Book Review - The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas

The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

At a suburban barbecue, a man slaps a child who is not his own.

This event has a shocking ricochet effect on a group of people, mostly friends, who are directly or indirectly influenced by the slap.

Christos Tsiolkas examines the impact of this apparently minor domestic incident through the eyes of eight of those who witness it.  The result is an unflinching interrogation of the modern family, a deeply thought-provoking novel of boundaries and their limits.

At 485 pages this is quite a long book given it all relates to "The Slap" that takes place during an afternoon barbecue for friends and family. (Not a spoiler - that's quoted in the blurb - see above.) What follows is the story of subsequent events as seen through the eyes of 8 of the people who witnessed "The Slap". Time moves forward as we are given insights into the lives of each of these 8 people.

Clearly Tsiolkas has a good understanding of people but I found the style of interspersing actual speech with the thoughts of the person annoying. I had to check for quotation marks on many occasions to separate one from the other. And the characters were horrible. The timeframe spanned is also very vague. I nearly gave up after about a third of the book but I really hate to DNF and this was a book earmarked for a challenge choice so I made it to the end, just. I think it's fair to say that the idea of "the slap" being a catalyst for an interesting book did not deliver.

It also contains lots of swearing, sexual scenes and racism.

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Friday's Fave Five (A little late!) 3/8/24

Well I'm a little late but I'm sure I'll be forgiven.  Susanne reminds us every week to look back and remember the things we're thankful for.  You can find out more and check out other posts by going here.

1)  Summer weather.  In fact it's been very hot here this week.  We've had a couple of showers but in between it's been sunny and HOT!

2)  Despite the heat I did manage a couple of walks to the lake - I waited until early evening so it wasn't too hot.  Good to see the swans' brood of cygnets (8) are all doing well and getting quite big.

3)  Lunch with friends.  It was my turn to host our "Ladies Lunch" this week.  There were 5 of us as Catherine's sister was visiting from Holland.  I was told she had no allergies but couldn't bear fresh coriander.  Easy to please then, as are the others.  I just put out some olives and nibbles for when they arrived.  For the main I made a salmon quiche with a green salad plus homemade coleslaw and potato salad.  Followed by Tiramisu for dessert.  I like to do things I can prepare ahead so I'm not panicking on the day.  

4)  A regular in my list here but I'm thankful for a Hubby that cooks.  I find cooking everyday a bit of a chore but I guess preparing food every day does meet the definition of a chore lol.  I much prefer doing what I call "entertaining" cooking, even when it's something fairly simple.

5)  Time with Grandkids Nathan and Ella this week.  Plus a video chat with Rory and Vinny.

As usual I'm useless at remembering to take photos.

Have a good weekend all.

And another week gone!

I had all good intentions of doing a Friday's Fave Five post but that never happened.  Anyway here I am.  Sitting near a fan and watching birds fighting over our bird feeder in the garden - I spent ages on Saturday giving the feeders a good clean and then refilling them and the birds have been flocking to them ever since.  There were 6 parakeets trying to get on it this morning.  They're fun to watch but they are also very vocal.

I did quite a bit of gardening over the weekend.  Well tidying really - with all that was going on here I didn't even bother with containers this summer so I've moved them off the back steps and down to the shed.  

The only colour in the back garden is the lavender bushes which are in full bloom and, thankfully, attracting lots of bees.  I also did a bit of tidying in the front garden so that looks better too and the hydrangea there is doing well.  There's still work to be done out front but today I've been working indoors.

I think I've finally got all the "stuff" that came from my son out of the main house.  The garden room and garage are still dumping grounds but at least I feel the house is ok.  Especially as I'm hosting our "Ladies Lunch" on Wednesday.  A good incentive for getting things tidy and doing some proper cleaning.

I also managed to fix one of the kick boards in the kitchen which kept coming loose - it needed more brackets, plus I managed to clean out a drain in the back garden.  I will say no more about that lol.

But it hasn't been all work.

The Saturday before last we met up with one of Nick's sisters (Helen)and most of her family, including her 7 grandsons, at the camping site where we all used to camp before we wanted home comforts and switched to our annual "Big House" family weekend away.

It was nice to sit in the outdoors and do a bit of reminiscing about camping trips.

Tuesday night was a Knit and Natter evening.  Not a big group as some were on holiday but still a nice relaxing time.

On the Wednesday we visited the same sister at her home to deliver a bread machine to her.  It belonged to our DIL who had hardly used it so she offered it on our family WhatsApp group and it was quickly snapped up by Helen.

Friday evening I sat and watched the Olympics opening ceremony.  I think it was a bold move by the French to do it so differently and, while some of it worked there were bits that I could easily have skipped.  I'm glad I could watch it in the comfort of my home too, and not the pouring rain.

On Saturday evening Hubby and I went out to our local pub and then across the road to the wine bar.  We had a cheese plate in the wine bar which was a nice evening snack and we walked home to balance the calories!

We've chatted a few times with our American gang and it was good to get this pic of them all together again.

I forgot to press publish on this early so it's now late evening and I managed to fit a short walk in after dinner once it had cooled down a bit. (We're enjoying a hot spell at the moment.)  It was good to get down to the lake and see how big the cygnets have got over the last few weeks.  There are still 8 of them and they seem to be doing well.

And now.....it's time for bed!

Friday's Fave Five - 19/7/24

Well I'm trying to get back into the habit of blogging - I've been reading a lot more posts this past week and leaving a few comments here and there - I'd forgotten how time consuming it can be lol.

But this meme hosted by Susanne here is a good weekly reminder to take a breath and look for the good things from the previous week.

1)  A visit from my elder son and his wife last weekend.  He had managed to secure tickets for the Mens' tennis FINAL at Wimbledon!

Getting tickets for Wimbledon is a complete lottery - tennis clubs etc have one system for securing tickets.  Then you can go and queue for daily entry - which involves queuing for hours (even overnight) or you can enter a ballot for tickets.  If your name is selected you can then opt to purchase tickets (or not).  As I understand it you will be given an option of a day and court and my son was fortunate enough to get the Mens' final slot.  I have no idea how much the tickets actually cost - and they were seated in the back row but the two of them had a lovely day out.  

and of course it was lovely to see them albeit briefly.

2)  Tuesday we had granddaughter Ella here for a bit.  Lovely having a little one in the house again now that Vinny has gone.

3)  Kitchen sink fixed - we had a blocked sink recently and in trying to plunge it we ended up with leaking joints.  

4)  2 for the price of 1 this week - I was booked in for a shingles vaccination on Tuesday but I was also offered a pneumonia jab as I'm now old enough.  (No need to remind me of my age thank you lol)  Anyway I opted to get both.  I'm thankful they're done but my arms (particularly the one the shingles jab was done in) have been very sore.  I'm thankful that we have the chance to get these protections free but not looking forward to having the second dose of the shingles one in a couple of months time.

5)  Getting back into a normal rhythm now we have the house to ourselves although that has meant earlier starts as my body clock seems to have adjusted during the time that Michael and Vinny were here.  I've also managed to get back into the habit of reading and finished 2 books this week.

And the sun is shining!

Have a good weekend all.