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Musing on a set of Victorian diaries and reminiscing about his own life, the quirky academic who narrates Swift's latest novel fails to capture the reader's imagination. How is "what might have been" an issue in the lives of each of the characters in the novel, including the women? What are some other instances in which specific remembered events work to build up the reader’s sense of time passing in the lives of these characters?

In June 1996, Swift declared that it was a homage to Faulkner's book but there were various differences. Time Out New York described it as "Sober, even elegiac in tone, and elegantly shot" and added, " At the film's heart is an attempt to suggest the extraordinary nature of ordinary people, and if it fails to achieve profundity, it still makes for one of the most rewarding and authentic depictions of/tributes to the Cockney way of life in recent years. There are inevitably jokes about who’ll be next, how Ray and Lenny would appreciate it if Vic didn’t go before them.The Guardian and TLS hailed it as Swift's finest book to date; it won the 1996 Booker Prize; it is included in the critic John Carey's list of the fifty most enjoyable books of the 20th century. However the nickname was originally given to him during his years in the African desert during the Second World War, when luck was needed to survive in one piece. View image in fullscreen ‘It seems I’m attracted to the seaside’ … Graham Swift, and as a child, right. There was some serious controversy (in the Literary pages of the broadsheets, at least) following this year’s Prize, as Swift’s winner was accused of plagiarising the premise and structure of William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying.

As they get out of the car, Lenny having satisfied his need to piss following one pint too many in Canterbury, we see decisions being reached.

It isn’t clear to us why his vehement rejection of his adoptive family is as strong as anything we see from Lenny, but it’s visceral.