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There is so much to the story of following Charlie’s life and his feud with the Trentham family. And you find out a lot from each character where Archer uses a nice writing trick. Every once in a while there is a chapter in the first person from another character’s perspective, including Charlie’s wife Becky, their son Daniel, friend Daphne, former commanding officer and then company chairman Colonel Hamilton, rival Mrs. Trentham, and employee Cathy. Usually a few chapters following those key around that character. It may not add a huge amount of depth to the characters, but it at least gives you an idea of what they were thinking, leading them to react the way they did or do the things they do.
Now given the length of the book, the characters are not as deep as one might expect. But like I said, there is more then one important character. Though given the amount of time that the major characters get, they are pretty well drawn out. Also, the books deals with a rather long span of time. When we meet Charlie, he is 7 or 8 years old (born in 1899) and we follow it through to the last scene of the book that takes place in 1970. So the biggest factor of this book is the story. It drives everything. Events may happen fast, or we skip over years between chapters, but it’s hitting all the necessary points in the characters’ lives. With the length of the story, even the large gaps of time that are skipped over doesn’t take away from the story at all. It really makes the story flow very well, leaving no dull or boring part and always left me wanting to read more.
The only issue I had with some of the story is the “soap opera” feel it had at times. However, it doesn’t really take away from the story. Some may find it unappealing, but when some of it crept in, I was already too far involved for it to turn me off. Also there is a bit of reality in that “soap opera” likeness. For instance, some of the lengths that Mrs. Trentham goes to are all to help her son hide a few secrets. But like anything that you do on the sly, eventually you are covering many tracks and the lengths to which you will go only become greater. There were also a few times when things would seem to be too convenient for Charlie, but soon enough there was a catch, or something else to derail him also lending some reality to the story. Or sometimes as he is laughing at his rival’s misfortune, he would turn around and see something similar happen to him.
Despite any flaws, this turned out to be a great story. I had been struggling to find something of interest in the world of fiction to read. I put down almost a dozen books after only getting through the first few pages. And despite it’s length, I read this one off rather quickly. It was a great way to break out of that rut. The simple (though very British at times) prose along with an engaging story made it a very enjoyable read.
8/10
