The Rain Before It Falls

Critics

• THE RAIN BEFORE IT FALLS by Jonathan Coe

  “Beatrix could be a selfish person, at times, there was no doubt about that. . .But at the same time, she was quite capable of love.” Reviewed by Danielle Bullen (APR 23, 2009) The Rain Before it Falls is an elegant, multi-generational saga that draw ... (read full critics)

  mostlyfiction published on Thu, 30 Sep 2010

• Secrets in a cold climate

  The Rain Before it Falls by Jonathan Coe Viking £17.99, pp278 Jonathan Coe emerged from the labour of writing Like a Fiery Elephant, his biography of novelist BS Johnson, with his respect for Johnson more or less intact - a remarkable achievement - b ... (read full critics)

  guardian.co.uk published on Sat, 25 Sep 2010

7 Reviews

• 3 people find this helpful

  

  I absolutely loved this book

  This was the first Jonathan Coe novel I read and I loved its thoughtful, clever structure. By the end of the book you feel like you know the characters and that you've been on a journey with them. If you like Ian McEwan novels, you'll probably like this one. An excellent read.

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  Danielle said on Mar 2, 2011 | Add your feedback

• 2 people find this helpful

  

  A wonderful book!
  I loved the way the narration is structured: the history of a family told through the description of some family photographs. The story is all centered around 3 main female characters and their history through the years, from the beginning o ww2 to nowadays.

  I find it an ... (continue)

  A wonderful book!
  I loved the way the narration is structured: the history of a family told through the description of some family photographs. The story is all centered around 3 main female characters and their history through the years, from the beginning o ww2 to nowadays.

  I find it an unusual book for Jonathan Coe for two main reasons:
  -it is strongly (and wonderfully) centered on the characters and no space is left to political or social events and comments.
  -the ending (that I'm not going to spoil) avoids what, for me, is one of the weaknesses of most of the previous books by Coe (i know I'm being a bit enigmatic ;) )

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  sterte said on Apr 6, 2008 about the Hardcover edition | Add your feedback

• 1 person find this helpful

  

  Da questo libro è impossibile separarsi. Dalla prima all'ultima pagina è intriso di una malinconia intensa ed evocativa. Attraverso le foto descritte da Rosamond poco prima della sua morte, riviviamo le vicende tormentate che portano alla nascita di Imogen, alla quale la vecchia zia lascia un terzo ... (continue)

  Da questo libro è impossibile separarsi. Dalla prima all'ultima pagina è intriso di una malinconia intensa ed evocativa. Attraverso le foto descritte da Rosamond poco prima della sua morte, riviviamo le vicende tormentate che portano alla nascita di Imogen, alla quale la vecchia zia lascia un terzo della sua eredità. La ragazza non compare mai, ma attraverso le registrazioni lasciate da Rosamond riusciamo quasi a conoscerla e, inevitabilmente, ad affezionarci a lei, in un modo quasi protettivo.
  Come per Imogen, anche per noi è impossibile vedere queste vecchie immagini, eppure l'intensità dei sentimenti e dei ricordi di Rosamond ci permettono non solo di immaginarle, ma addirittura di sentirci profondamente coinvolti nella storia da lei raccontata. Jonathan Coe ritrae tre generazioni in un romanzo totalmente al femminile, capace di commuovere e coinvolgere fino alla fine.

  Life only starts to make sense when you realize that sometimes – often – all the time – two completely contradictory ideas can be true. Everything that led up to you was wrong. Therefore, you should not have been born.
  But everything about you is right: you had to be born.
  You were inevitable.

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  Jun R. said on Dec 19, 2011 about the Hardcover edition | Add your feedback

• 

  The most disappointing Coe so far... tch tch tch...

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  La Ganda said on May 4, 2011 about the Hardcover edition | Add your feedback

• 1 person find this helpful

  *** This comment contains spoilers! ***

  

  I enjoyed this book quite a lot. It it interesting to see the deep feminine point of view of the author in this novel. At some point it gets a little too hard, but the end makes everything good again.

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  Stefanie said on Jan 26, 2011 | Add your feedback

• 

  A family secret and much much more...

  After reading The House of Sleep I was completely overwhelmed by a story, an author of whom I never heard a word before. I decided to order this book to see if it was mere good luck or if he could be able to give me the same emotions or even more. Well I must say he is a writer of pure feelings, one ... (continue)

  After reading The House of Sleep I was completely overwhelmed by a story, an author of whom I never heard a word before. I decided to order this book to see if it was mere good luck or if he could be able to give me the same emotions or even more. Well I must say he is a writer of pure feelings, one of those few authors you read and find yourself with goose pimples at the end of the book. Awesome. Needless to say I ordered a couple of books more, but let me get to the story. Rosamond dies an old sick woman in her flat. Her niece is given her legacy: an envelope containing seven - I think, but they could have been more or even less - tapes. Her mission is to find a blind woman and give her the envelope. Should she fail this, she will have to listen to the tapes herself. This is exactly what happens and she decides to do it in Rosamond's flat, together with her two daughters. None of them could have imagined what they were going to listen to: the biggest secret of a family, their family, told by Rosamond herself during the few hours before her death. The story is addressed to Imogen, the blind woman, and Rosamond unveils it slowly by describing to her a series of photographs. Some of them were very old, when not even Imogen's mother was born and regarding the early stage of the friendship between Rosamond and her cousin Beatrix, Imogen's grandmother. They gradually take colour until the very big secret is unveiled. I would say it's a genial story, but it's much more than that. It's not only the story that moves the reader, but how it is told. The love, the disappointment, the delusion, the happiness and mostly the melancholy hidden in every single sentence are almost knocking you down with pathos. I must say I longed for an other author to move me this way, and I am very thankful that it has happened at last! A book that makes you really feel as if you were watching the exact moment when a raindrop halts in midair before it falls. Breathtaking.

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  Katia Guido said on Dec 18, 2010 | Add your feedback

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Book Details

• Rating:
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• English Books
• Paperback 256 Pages
• ISBN-10: 0141033215
• ISBN-13: 9780141033211
• Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
• Pub date: Jun 05, 2008
• Also available as: Hardcover, Others and eBook
• In other languages: other languages Livres Français, Deutsche Bücher, Libros en Español, Livros em Português, Libri Italiani

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• Jonathan Coe (276)
• England England (1191)

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