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The Light Of Amsterdam. David Park (2012)

by David Park(Favorite Author)

3.23 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

1408825287 (ISBN13: 9781408825280)

languge

English

genre

Fiction

publisher

Bloomsbury UK

review 1: I really liked this book! The story follows three pairings (mother & daughter, father & son, husband & wife) on a weekend trip to Amsterdam, weaving in their background stories along the way, and I liked and engaged with each of the pairings. I really liked both the wider descriptions of Belfast (where they all live) and Amsterdam, and then the more detailed insights into the different relationships and how they progressed or changed over the course of the weekend. One scene in particular (spoiler alert) involving a ring had me in tears - a romantic and poignant example of where actions can speak louder than words.Some here seem to have been disappointed by the endings for each of the pairs - I liked each one, and thought they were realistic and satisfac... moretory.
review 2: I saw this book in the Waterstone's in Amsterdam (where you can purchase chocolate cream eggs and salad cream alongside your books in English) and I bought it on our return because I wanted our family trip to last longer...An Irish author and an Amsterdam setting are a specially good combination for me, although at first I thought that perhaps this was going to be like those stories where a foreign woman starts up a café in Tuscany and meets a local fairy prince. Far from it. First of all, this is a story about foreigners in Amsterdam, seeing everything through foreign eyes and meeting by chance with other foreigners: these visitors look longingly the Dutch flying past on their bikes, off to their mysterious lives that remain unknown to them, and to us. I felt the same: I am the type that, when travels, dreams of staying on to live there for a while (but bringing my own fairy prince in my luggage!). The descriptions of the streets and canals of Amsterdam, the gabled houses, the Rijksmuseum, the rowdy bars and clubs, are true to the fascination that the city creates in the traveller and it is nice that Park obviously shares this passion.It is a simple thing, a weekend abroad, but deceivingly so, as it disrupts the routine and the rhythm of life for our assorted characters: father and son, mother and daughter, husband and wife. Situations that have been breeding for a while come to a peak as the foreign scene and chance encounters bring about epiphanies, the need to talk, the need to act. Thankfully, my family and me had no ongoing situations so we just had a happy but ultimately "unliterary" weekend in Amsterdam. less

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