HOW THE OTHERS LIVE THE DREAM (Bordeaux Housewives - Daisy Waugh)

Member Name: thingywhatsit

Product:	Bordeaux Housewives - Daisy Waugh
Date:	30/10/06 (158 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Well known author.

Disadvantages: Disappointing standards.

BORDEAUX HOUSEWIVES.

There is only one word that suitably describes this book. I thought about it for a long time, and came to the conclusion that “silly” was the word in question. Daisy Waugh has written quite a lot of books, although this is the first I remember reading, and perhaps will be the last, if this is the quality of storytelling that is typical of her style.

The book tempted me because it is about Brits in France, and I am one of this number, and it always interests me how an author has dealt with the subject matter, since many have been a disappointment, and do not really show how the life over here is, and even though they may be fiction, seem so biased against integration in many ways, which annoys me. This book, however, began in a promising manner introducing the Haunt family, with Horatio and Maude Haunt, being interesting characters who make their living in a somewhat illegal manner. I thought it was an interesting and tempting start to the saga, although by about chapter 3, I was gradually going off the idea of finishing the book.

Horatio and Maude are supposed to be making a living from growing vegetables, although no one ever sees their market stall, and rumours are flying around the village. What they do as a living is for you, the reader, to find out, and I shall not spoil the surprise, since this was indeed the best bit of the book. Then we are introduced to Lady Emma Rankin, an ex pat that lives in a chateau and entertains men whilst her husband is away. I didn't like her character at all, not because of her romps, but her nagging curiosity and needing to know everything happening in the village. There are people like this, although there was nothing endearing about her at all.

Daffy was introduced into the book as being a lady who was more or less deserted in France by her husband, Timothy, who kept her passport, in an attempt to control her whereabouts so that he could be free to see his mistress. Timothy comes over as an obnoxious person and the reader feels sorry for Daffy all the way through the book.

The problem with the storyline, and indeed the written style, is that it lacked substance. You begin to think that the book is going to be original in concept and then it drifts through endless drivel to get to the point, and here, the point of the story seems to have been a bad ending and you really do get the feeling that by chapter 4, the author was bored, and really did have no idea where the story was going.

The interaction between the French and the English was limited to a small part of the local Mayor, who probably does figure in English people's lives, (and who on this occasion was portrayed as pompous which is not usually the case in villages that I know about), a handicapped girl who is employed as a sweeper upper, and a builder that seems to be shagging around the ladies that live in the village, which I found both insulting to him and to the portrait of British ladies living in France. Although he does have some endearing qualities, he comes over as pitifully weak and certainly not French in his mannerisms or his attitude towards others.

This really is not true to life, or remotely convincing as a story. I was disappointed through and through. It says on the cover “Who hasn't dreamed of running away from it all ?”, and whilst this is true what the story showed was people that don't just run away from it, but those that prove that the only person they are running away from is theirselves.

It's weak at best, and I really begrudge the 5.00 I parted with to buy it. Borrow it by all means if your curiosity is peeked, although I think you will skip pages trying to get to the point where it is almost like a conversation with someone that stutters, where you want to finish off their phrases for them.


Paperback: 400 pages
Publisher: HarperCollins (7 Aug 2006)
Language English
ISBN: 0007168209

Summary: A tale that could have worked, but didn't.