A Long Way From Verona

“I ought to tell you at the beginning that I am not quite normal, having had a violent experience at the age of nine. I will make this clear at once because I have noticed that if things seep out slowly through a book the reader is apt to feel let down or tricked in some way when he eventually gets the point. I am not, I am glad to say, mad”

Aldus Jessica Vye, 13 jaar oud, en voorbestemd om schrijfster te worden. De boeken over Old Filth waren een plezier om te lezen, deze was ook prachtig. Een soort taalgebruik wat heel goed past bij haar leeftijd, de wat rare karaktertrekjes, en een zeer scherp observatievermogen gekoppeld aan altijd de waarheid moeten vertellen...

“This experience changed me utterly, like Heaven, ‘in the twinkling of an eye', and I believe is the reason for the next point I have to make clear before getting on with the story. Which is that I am not really very popular. Some people in fact do not really like me at all. In fact if you really want to know quite a lot of people absolutely can't stand me.”

Het speelt zich af tijdens de tweede wereldoorlog, op een soort van kostschool waar ook diverse kinderen zitten die vanwege de bombardementen uit huis zijn geplaatst. Bevolkt door grotendeels vervelende en saaie docentes en medeleerlingen, met een paar uitzonderingen.

“Even the Top Form, the really ghastly ones who just sat about yawning all day and were going to do nothing when they left school but sit about yawning all day – it was a posh sort of school – even they sat up and listened.”

“Florence is a very interesting girl. She doesn't just gasp sympathetically at things, always agreeing with you to your face like a lot of people. She is not easily excited and is able to weigh things up. Sometimes she finds that they do not in fact weigh anything at all, even though other people are simply groaning under them.”

Aanrader!