I liked A Curious Earth so much that I made myself slow down while reading it to make it last. On the face of it, the third instalment of this trilogy contains no earth-shattering events or ingenious plotting, just a tale of an elderly man, Aldous Jones, struggling with loneliness and old-age. The drama in this books is however subtle and engrossing, and Woodward can make the everyday seem remarkable – even Aldous’s visit to Ostend becomes an adventure into a strange new world, almost as exotic as a remote part of the Far East.
Woodward understands this last stage of life and describes the gloominess and hopelessness that can descend when life seems to be drawing to a close, while also showing that this malaise can be interrupted by exciting new projects and relationships which seem to come out of the blue and attract a new sense of energy. Aldous Jones is by no means a hero, but we catch glimpses of what could have been had his energy and health matched the new challenges that come into his life,
After his wife’s death, Aldous sinks into a state of alcoholic hopelessness, a worry to his daughter, who chivvies him to clean himself up and to drink less. He resists these efforts, but eventually suffers the inevitable “fall” and ends up in hospital. He comes out and somehow manages to invigorate himself enough to visit his son in Ostend, where life seems to open up in new and unpredictable ways. On his return, he starts Flemish lessons and meets Maria – a red herring if ever there was one, being frustratingly available, but only strictly on her own terms. Aldous tries to share his passion for Rembrandt with her but not very successfully, only resurrecting his own passion for Rembrandt’s mistress Hendrickje Stoffels.
Woodward ends the book as kindly as he began it by allowing Aldous to meet his own Hendrickje Stoffels and it is hard to turn the final page without feeling that you have read a greatly compassionate work, tolerant of the human condition, but with a gentle humour which smoothes over some of the cracks of Aldous’s obvious deficiencies.
[...] began a decade ago with a well received trilogy – August, I’ll Go to Bed at Noon, and A Curious Earth. I managed to watch those books go by without actually picking any of them up; the publication of [...]