescent awakening, the novel is a lilting reminder of how, even as the years fly by, certain events loom huge in our minds. Sweet Sorrow While there’s nothing wrong with the tale of a summer romance, it feels as if Nicholls is playing it safe. In the end, Sweet Sorrow offers consolation of a peculiarly anodyne kind. At 16, Charlie Lewis has had a rough couple of years. Will Charlie join their merry band? an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking Charlie knows his own assignment as Benvolio is almost a gift; he may be bitten by the drama bug, but that doesn’t make him an actor. It’s a book about what it means to grow up, move on and see a long-ago love out of the stage lights and in the light of day. This is, in part, the problem with Sweet Sorrow. In the end, Sweet Sorrow offers consolation of a peculiarly anodyne kind. Charlie’s a nice enough kid; Fran is pretty much a blank canvas. Bankruptcy follows, his wife walks out, he spends his days lying on the sofa drinking and smoking and taking prescription drugs. Hardy knew it; Shakespeare knew it; and Nicholls knows it too. Nicholls’s effortless distillation of this formative experience is enough to make a reader wonder if all first loves share some of the same chords. What if, instead of loving Romeo and dying dramatically, Juliet fell for Benvolio and their relationship died a natural death? In any case, the drama-club business functions as a backdrop to the real story Nicholls wants to tell, that of first love and its echoes through our lives. This article appears in the 24 July 2019 issue of the New Statesman, Shame of the nation, Star-crossed: David Nicholls mines Shakespeare, › No country for old men: Kevin Barry’s Night Boat to Tangier, Chief Engineer: The Man Who Built the Brooklyn Bridge, Andy Burnham spoke the language of class struggle – Labour must follow, NS Podcast: The Divided States of America, What record levels of voter turnout could mean for the US 2020 election, "It gave me a name": What critical race theory means to its practitioners, How research partnerships can help deliver a prosperous post-pandemic future, NS Recommends: New books from John Cooper Clarke, Alice Martin and Annie Quick, and Nicole Krauss, Veteran science fiction writer makes the 2020 Goldsmiths shortlist, How Robert Tressell’s novel The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists became a sacred text for aspiring socialists. She doesn’t even really notice when her son appears to attempt suicide – but then the reader can’t take this attempt seriously either, since it’s passed over in barely a paragraph and referred to as “a blatant performance”. sweet sorrow by David Nicholls ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 4, 2020 Nicholls' leisurely, nostalgic, and often amusing novel traces the coming-of-age of an adolescent boy in 1997 Britain. This website uses cookies to help us give you the best experience when you visit our website. His parents have divorced, leaving Charlie and his younger sister bouncing between households. Charlie assumes that others drawn to the troupe will come from the nearby private school, Chatsborne. There is sweet sorrow in this deadbeat suburb — one memory of his father tugs achingly towards the end of the novel. Framing the story this way enables Nicholls to both save it from saccharine dithering and to remind readers that we’ve all had our own sweet sorrows, first loves that, when recounted, might set other people’s teeth on edge. He’s the perfect candidate for recruitment by a theater cooperative. Get the New Statesman's Morning Call email. She’s clever, and she seems to draw cleverness out of Charlie, but in a way that often feels too much like an out-take of When Harry Met Sally than the way two British teenagers might actually talk. Sweet Sorrow is a funny, affectionate exploration of first love, viewed from the perspective of a bit-part player with no aspiration to become the romantic lead. Sweet Sorrow is a book that does what Nicholls does best, sinking the reader deep into a nostalgic memory-scape, pinning the narrative to a love story … He’s at school somewhere in the south of England and has just finished his GCSEs – though it would be better to say he got them over with. But the consolation of art must be bolder and more brutal. Hodder & Stoughton, 416pp, £20. At 16, Charlie Lewis has had a rough couple of years. Combined with the humor he brings to this adolescent awakening, the novel is a lilting reminder of how, even as the years fly by, certain events loom huge in our minds… Erica Wagner is New Statesman contributing writer. The novel is full of missed opportunities: particularly when it comes to Charlie’s situation at home. Hardy knew it; Shakespeare knew it; and Nicholls knows it too. There’s nothing exactly wrong with this novel, and Nicholls has such a fluid style you can’t object to spending time in the company of his characters. “Love is boring,” the older Charlie notes as he looks back on his summer romance with Fran. Fran Fisher, it turns out, is rehearsing a student production of Romeo and Juliet with something called the Full Fathom Five Theatre Co-operative.

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