Does a life-time lived without passion really constitute a life? Or, how much are we willing to excuse or explain away because of trauma early in life? How would I react or behave if I were any of the characters in this story? I could go on. The affair with Anna becomes the narrator’s obsession. For the first time in his life he is experiencing strong emotions and he is unable and unwilling to let go of either those emotions or the woman who has triggered them; is at the centre of them.

The Flemings visit Edward Lloyd, Ingrid's father and Stephen's political mentor, to celebrate her birthday. Martyn announces that Anna has accepted his proposal of marriage, which visibly disturbs Stephen. That night, Sally observes him leaving Anna's room. An anxious Stephen lies about it, telling Sally he was talking to Anna about the marriage because Ingrid was upset. Later, the Flemings have lunch with Anna's mother, Elizabeth, who disparages the marriage, saying that Martyn doesn't seem like Anna's 'usual type' but noting how closely he resembles Anna's dead brother. Elizabeth notices the strained behavior between Anna and Stephen. She deduces the affair and warns Stephen to end it.

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Fleming tells the reader: ‘We were made for other things. For needs that had to be answered day or night – sudden longings – a strange language of the body.’ We experience this story through the detached eyes of a cold narrator, who engages in some logic-defying mental contortions to justify what he is doing. But there is no escaping the consequences of his disturbing romantic entanglement with Anna. He remains firmly rooted in the delusion that he has found true love, that he can have a domestic life with this young woman. He even assigns himself godlike powers of taking on others' negative feelings so that they can be free of them--all in the name of assuaging his own vague sense of guilt. At points, he even deflects blame from himself and onto the "devil."

The three-part series is led by The Hobbit star Richard Armitage and Peaky Blinders’ Charlie Murphy. It is produced by France’s Gaumont and the UK’s Moonage Pictures. A copula conclusa ella svanisce, chiude quel segmento di esistenza e passa ad altri "casi": il figlio di lui, l'amico d'infanzia, vari ed eventuali. Donna viziosa? Femmina oltremodo generosa? In passato si era trovata a un niente dal "donarsi" al fratello (che, non potendola avere tutta per sé, si suicida tagliandosi polsi e gola, porello). This would make a great book for a reading group discussion since it brings some interesting questions to mind. Some readers may be put off by Damage as the storyline revolves around Dr. Stephen Fleming's passionate and TABOO love affair with a damaged younger woman. I normally don't read stories that deal with adultery, as they tend to piss me off. Josephine Hart poetic writing depicts a love affair that was so brilliantly flawed, I was completely spellbound. She appeared on television as the presenter for the Thames TV series Books by My Bedside. Her papers are currently housed at the Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center at Boston University.

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Stephen's affair is exposed and becomes a media frenzy. An anguished Ingrid questions whether he had ever loved her and tells him she wishes they had never met. Stephen resigns his government position. Meeting Anna's mother, he discovers Anna is staying with her, but he and Anna are silent in their last meeting. Stephen, leaving his wife and daughter, retires to a rented room in a southern European town. In narration, he reveals that he saw Anna only once more, in passing at an airport, and that she has a child with Peter. Stephen stares at a huge blowup on his wall of a photo Martyn gave him of Stephen, Anna and Martyn together. He ends with a calm note: "She was no different from anyone else." Everybody thinks two things about Netflix,” she said. “That we commission by algorithm – we don’t, we commission by human; they also think it’s all about global shows, and you’ve got to find a global show that appeals to somebody in India and somebody in Alaska.Actually the complete reverse is true. It’s all about authenticity on a global platform.”

I bought this book in a library sale for 10p as a mistake, the blurb on the edition I have led me to believe this was a book about damaged people and "psychological darkness". Instead I ended up reading the most unbelievable, cliché characters, predictable basic storyline from the start and a whole lot of crap about sex and incest. What an appalling read and a complete waste of my time. The writing is in a constant "i-am-trying-to-create-suspense-and-mystery" style which fails completely. The first chapter of this novel is one of the most perfect in English literature. It's really quite amazing, and there are passages throughout that are nearly as good. The novel is perhaps not perfect as a whole, and one sometimes becomes irritated at the "oh aren't we so frightfully correct and conventional" self observational conversations spouted by the characters as a sort of authorial shorthand. On the other hand, the way the novel simmers under its lid and slowly uncoils itself to render its death bite is quite masterly. And there is much sigh-inducing gorgeousness in Hart's prose. It's a sad tale, part Ford Madox Ford's The Good Soldier, part Nabokov's Lolita in its forbidden (age-gap, but not pedophilic) love, deception and existence of a peripheral character with a mysterious pull, and probably several other novels I'm missing. The most tragic figure in the story is probably Fleming's wife, Ingrid, decent and guileless, and thus eminently destroyable. To me, Josephine's belief that literature can make a difference was inspiring. Though she was hugely sophisticated and glamorous, and no stranger to the benefits of working a room and making connections, the fact that so many of us were willingly beguiled by her was because of her passionate belief in art. There was something elemental about her. Damage is a 1992 romantic psychological drama film directed and produced by Louis Malle and starring Jeremy Irons, Juliette Binoche, Miranda Richardson, Rupert Graves, and Ian Bannen. Adapted by David Hare from the 1991 novel Damage by Josephine Hart, the film is about a British politician (Irons) who has a sexual relationship with his son's soon-to-be-fiancée and becomes increasingly obsessed with her. Richardson was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress and won a BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for her performance as the aggrieved wife of the film's main character. Fleming tells us: ‘I eased her gently to the floor. Leaving my elegant disguise on the sofa I became myself.’

By the time the narrator of this story is fifty he has lived his life almost as if by accident. An unexceptional childhood followed by an impassionate marriage and successful but unfulfilling careers, first as a G.P and subsequently as an upstanding but unremarkable Member of Parliament. A life lived without strong emotions of any kind. A life which, had it ended in the narrator’s fiftieth year, would have been widely respected and totally unremarkable. Fleming tells the reader: ‘ We were made for other things. For needs that had to be answered day or night – sudden longings – a strange language of the body.’ Damage is very smartly-written and effective in arousing curiosity in readers, leading us to question the characters’ self-destructive actions. Everything changes when he meets Anna Barton, his son’s girlfriend. Although his wife is suspicious of the girl, who is eight year older than her beloved 25 year old son, the narrator feels an instant attraction to her the moment he meets her. An attraction that appears to be mutual since he and Anna start a passionate affair shortly after meeting. The subject has been done before but not quite in this way it is here. The author, Josephine Hart, is an amazing writer. She was a poet as well which explains the amazing writing. I have read one of her other books, Sin, dealing with the subject of Envy and while it is good but I think Damage is better.

Interest in Hart's poetry is maintained by the Josephine Hart Poetry Foundation, a registered charity under English law. [4] References [ edit ] Una trama all’apparenza semplice, un uomo di mezza eta’ con una famiglia perfetta, un lavoro perfetto, una posizione pubblica perfetta, insomma una vita perfetta e come tutte le cose troppo perfette destinata a crollare al primo soffio di vento; in realta’ e’ chiaro da subito che il protagonista vive incastrato consapevolmente nell’apparenza di una vita tranquilla, e infatti in quell’istante che puo' capitare a chiunque in cui deve decidere se restare nel suo piccolo angolo di mondo tranquillo ma vuoto o seguire il cuore e il turbinio di emozioni con tutti i rischi che comporta egli non esita nemmeno un istante, e’ come se dentro di se’ aspettasse quel momento da tempo e si fosse gia’ preparato.The best way I can describe the process of reading this book is via analogy. You climb up the ladder to a very tall slide at the playground. You sit down at the top, so excited by what all of your friends have said about the amazing ride down the slide. Right as you begin to shift your weight to set your journey in motion, you glimpse at this piece of equipment. What you once thought was a harmless little ride is actually full of obstacles and danger. The slide is greased. It has sharp corners. And it goes down infinitely farther than you thought possible, or were ever willing to go. But what's done is done--you shifted your weight, and now you've gotta ride it all the way to the bottom, however thrilling and terrifying that ride may be. Many will be familiar with the wonderful film of the same name, starring Jeremy Irons and Juliette Binoche, directed by Louis Malle, in which we witness more of the sexual nature of the affair. In her book, Hart does not describe sex at length, and yet we are left in no doubt that the acts are intense. Dalton, Ben (17 March 2022). "Netflix UK execs tease upcoming slate including erotic thriller 'Damage' ". Screen Daily . Retrieved 27 April 2022. I was an Irish word-child, and literature was my life and my life-line. Music and painting seemed to have little influence on me. Language however – novels, poetry, plays which I also read with passion – was the word-world within which I searched for the secrets of life. Always an obsessive reader, I had read six books a week during a particular four years in a small town in Ireland after a double family tragedy, and continued this voracious consumption of novels after I left Ireland. I did nothing at all with them. I knew they were strange. I believe now that I was nervous. I knew the end. I knew the last lines. Should I write them?