Oh Dear Silvia

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After having read "A tiny bit marvellous" - Dawn French's debut fictional novel - I had high hopes for Oh Dear Silvia, but I was also slightly apprehensive. There was something magical (in realistic terms) about "A Tiny Bit Marvellous" and I feared she wouldn't be able to live up to this. And indeed, this novel is very different from "A tiny bit marvellous"; so much so that you feel slightly confused in the beginning. Is it a comedy? Can you even laugh about this subject (yes, you can, to a certain extent)? Is it a drama? Or a thriller? But I should have known I could relax: Dawn French is an excellent writer, and you're safe in her hands. As I am meant to, I started the book feeling certain ways about several characters and slowly and with revelations suddenly found victims and their controllers were switching places, reasons for behaviours were shed light on, misconceptions were cleared. But only for the reader.

Also, this was meant to be funny???? There is literally nothing in it that I even thought was meant to be a joke. This book follows Silvia Shute, who is currently in a coma in hospital after falling three floors from her balcony. Although she doesn't speak throughout the book, it shows six characters who visit her hospital room and have differing relationships with her, each very different from the others. The book is written from six perspectives; ex-husband Ed, sister Jo, nurse Winnie, housekeeper Tia, friend Cat and daughter Cassie. I had no problems with the book being told from so many different points of view, in fact it was more interesting that way, however, each one of the characters seemed to either a) hate Silvia; or b) be completely ambivalent about her so I started to wonder why they were even there. I also had issues with each character individually which I will now get into, The setting takes place mostly in suite 5 which is Silvia's room in hospital. The world building is alright. The memories of each visitor help set the story. I wished for a little less use of dialect in the nurse looking after Silvia, though I have to admit the housekeepers malapropisms (due to her sons teaching her the wrong words in English) were hilarious. A little dialect goes a long way, and in some parts it's too heavy for reading pleasure.The first problem I had with the novel is that two of the six main characters have their speech written in dialect – Winnie in a Jamaican lingo - “Right, sidung ‘pon dat chair, sista. Yu better start talking. Gimme some reasons for dis craziness” (p193). No, just no. Tia, the Asian housekeeper, oh so amusingly refers to Silvia as “Mrs Shit”: “Tia has been taught to swear by her two sons who were born and grew up in England, and who amuse themselves by cajoling her into using utterly inappropriate language. She’s not stupid, she knows they are having a laugh at her expense, but she can’t be bothered to deduce exactly why, and frankly, she doesn’t care”. Again, just no. It’s cringeworthy. The internationally bestselling author and acclaimed comedic actress Dawn French makes her American literary debut with this riveting novel of secrets, forgiveness, guilt, and love. Fantastic, passionate, compassionate, so much wisdom, a lot of humour, very real and credible' BERNARDINE EVARISTO Even with the strong character personalities and comedic timing, this book still fell flat. I felt that this book was missing a plot. Oh Dear Silvia comes across more as a memoir about Silvia then anything else. Now she's unconscious in a hospital bed, at the mercy of the mad friends and crazy relatives who have come to visit. Her beleaguered ex-husband, her newly independent daughter, her West Indian nurse, her bohemian sister, her best friend, her enthusiastic housekeeper, and others all share a piece of their collective mind with the complex woman—the bad mother, the cherished sister, the selfish wife, the matchless lover, the egotist, the martyr—they think they know.

Her past holds a dark and terrible secret, and now that she is unconscious in a hospital bed, her constant stream of visitors are set to uncover the mystery of her broken life. And she must lie there, victim of the beloveds, the borings, the babblings and the plain bonkers. Though there was the underlying sense of morality there was a level of humour through the events that occured within Suite 5. Unfortunately I just felt it was all too forced. Un vantaggio però c'è, nella solitudine, e cioè che attraverso di lei tutto acquista un fascino particolare. Hai così disperatamente bisogno di vedere un po' di bellezza per mitigare tutto lo schifo che hai attorno, che gli alberi finiscono per essere più verdi, il sole più caldo e il pane più buono di quanto non lo fosse quando pensavi di essere felice, e per niente solo. È come se il mondo m'invitasse a uscire a giocare - e indossa il suo vestito migliore." Starting with the character of Ed, Silvia's ex-husband, I struggled to understand why he was in her hospital room when according to him, she had completely beaten down his self-esteem to the point where there marriage ended and he no longer wanted to be around her. I couldn't understand the rationale for wanting to be there for somebody who supposedly broke you. Ed doesn't like sister Jo either and that just makes the whole bed-watching a chore and very painful. It also makes no sense that he was forced to sleep on his mother's couch when he owns his own successful wood where he spends most of his days.Not for me, this book. Although there's nothing wrong with the writing, I just could not believe in the characters. They all seemed unreal to me, including Silvia, who although in a coma, was the largest presence in the book. The housekeeper Tia almost seemed like an irrelevant character only brought in to show cultural diversity and an extra point of view. I did think that Tia was very stereotypical; she is an Asian housekeeper stealing from her employer to make some more money who calls Silvia 'Mrs Shit' and apparently doesn't want to understand why her sons laugh at her when they teach her new words (which are actually expletives). I couldn't fully understand why Tia was there as a character because she had no real emotional connection with her employer and therefore it seemed odd that she would be visiting her in hospital.