Getting Hurt

By Andrew Davies

Charlie Cross is a solicitor, a divorcee, an animal lover, a drinker, and a smoker. He is intelligent, strong, highly respected—and he is heading for trouble. When Charlie meets Viola in an... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0060MGGI2
• ISBN13: 9780749399191
• Release Date: January 1991
• Publisher: Random House UK
• Length: 200 Pages
• Weight: 0.33 lbs.
• Dimensions: 7.8" x 0.5" x 5.1"

Customer Reviews

Blokes Like Me

This short novel reads well. And its theme is increasingly rare in modern literature: The tragedy and pain of truly falling in love. Nevertheless, the writing is sophomoric in places: several phrases are lifted directly from the poems of Eliot and Yeats. Moreover, the theme and the writing have Proust written all over them. At least every other page has whole paragraphs that recall Swann's jealous love for Odettte and Proust's narrator's obsession with Albertine.-The difference is a harsh "realism" in this book absent from Proust. For Proust, "No woman in the world is worth the truths she reveals to us by causing us to suffer." This maxim just doesn't wash with Davies' hero, Charlie Cross. Or rather, perhaps the truths revealed are just too much for him to take. In any case, he's certainly an understandable and sympathetically portrayed anti-hero. His refusal to accept the bromides of modern self-help psychology is especially refreshing. One is reminded of that classic response to, "It is better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all."---Davies' protagonist practically roars back throughout the book, "Oh yeah, try it some time!"But one feels that there's something missing in this short, tragic novel. A broader, philosophic sweep perhaps, with less borrowing from other authors. But, in the end, the author fulfills his pupose of conveying the heartache and longing in love and it's devastating affect upon, as Cross reflects, a certain type of fellow: "I think there might be quite a few of us out there. Blokes like me."

Lawyer With A Heart

One of the most exceptionally hard hitting books ever written.From page one until the last gut-wrenching chapter Andrew Davies places you inside the neurotic Charlie Cross.He is a Solicitor and on the outside an extremely successful chap who begins to crumble after his encounter with the enigmatic but beautiful Viola.His own attempts at the negotiation of a relationship breakdown are painfully real and the author leaves you with a bitter sweet taste of total devotion followed by utter devastation.The book is a must for those who believe they can control their own destinies faced with the realisation that "the office is closed". This book deals with intimacy and raw passion that inexorably leads to a stunning climax that is both fulfilling and exhausting. Highly recommended!