In which we are reminded of candyfloss.
I picked up Jane Green’s Babyville in a charity shop in Glasgow and read it last week. It’s very much the sort of thing I’ve come to expect from Green, not great literature, but highly enjoyable candy for the brain. And everyone lived happily ever after. My main objection, in fact, was stylistic more than anything. The book is more a collection of three rather long short stories than a novel. It’s divided into three sections and each section centres on a different protagonist. The three are linked in various ways, and the stories intersect, but not quite enough for my liking. I’m not a great fan of short stories. What I like is nice loooong novels. With short stories I tend to find that just as I’m really getting interested in the characters the story ends. And that’s the sort of reaction I had to Babyville, too. Just as I was starting to feel personally involved with the ups and downs of one person, I was suddenly required to start all over again with a different person. I might have minded less if I’d been prepared, so consider yourself forewarned.