"After months of prevarication, sham maneuvers, dodges and loopholes I was even yet fallen into the trap. Landed in the gingerbread house of a Flemish Bluebeard, as the boys devoured me with skin and hair. And it looked like I had not asked for. Not even an Italian cyclist had used it so I took off me. A hairy guy with the weight of an elephant had enough already. Apparently I was not only from the other side, but also not very picky "
I, Adrian Mayfield
Content:
London in the late 19 Century. It is a time of upheaval. Full of anxieties and hopes. It is the time of Oscar Wilde, the dazzling dandyism and decadence.
seventeen years old Adrian Mayfield is apprenticed to a tailor. Although he does not particularly like this job, it guarantees him a good income and future prospects. One day, appeared on the eccentric artist Augustus Trops in sewing, can be manufactured to a suit. When Adrian makes Trops while taking measurements of an immoral request, the boy is at first outraged, but the business card of the artist takes it anyway. He can also only come to the model sitting on promises Trops him.
Adrian has really not before, the eccentric artist plump again to see again, but then he loses his job and suddenly seems Augustus Trops his life to be. Adrian enters a whole new world. He learns the art know and get access to Trops' friends, a round of poets and artists, among whom no less than Oscar Wilde and Aubrey Beardsley are. And discover something must eventually Adrian: He is attracted to men. Pleasure is the only one, love something different and Adrian soon realizes that the latter is above all a pretty difficult thing ...
"I, Adrian Mayfield" is one of the best children's books (actually the best books in general) that I have read in recent years. Not least because the Dutch author Floortje Zwingtmann easy to write great. Finally another author who can not only lined up fairly liquid grammatically correct sentences, but a small work of art makes them, where I enjoyed every line.
Adrian, the narrator of the story is just a normal boy. One who beats themselves, can break the obscene jokes and sometimes quite a rascal is. But a boy, the thoughtful moments, and obviously it is to grow up.
Adrian, the pitfalls of many areas of life experience only pain. How much is the dazzling world of the better-heeled Company Really Worth? How much can and should do for money and where it is the morality? And last but not least: how to cope with all the confusing emotions that provokes a blond fairy tale prince in one?
The book is both a sensitive story over the adult values, while incredibly entertaining and sometimes screamingly funny. Adrian tells his story with wit and vitality, so that the streets of London and the people populating it all come to life before your eyes.
Granted, the book has in the last third some lengths. I have inserted during reading, longer breaks, but whenever I put it back in my hand, I have read with enthusiasm.
There are also two sequels (one of which is already in the Netherlands last year issued) will be. I very much hope that Gerstenberg will translate these books. Otherwise, I feel obliged to learn Dutch ...
