Dame Penelope Lively's "How it all Began" Narcissistic Fatalistic Conventions

Dame Penelope Lively (b 1933) has received the Booker Prize (Moon Tiger), 2 other Booker Prize nominations along with being name and Officer of the British Empire.  I was ready to pan "How it all Began" as rubbish as being a melodramatic soap opera that delves into the lives of the British working class, its snobbish, aristocratic & arcane academia and adulterous affairs that can be so tedious.  Needless to say, there is much more substance beneath the facade of British propriety, social standing and debate over fate taking precedence.  The novel starts with a mugging of 70 something Charlotte.  Charlotte needs hip surgery and against her will must succumb to moving in with her daughter Rose & her dull husband.  The other characters are connected & affected by this arbitrary act of barbarity.  Rose is an admin. assistant to Prof. Henry Peters (a pompous Henry Higgins figure).  The Prof. is an interminable bore and narcissist working on his endless memoirs for which nobody cares.   Charlotte now waylaid from her home & routine which included literacy tutoring to adults is assigned Anon, a recent Central European immigrant to come to Rose's home.  The mugging causes Rose to miss work with Henry whose dependent on someone when traveling to lecture.  Marion, Henry's niece is called in to help though she has little tolerance for him.  Marion would rather be anywhere else, especially working on her decorating business or with her illicit lover Jeremy.  Jeremy  is consummately in love with himself.  While Charlotte is tutoring Anon to read English so he can seek better employment, Rose and Anon develop a relationship that blossoms into romance.  Lively's construct shows the happenstance ripple in people's orbits spinning out towards new trajectories.  Her cleverness lies not in the stars or the fates but in characters we love to hate.  "How it All Began" seemed a little stuffy & predictable to start, but therein lies more to ponder from Penelope when considering one's choice in their own destiny.  Lively is a bibliophile who could turn anyone into a reader in one genre or another.