Just like a coin spun/tossed/launched at midday into the sky will twist head over tails - at once both reflecting and in turn blocking the sun- this book twists between obsessive Oscar and compulsive Lucinda and spun wildly around a whole slew of characters and just spun there, suspended forever, threatening never to come down. Worlds of glass, chance, love, passion, obsession, stars-crossed, God, compulsion, sin, materialism and generosity of spirit. It flickers like the quiet, mirrored Doppler effect of water flowing around a pair of swans. A novel that tempts one to grab it around the middle and squeeze, even as it dances away like a shadow. What wisdom does a mob have? It is a hydra, an organism, stupid or dangerous in much of its behavior, but could it have, in spite of this, a proper judgement about which of its component parts fit best together?” ― Peter Carey, Oscar and Lucinda A book to love. “She thought: When we are two, they do not notice us. Although love proves to be the ultimate gamble for Oscar and Lucinda, the story never strays too far from the terrible possibility that even the most thunderstruck lovers can remain isolated in parallel lives.
Yet even the unconvincing plot turns are made up for by Carey's rich prose and the tale's unpredictable outcome. Their final high-stakes folly - transporting a crystal palace of a church across (literally) godforsaken terrain - strains plausibility, and events turn ghastly as Oscar plays out his bid for Lucinda's heart. When the two finally meet onboard a ship bound for New South Wales, they are bound by their affinity for risk, their loneliness, and their awkwardly blossoming (but unexpressed) mutual affection.
Oscar plays the horses while at school, and Lucinda, now an orphaned heiress, finds comfort in a game of cards with an odd collection of acquaintances. Neither of these coming-of-age stories quite explains how the grownup Oscar and Lucinda each develops a guilty passion for gambling. "Dear God," Oscar prays, "if it be thy will that thy people eat pudding, smite him!" Lucinda's childhood trauma involves a beautiful doll bought by her struggling mother with savings from the jam jar in a misguided attempt to tame the doll's unruly curls, young Lucinda mutilates her treasure beyond repair. Young Oscar, denied the heavenly fruit of a Christmas pudding by his cruelly stern father, forever renounces his father's religion in favor of the Anglican Church. In the early parts of this lushly written audiobook, author Peter Carey renders the seminal turning points in his protagonists' childhoods as exquisite 19th-century set pieces.
Lucinda Leplastrier is a frizzy-haired heiress who impulsively buys a glass factory with the inheritance forced on her by a well-intentioned adviser. Oscar Hopkins is a high-strung preacher's kid with hydrophobia and noisy knees.
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