Hilarious and also hearbreaking. Cleverly written

I found the monologue way too full of modramatic moaning of every day life issues to continue to be interested in the story line.

Al fin leí algo de Ben Elton, uno de los autores favoritos de mi prima, quien es de las pocas personas en carne y hueso que me recomienda libros. De hecho, me leí literalmente el libro suyo, aunque en verdad de sus papás, según dice la firma, jajaja, te pillé chanchito. Y me gustó mucho. Lo encontré liviano, pero profundo, actual pero universal, y todos esos clichés que uno dice cuando lee algo bueno.

Después leí por ahí que lo convirtieron en película, con actores importantes y conocidos, como el Doctor House (Hugh Laurie) y la señora linda del doc “bueno” de Nip/Tuck (Joely Richardson), pero que no tuvo mucho éxito.

Y la verdad es que no me extraña, porque lo mejor del libro no es la trama, sino que los pensamientos de los protagonistas, que andan ahí expresándose con total holgura porque parte del tratamiento de fertilidad (les cuesta tener hijos) es tener cada uno un diario de pensamientos.

En fin, que me gusto harto. Aprobado, Florci querida. Además el final no me lo esperaba.


Algunas citas (en inglés, eso sí).


1. Del diario de ella, sobre las "responsabilidades" de las mujeres y los anticonceptivos. Bastante visionaria, considerando que esto fue escrito hace casi veinte años. (Penny es el nombre de su diario de vida).

It's always this way, though, isn't it, Penny? The poor woman gets the short end of the stick. Our bodies are so complicated! It's like with contraception. The things women have to go through (all pointless in my case, it seems), and yet still men only worry about their own pleasure. I remember when Sam and I first started doing it regularely he wanted me to go on the pill or have a coil fitted because he didn't like condoms. He said they were a barrier between us (well of course they are, that surely is the point). He said they spoiled the sensual pleasure of our lovemaking. Basically what he was saying was that he didn't want to put his dick in a bag. So instead would I mind either filling my body with chemicals or having a small piece of barbed wire inserted into me?


2. Del diario de él, sobre los científicos, cuando les sugieren el in vitro.

Why do we have such faith in scientists? When I was in school they told us that in days gone by simple folk believed the world was balanced on the back of a tortoise. How we laughed! "What a bunch of prats", we said. Ho ho ho! Because we know better, don't we?

Apparently according to Stephen Hawking and his pals, there was this tiny lump of infinitely dense stuff the size of a cricketball, contained within which was the entire universe. Where this cricketball and where it had come from, are questions which apparently only stupid people ask. Anyway, one day the rock exploded and all the energy and stuff blasted out from the epicenter and fomed into stars and galaxies, which are still hurtling outwards to this very day.

Now why is that any more convincing that the tortoise?

They keep saying that if we spend another trillion or two on a new telescope, they'll be able to tell us exactly how the universe began. They keep telling us how close they are, saying things like "When the universe was three seconds old, protons begin to form...". Well, maybe, but I think a thousand years from now they'll discover that the universe got farted out of the arse of a giant space elephant, and schoolkids will all be laughing to think that anybody ever believed in the big bang theory.

Sometimes the self-righteousness of the scientific profession really gets on my nerves. They always seem to assume that science is sort of outside society, that what scientists do is pure and that it is the other people who corrupt it. I saw a documentary about Einstein and Oppenheimer on the Discovery Channel the other day, and it was going on about how simple, peaceful men they were and that during the war they sent a letter to the President Truman pleading with him not to drop the bomb. They said that it was too big, too terrible, and man had no right to unleash such a force.

All I could think was what a couple of hypocrites! For years they'd struggled. For years they'd devoted their colossal brains to developing a bomb which the rest of us would have to spend our lives living in the shadow of, and then they reckon they can get out of their responsibilities by saying "Please don't drop it", and go down in history as sad-eyed, white-haired old peacemakers.


3. También de él, sobre Cuthbert, la guagua de unos amigos muy cercanos.

Cuthbert also broke a model of a Lancaster bomber I made when I was ill last year and had painted with meticulous care. The model (which I admit was a kit, but a bloody difficult kit) was perfect in every detail. I even sent to Germany for the authentic eggshell blue paint for the underside (...)

Anyway, I'd thought that I'd put the model out of reach. "Everything precious three feet off ground", Lucy had warned me, but Cuthbert seems to have an extension section in the middle, like a dining room table. Out of the blue he can suddenly reach twice his physical length. You don't see it happen. You don't know anything about it until there's an unholy screaming. Then you see him surrounded by glass or china or in this case plastic, at which point you have to comfort HIM!

It's unbelievable. I mean, he didn't spend a week making it, did he?

Starts out awful, with a plot that is only centered around the type of silly jokes that you expect from a medium quality sitcom. You know, with a character who claims one thing and then immediately proves himself wrong by acting exactly opposite? Someone saying: "What? Nervous? Me? Not at all!", then he or she leaps three feet in the air because of a phone ringing, and the studio audience thinks it's hilarious.

I had nearly discarded the book, when it suddenly got better around the half way point. When the main character starts using his wife's plight to get pregnant as story material for a television series, Elton finally creates some tension instead of just aiming for cheap laughs.

Well, I'm sad to say that this was far less than great.

I usually love Ben Elton's books as they have been, in my experience, really funny and clever. This is not funny, not clever, not good. It was mostly offensive, puerile and insensitive.

There is a bit of irony with this book as there is a portion where the male lead has written a script for a movie and is told it's to angled to the male perspective. He's told to get a female co-writer to add more relatable content to his women viewers. I wish someone had told Ben to do this with Inconceivable. I barely felt a difference between reading from Lucy to Sam.

The characters were pretty much all people you'd like to punch in the neck; either annoying or pathetic or boring.

If this was the first Ben Elton book I'd ever read, I'd likely not picked up another. Don't be discouraged by this one if it was your first (or skip it entirely if you haven't read it yet) because Blind Faith is absolutely brilliant and High Society is a great read. Chart Throb was pretty good, too, in my opinion.

Rom Coms are not really Ben Elton's forte.

This falls into the adult humour genre and is told in the style of two diaries , lucy, who is desperate for a baby and her husband, sam, struggling to keep his job at the bbc. Very amusing at times

Almost a four star.

This was a quirky book - a story of a couple, Sam and Lucy, who are infertile. It managed to be funny in parts as well as the bittersweet tale you would expect. Lucy asks Sam to write a diary every night - to help them handle their fertility issues and the treatments they have to endure. The book is told as the series of diary entries from both of them.

Several sub plots add most of the humor. Sam has always wanted to be a writer, and works as a television executive. He is surprised to find it very difficult to write the diary - and figures out that he has such a hard time connecting to his feelings because he doesn't have any. When the opportunity to write a movie screenplay comes along, he takes it, despite knowing that Lucy will be very upset with the subject matter.

From this point the plot spirals almost out of control. I won't spoil the story by giving away the rest of the plot - but I found the ending quite good.

I have definitely read this book and I'm sure it was okay but for some reason I hadn't marked it as read. The whole concept of the book was a bit foreign to me as I have never wanted children and now it's too late I don't regret my decision. I still enjoyed it though and like Ben Elton as a writer.

1.5 stars.

Прочетено на руски под заглавието "Все возможно, детка".

Even cleverer than the other genius Ben Elton books - this time looking at the issue of fertility (written as two diarists struggling with infertility). Fantastic and a few laugh til you cry moments.

Ahhhhhh Mr Elton, you were so close to getting 4 stars from me but that ending was abysmal. If you had just stopped writing two pages before you did, it would have been spot on.

Over all, this was a important under-told story of a couple trying and failing for a kid. It is both funny and moving, fast paced but seriously dull in parts.

Very different from the time travel book I read, actually, funnily enough I didn't like the ending of that either. I have another book of this author on my shelf, if that ending is also crap, I'm afraid I'll have to say no to any more.