First off, this book does not compare to the Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, other that the main character is a loser. It's a more pleasant read with a nicer ending.
My initial comment was that it is a love story about Frank and Ilse. Frank has a record shop in a run down area of Stockton, and Ilse collapses in front of it. She says she wants to learn about music and has weekly meetings with him, where she falls in love with him. Then they learn that she is actually a musician but can't play any more and they fall out and she returns to Germany while he goes downhill and his shop collapses. 20 Years on Ilse returns from Germany and finds his friends and then him and Love blossoms again.
Different people liked different characters in the book, basically Peg and Kit.
Frank didn't have the nerve to be positive in life, basically due to the overpowering upbringing by Peg. Philip Larkins poem about parents was referenced.
The waitress in the cafe where Frank and Ilse met sort of reminded you of Julie Walters in the Acorn Antiques skits.
No one guessed that Ilse was a musician. We thought that Frank would be humiliated by finding out that he had been tutoring a musician who probably knew more than he did.
Pegs information about the composers was interesting.
It was pointed out the interesting commentary about racism in the daubings on the walls.
There was not much plot or story in it. It was somewhat like a Nick Hornby story with some Mills & Boon thrown in. A bit sacharine. The gap of 20 years was just a convenient fiction element. Could Ilse with the arthritic hands pick up an unknown, untuned violin and play the Messiah?
Carrie and I both thought that it was a pleasant read in half-hour sections. But we kept reading! Other comments were that it spent a pleasant hour and had a few laughs. But we wouldn't bother reading another by her.
Marks came out at 6 1/2.
