Portobello - BookWyrm

English language

ISBN:: 978-0-09-192585-7

(1 review)

Portobello is a novel by British writer Ruth Rendell, published in 2008. It is set in and around the Portobello Road in Notting Hill, London. Written in the third-person narrative mode, it follows the lives of a number of Londoners—rich and poor alike—living near the Portobello Road Market whose paths cross by accident rather than design. In other words, Portobello is about "the destinies of an oddly assorted group of people, whose only common characteristic is their postcode." Throughout the novel, something menacing seems to lurk behind every street corner, and the suspicion that something awful or sinister is going to happen any minute "(this is after all a novel by Ruth Rendell) is what hooks the reader" As "one of the leading chroniclers of contemporary London", Rendell has known the area and its inhabitants for so long that her "take on Notting Hill restores some of the rawness taken …

Portobello is a novel by British writer Ruth Rendell, published in 2008. It is set in and around the Portobello Road in Notting Hill, London. Written in the third-person narrative mode, it follows the lives of a number of Londoners—rich and poor alike—living near the Portobello Road Market whose paths cross by accident rather than design. In other words, Portobello is about "the destinies of an oddly assorted group of people, whose only common characteristic is their postcode." Throughout the novel, something menacing seems to lurk behind every street corner, and the suspicion that something awful or sinister is going to happen any minute "(this is after all a novel by Ruth Rendell) is what hooks the reader" As "one of the leading chroniclers of contemporary London", Rendell has known the area and its inhabitants for so long that her "take on Notting Hill restores some of the rawness taken away by gentrification and the saccharine stammer of the film of the same name."

2 editions

Stephen Hayes reviewed Portobello by Ruth Rendell

None

3 stars

London's Portobello Road got its name from the War of Jenkins's Ear and is the setting of this book, where several people's lives intersect in various ways, sometimes accidentally, but also sometimes with far-reaching consequences, including two murders.

[a:Ruth Rendell|10890|Ruth Rendell|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1196257541p2/10890.jpg] writes two kinds of crime novels. Some are whodunits, featuring her detective protagonist Inspector Wexford. Others concentrate on the characters, and how people's character and circumstances lead them to commit a crime. Perhaps one could call the second kind whydunits. This, in a sense, is neither. The crimes are almost incidental to the story. The main focus is on the interaction of the characters and how their lives are changed as a result, often in unintended ways. Rendell's characters are well drawn, but while reading it I found myself more drawn to another book, [b:Nine lives|147110|Comet's Nine Lives|Jan Brett|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172184436s/147110.jpg|190583] which I bought while still reading the Rendall one. …

London's Portobello Road got its name from the War of Jenkins's Ear and is the setting of this book, where several people's lives intersect in various ways, sometimes accidentally, but also sometimes with far-reaching consequences, including two murders.

[a:Ruth Rendell|10890|Ruth Rendell|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1196257541p2/10890.jpg] writes two kinds of crime novels. Some are whodunits, featuring her detective protagonist Inspector Wexford. Others concentrate on the characters, and how people's character and circumstances lead them to commit a crime. Perhaps one could call the second kind whydunits. This, in a sense, is neither. The crimes are almost incidental to the story. The main focus is on the interaction of the characters and how their lives are changed as a result, often in unintended ways. Rendell's characters are well drawn, but while reading it I found myself more drawn to another book, [b:Nine lives|147110|Comet's Nine Lives|Jan Brett|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172184436s/147110.jpg|190583] which I bought while still reading the Rendall one. I found the real-life characters more interesting than fictional ones, no matter how well drawn.