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OffshorePenelope Fitzgerald
140 pages
"Battersea Reach, ladies and gentlemen. On your right, the artistic colony. Folks live on those boats like they do on the Seine, it's the artist's life they're leading there. Yes, there's people living on those boats." (p. 16)
Along the banks of the Thames, a small group of boats sit permanently anchored, serving as home not to artists, but to a ragtag group of residents who, for various reasons, have chosen to live on the river instead of on land. Their de facto leader is Richard, of the Lord Jim, by far the best-kept boat in the group. Grace is home to Nenna and her two daughters. Her husband has left them and the girls attend school only occasionally. One boat's owner allows stolen goods to be held on board. Another is trying to sell his boat, and hopes none of the other residents will tell prospective buyers about the leak. The characters were largely misfits, with humorous quirks. I was sympathetic towards Nenna, with her general awkwardness, her difficulty raising young daughters alone, and and her inability to rescue her marriage.
Unfortunately however, the central theme of the novel eluded me. There were also several loose ends and incongruities in the plot. It was a light and sometimes pleasant read, but I am positively baffled as to how it won the Booker Prize. Ah well, at least it was short. (
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Wolf HallHilary Mantel
532 pages
I was thrilled to get my hands on the 2009 Booker Prize winner within just a few weeks of its US release. The first ten pages included a detailed cast of characters and a Tudor family tree, a sure sign I was diving into a rich, detailed saga. I hunkered down and was hooked from the first line, uttered by Walter Cromwell to his young son Thomas: "So now get up." From this point -- lying dazed and bloody on the pavement -- Thomas Cromwell rises to become one of King Henry VIII's most trusted advisers. The opening scene inspired him to leave his alcoholic, abusive father and go abroad, even though he was only about 15 years old. Over several years Cromwell became an astute accountant and lawyer, and the trusted adviser of Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, who held the post of Lord Chancellor in Henry VIII's early court. When Wolsey fell out of favor with the King, Cromwell was savvy enough to stay out of the fray and position himself for greatness. Thomas More then became Lord Chancellor and campaigned against English Bible translations, most notably those by William Tyndale. Cromwell, as the King's chief minister, engineered the political hocus-pocus which allowed Henry to divorce his first wife Katherine and marry Anne Boleyn. This could only be done by establishing Henry's independence from the Catholic Church. More refused to accept this, and was executed.
But Wolf Hall is more than just a tale of political intrigue. Mantel takes the reader deep inside Cromwell's mind and heart. Far from being an unfeeling politician, Thomas Cromwell was a most human protagonist. He rose well above his lowly birth, and was not just literate but multi-lingual. He moved with ease among dukes and royalty, but never forgot his origins. And while he was a savvy negotiator, he also showed compassion, especially to those like More who would lose their lives as part of the English Reformation. Cromwell was also intensely devoted to his family, providing for nieces and nephews as well as his own children. As his wealth and influence grew, he was able to broker advantageous marriages for his family that continued to move them up in society. Almost single-handedly, he changed the course of history.
The fate of people is made like this, two men in small rooms. Forget the coronations, the conclaves of cardinals, the pomp and processions. This is how the world changes: a counter pushed across a table, a pen stroke that alters the force of a phrase ... (p.499)
The novel ends in 1535 on a high note: Henry VIII was still married to Anne, and Cromwell was at the peak of his career. And yet, anyone with even a passing knowledge of Tudor history knows of Henry's mercurial behavior. Both Anne and Cromwell would eventually fall out of favor. But that's a story for another novel, one that Mantel has hinted she intends to write. I can't wait. (
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Rites of PassageWilliam Golding
278 pages
When Edmund Talbot leaves England on a ship bound for Australia, he begins a journal dedicated to his godfather and patron. In it he records details of daily life and detailed descriptions of the passengers and crew (many of whom are quite interesting characters). He takes pride in learning maritime vocabulary; that is, once he has overcome extreme seasickness. As a member of the educated upper class he remains at arms' length from most of the passengers and views events with amusement and a certain detached superiority. His social interactions are limited primarily to Summers, an unusually well-spoken officer.
Also on board is a young parson, the Reverend James Colley. For reasons that go unexplained until the end of the book, The ship's captain despises the parson from the outset. Colley persists in currying the captain's favor, and also attempts to befriend Edmund. Edmund initially tries to support the parson, encouraging services to be held on ship. But he is ultimately repelled by Colley's over-eager attempts at friendship. Eventually the tension surrounding Colley reaches its climax, and when Edmund finds a journal written by Colley, the narrative point of view shifts. The voyage is recounted for the reader, pointing out details Edmund had missed, and highlighting Edmund's own role in the conflict.
I liked Golding's technique of telling this sea tale through the two journals. The strengths and foibles of both men were clearly portrayed, and the journals brought the voyage to life with vivid detail. Golding also offers a candid view of the English class structure, which is as present at sea as it is on land. In fact, there is an entire subculture on ship -- the crew and "the emigrants" -- that the reader is barely exposed to, since neither Edmund nor Reverend Colley would mix with them.
This book is the first of a trilogy which was made into a BBC dramatization, To the Ends of the Earth. The story in Rites of Passage was the best part of the dramatization for me, and even though it was familiar I still enjoyed reading this book. (
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DisgraceJ.M. Coetzee
220 pages
David Lurie is a 50-something university professor, twice divorced. He's not particularly skilled at relationships. Perhaps he doesn't even understand what a relationship truly is, since early on he assumes that weekly encounters with a prostitute constitute some kind of more permanent bond. When the prostitute leaves town, David finds himself without female companionship and makes the even more egregious error of striking up an affair with a student. Of course this is discovered, and David leaves the university in disgrace. He visits his adult daughter Lucy, who runs a small farm and dog kennel in a rough and sometimes dangerous part of rural South Africa. At first it seems David will ease into the slower pace of country life, come to terms with the wrong he has done to others, and potentially make peace. But Coetzee has other plans, and visits upon David and Lucy an horrific act of violence resulting in even more disgrace, this time affecting both of them. Their emotional recovery -- individually and collectively -- is at the center of this novel.
David is not a particularly likable character. He is so interpersonally inept that he nearly always makes the wrong choice. I didn't really care whether he recovered from his ordeal; in many cases he got what he deserved. Lucy, on the other hand, was a more sympathetic figure. A lesbian abandoned by her partner just before David's arrival, she is fiercely independent. She is committed to making her farm successful, despite the danger of being a woman alone in that part of the country. She resists David's attempt to protect her (a natural response for a father, but still unwelcome). And yet despite her independence and strong will, when faced with a situation requiring legal action, she prefers to give in and try to make peace herself. She succeeds to some degree, but with tremendous personal sacrifice.
Disgrace raised up many ethical and moral issues, prompting me to consider how I might handle similar situations. Interesting reading. (
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David is not a particularly likable character. He is so interpersonally inept that he nearly always makes the wrong choice. I didn't really care whether he recovered from his ordeal; in many cases he got what he deserved. Lucy, on the other hand, was a more sympathetic figure. A lesbian abandoned by her partner just before David's arrival, she is fiercely independent. She is committed to making her farm successful, despite the danger of being a woman alone in that part of the country. She resists David's attempt to protect her (a natural response for a father, but still unwelcome). And yet despite her independence and strong will, when faced with a situation requiring legal action, she prefers to give in and try to make peace herself. She succeeds to some degree, but with tremendous personal sacrifice.
Disgrace raised up many ethical and moral issues, prompting me to consider how I might handle similar situations. Interesting reading. (
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The Snow GoosePaul Gallico
46 pages
Physical deformity often breeds hatred of humanity in men. Rhayader did not hate; he loved very greatly, man, the animal kingdom, and all nature. His heart was filled with pity and understanding. He had mastered his handicap, but he could not master the rebuffs he suffered, due to his appearance. The thing that drove him into seclusion was his failure to find anywhere a return of the warmth that flowed from him. (p. 8)
Philip Rhayader lived alone in a lighthouse in the marshes of Essex, in England. Alone, he tended birds in his sanctuary, and painted the surrounding landscape. One day, a young girl named Frith brought him an injured snow goose. The goose had been blown off course during its annual migration in Canada. Then, on landing in the marsh, she was shot by hunters. Rhayader rehabilitated and released the bird, and then something highly unusual happened: the snow goose returned year after year. And each year, Frith returned to visit Rhayader and the goose. Their shared affection for the snow goose mirrored the growing bond between them. One day, Frith encounters Rhayader readying his boat to sail. He has decided to sail for Dunkirk, to help with the evacuation of British soldiers. When he leaves, the snow goose sets sail with him, flying in circles over the small boat. Fritha is left behind to care for the other birds and look after Rhayader's paintings. From this point the story crescendos into a heart-wrenching tale of love and hope.
Gallico's writing is absolutely gorgeous.
Tidal creeks and estuaries and the crooked, meandering arms of many little rivers whose mouths lap at the edge of the ocean cut through the sodden land that seems to rise and fall and breathe with the recurrence of the daily tides. It is desolate, utterly lonely, and made lonelier by the calls and cries of the wildfowl that make their homes in the marshlands and saltings -- the wildgeese and the gulls, the teal and the widgeon, the tedshanks and curlews that pick their way through the tidal pools. (p. 5)
This may be a children's book, but its lessons of love, friendship, and valor are timeless and just as meaningful for adult readers.
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)One of Ours
Willa Cather
459 pages
This is the story of Claude Wheeler, a young man who grew up on a Nebraska farm in the early 1900s. Claude is pursuing a university education at a religious college chosen by his parents, but is both unhappy with his education and uncertain about his goals. While he longs for the finer things in life that come from an advanced degree, he also has a strong sense of family loyalty and will interrupt his studies to assist with farm work when necessary. When Claude's father buys a large parcel of land from another farmer, he also decides Claude will return home and assume responsibility for the original family farm. Claude sets aside his higher ambitions and throws himself into farming. He gets married and appears set to spend the rest of his days on the farm, until World War I breaks out and Claude decides to join the American forces in France.
My copy of this book came from my local library and, unfortunately, the book jacket included huge spoilers in its first two sentences. This threatened to ruin the book for me, but I tried to make lemonade from these lemons. Since I already knew about some pivotal events in Claude's life, I read with a view toward understanding why this book won the 1923 Pulitzer Prize. Typical of Cather's work, One of Ours is filled with vivid images of the American prairie, and the first- and second-generation immigrants who worked the land. Frankfort is a conservative community; its people are steeped in their faith and rather isolated from the broader world. As the threat of war loomed large, Claude's "mother had gone up to 'Mahailey’s library,' the attic, to hunt for a map of Europe,—a thing for which Nebraska farmers had never had much need. But that night, on many prairie homesteads, the women, American and foreign-born, were hunting for a map." Cather also shows the dark side of the community when certain members of German descent are charged with "disloyalty" and subject to a hearing in court. Cather's portrayal of wartime France is also very much focused on people, much more than the fighting. It's an interesting angle.
Since One of Ours was published just a few short years after the end of World War I, it was received at a time when emotions were still quite raw. Cather's writing is, as always, superb. And her portrayal of an innocent farm boy who serves in battle would have struck a chord for just about anyone. Unfortunately once I knew how things would turn out there were sections that seemed to drag on endlessly. I probably would have given this book a higher rating had there not been spoilers ... frustrating! ( )
Willa Cather
459 pages
This is the story of Claude Wheeler, a young man who grew up on a Nebraska farm in the early 1900s. Claude is pursuing a university education at a religious college chosen by his parents, but is both unhappy with his education and uncertain about his goals. While he longs for the finer things in life that come from an advanced degree, he also has a strong sense of family loyalty and will interrupt his studies to assist with farm work when necessary. When Claude's father buys a large parcel of land from another farmer, he also decides Claude will return home and assume responsibility for the original family farm. Claude sets aside his higher ambitions and throws himself into farming. He gets married and appears set to spend the rest of his days on the farm, until World War I breaks out and Claude decides to join the American forces in France.
My copy of this book came from my local library and, unfortunately, the book jacket included huge spoilers in its first two sentences. This threatened to ruin the book for me, but I tried to make lemonade from these lemons. Since I already knew about some pivotal events in Claude's life, I read with a view toward understanding why this book won the 1923 Pulitzer Prize. Typical of Cather's work, One of Ours is filled with vivid images of the American prairie, and the first- and second-generation immigrants who worked the land. Frankfort is a conservative community; its people are steeped in their faith and rather isolated from the broader world. As the threat of war loomed large, Claude's "mother had gone up to 'Mahailey’s library,' the attic, to hunt for a map of Europe,—a thing for which Nebraska farmers had never had much need. But that night, on many prairie homesteads, the women, American and foreign-born, were hunting for a map." Cather also shows the dark side of the community when certain members of German descent are charged with "disloyalty" and subject to a hearing in court. Cather's portrayal of wartime France is also very much focused on people, much more than the fighting. It's an interesting angle.
Since One of Ours was published just a few short years after the end of World War I, it was received at a time when emotions were still quite raw. Cather's writing is, as always, superb. And her portrayal of an innocent farm boy who serves in battle would have struck a chord for just about anyone. Unfortunately once I knew how things would turn out there were sections that seemed to drag on endlessly. I probably would have given this book a higher rating had there not been spoilers ... frustrating! (
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Paddy Clarke Ha Ha HaRoddy Doyle
282 pages
The narrator and title character of this story, 10-year-old Patrick Clarke, is a fairly typical Irish boy. He runs with a pack of boys, playing football and finding ample opportunities for mischief. He tolerates his younger brother Francis (nicknamed Sinbad), and barely pays attention to his younger sisters. Adults -- teachers, friends' parents, and his own parents -- are mysterious creatures. He understands little about the adult world, and cares little about it as well. That is, until the small cracks in his family structure widen into fissures, and then chasms. As the oldest child, Patrick assumes responsibility for maintaining a cohesive family environment, and believes he can influence and redirect the growing emotional tension between his parents.
For the first two-thirds of this book, Roddy Doyle places the reader right in the middle of Patrick and his friends, experiencing their hijinks, and seeing the world through their eyes. I found myself reliving my own childhood, when my friends & I explored the woods behind my house, and speculated (quite erroneously) about the actions of our neighbors. And then, Patrick becomes aware that his mother and father are not getting along. He doesn't understand why, and tries desperately to correct the situation. Because the story is told entirely from Patrick's point of view, many questions go unanswered and the reader is left similarly powerless. Doyle's technique was quite effective; I desperately wanted to take Patrick aside, explain what was happening in his life, and give him a big hug. This was a touching, poignant story. (
)My Cousin Rachel
Daphne Du Maurier
288 pages
Dear Mrs. Du Maurier,
I so enjoyed your classic novel, Rebecca, that I resolved to read more of your work. While I quite enjoyed Jamaica Inn, I feel compelled to tell you of my disappointment in My Cousin Rachel. I know Rebecca was a smashing success -- in fact, over 70 years later it is still your most famous and best-loved work -- but that's no excuse for rehashing the same characters and themes. To wit:
What happened? Were you under pressure to publish another novel? Were you running out of steam after such a prolific career? I notice that you turned to short stories for a time after publishing My Cousin Rachel; perhaps you just needed a break.
I have not given up on you, Mrs. Du Maurier, far from it -- but I think I'll focus on your earlier work.
Fondly,
Laura (
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Daphne Du Maurier
288 pages
Dear Mrs. Du Maurier,
I so enjoyed your classic novel, Rebecca, that I resolved to read more of your work. While I quite enjoyed Jamaica Inn, I feel compelled to tell you of my disappointment in My Cousin Rachel. I know Rebecca was a smashing success -- in fact, over 70 years later it is still your most famous and best-loved work -- but that's no excuse for rehashing the same characters and themes. To wit:
- Young, impressionable protagonist (female in Rebecca; male in Rachel)
- Older, strangely sinister romantic interest (male in Rebecca; female in Rachel)
- Iconic dead person (female in Rebecca; male in Rachel)
- Large manor house replete with servants
- Occasional travel to mediterranean countries
- Young, impressionable protagonist keeping silly secrets that later embarrass them in front of a crowd
What happened? Were you under pressure to publish another novel? Were you running out of steam after such a prolific career? I notice that you turned to short stories for a time after publishing My Cousin Rachel; perhaps you just needed a break.
I have not given up on you, Mrs. Du Maurier, far from it -- but I think I'll focus on your earlier work.
Fondly,
Laura (
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Jamaica InnDaphne DuMaurier
243 pages
After her mother's death, 23-year-old Mary Yellan goes to live with her Aunt Patience. Mary remembers Patience as a vibrant woman, and is shocked to see the effect of her marriage to Joss Merlyn, keeper of Cornwall's Jamaica Inn. Joss' violent, alcohol-infused rages have taken a toll on Patience, who cowers at the very sight of her husband. And Mary quickly learns that all is not right at Jamaica Inn: the coach driver refuses to stop, the guest rooms are unused, and the pub is rarely open. She awakens one night to voices outside, and quickly determines her uncle is the leader of a smuggling ring operating under cover of darkness. Mary becomes obsessed with engineering her own escape, and rescuing her aunt from a destructive relationship. She meets Joss' brother, Jem, an admitted horse thief who she finds irresistibly attractive, but keeps him at arm's length because of assumed loyalty to Joss. Mary also meets a local vicar -- an albino at that -- who rescues her on the moors one night, and offers a refuge from the evil environment at Jamaica Inn. And the more she learns about the smuggling ring, the more frightening her situation becomes.
Well, this being a mystery, I need to stop the plot summary right there. Suffice to say that things are never what they seem. There's way more to the smuggling ring than meets the eye, good people are bad and bad people are good. Du Maurier weaves it all together into a kind of exquisite tension that keeps the reader's guard up, waiting for someone to jump out from behind a corner. And she paints a vivid picture of the nineteenth-century Cornish seaside:
There could be not stillness where the sea broke upon the rockbound shore. She heard it again now, and continually; a murmur and a sigh as the spent water gave itself to the strand and withdrew reluctantly, and then a pause as the sea gathered itself for a renewal of effort -- a momentary fragment in time -- and then once more the thunder and the crash of fulfillment, the roar of surf upon shingle and the screaming scatter of stones as they followed the drag of the sea. (p. 145)
I enjoyed this book well enough; I was caught up in the story and kept sneaking off to read. Mary is a strong protagonist, unwilling to accept her circumstances. However, while I definitely appreciate a strong female lead to a mousy one, some of Mary's actions were unrealistic. The ending was also too neat and predictable. These two flaws make Jamaica Inn a 3-star book instead of 4-stars, but still recommended, especially for fans of gothic mysteries. (
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Vernon God LittleDBC Pierre
277 pages
Vernon Little is 15 when his friend Jesus opens fire on a group of classmates, killing 16 including himself. As one of the few survivors, Vernon becomes the town's scapegoat and is almost immediately charged as an accessory to the crime. This book, told from Vernon's point of view, describes the nightmare of his life in the months following the shooting. Surprisingly, it does so with considerable humor and irony. Vernon lives with his mother; his father disappeared some time before. They have very little money and his mother clearly has emotional issues. Vernon steadfastly maintains his innocence relative to the shootings, but the townspeople are looking for a way to release their anger and grief. Unfortunately Vernon has no idea how to work the legal system, and his mother is pretty useless as well. He befriends a news reporter who appears to be on his side, but turns out to be a conniving jerk, using Vernon's story to his own advantage and fanning the flames of anger in the town. Vernon does several stupid things that increase the authorities' suspicions, and these desperate acts only serve to get him further tangled up in the case.
Vernon God Little is completely different from another in the "school shooting genre," We Need to Talk about Kevin, which was published about the same time. The latter is intense and emotional. Vernon God Little is filled with the wry wit and sexual obsessions of a 15-year-old boy. It's almost funny in parts. About two-thirds of the way through the book the storyline became a bit unbelievable, but the last 30 pages or so resolve things in a fairly satisfying way. Not a bad read. (
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Cold Comfort FarmStella Gibbons
233 pages
At 19, Flora Poste found herself orphaned and with almost no income or property. However, she approached this potentially dire situation with optimism, asking several distant relatives whether they would be able to take her in. She received several offers of varying degrees of merit, ultimately decided to make her home at Cold Comfort Farm, and very quickly moved from London to rural Sussex in southern England. Cold Comfort and its many characters form an amusing parody of English rural life. To start with, everything has a funny name: the Starkadder family; the village of Howling; the Condemn'd Man pub; the Church of the Quivering Brethren; cows named Feckless, Aimless, Graceless, and Pointless; and a bull named Big Business. And while some of the characters are typical farm workers, others have odd habits such as a fascination with water voles. The entire estate, such as it is, was ruled by Aunt Ada Doom who "saw something nasty in the woodshed" at a young age, rendering her unstable if not completely mad. At the time Flora came to Cold Comfort, Aunt Ada was nearly 80 and lived almost exclusively in her own quarters, yet she exercised a strangely high degree of control over the rest of the Starkadder family.
You told them you were mad. You had been mad since you saw something nasty in the woodshed, years and years and years ago. If any of them went away, to any other part of the country, you would go much madder. Any attempt by any of them to get away from the farm made one of your attacks of madness come on. It was unfortunate in some ways but useful in others... The woodshed incident had twisted something in your child-brain seventy years ago.
And seeing that it was because of that incident that you sat here ruling the roost and having five meals a day brought up to you as regularly as clockwork, it hadn't been such a bad break for you, that day you saw something nasty in the woodshed. (p. 115)
And seeing that it was because of that incident that you sat here ruling the roost and having five meals a day brought up to you as regularly as clockwork, it hadn't been such a bad break for you, that day you saw something nasty in the woodshed. (p. 115)
Flora, being well educated and refined, was clearly a fish out of water at Cold Comfort, but this did not stop her from taking on the farm as a kind of personal project. Her effort to "tidy up the farm" reached far beyond basic hygiene. Flora took selected Starkadder family members under her wing and "rehabilitated" each of them in her own way. There were many amusing situations described with clever prose. And yet, towards the end, the "over the top" nature of the characters began to wear on me, and I found it harder to suspend disbelief and just enjoy the book. However, this was a fun read and a nice break from heavier literature, and I can recommend it on that basis. (
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Fugitive PiecesAnne Michaels
294 pages
I'll get right to the point: I was disappointed with Fugitive Pieces. Most of the book is the story of Jakob, who is orphaned during the holocaust, and taken in by a Greek scholar named Athos. After the war they move to Canada, and Jakob grows up to become a poet. Then, about 2/3 of the way through the book, the narrative shifts to Ben, a young professor whose life briefly intersects with Jakob's.
I had high expectations for this Orange Prize winner written by a well-known poet. The language was, indeed, lovely. Jakob's story in particular was well told and poignant in parts. But that wasn't enough for me. By and large, I failed to identify with the characters, and didn't care much about the outcome of their lives and relationships. (
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A Spell of WinterHelen Dunmore
313 pages
Catherine and her brother Rob come of age in their grandfather's house at the turn of the 20th century. Their mother left them when they were young, their father died, and they were raised largely by household servants. Their grandfather is an eccentric recluse, and any discussion of their parents is taboo. Catherine and Rob turn to each other for protection and to sort out their cruel and confusing world.
And that's when things get creepy. Although it's not a suspense or horror novel, A Spell of Winter unfolded in a similar way, where the reader anticipates an awful event and can only watch it happen. Several times I said to myself, "no, they wouldn't ..." But the siblings' emotional instability leads them to say and do some pretty bizarre things. And then suddenly World War I broke out and the novel took another turn. The pace accelerated, and the latter part of the novel was rather disjointed, as if Dunmore was using the war to tie up a lot of loose ends.
The book jacket on my copy of A Spell of Winter led me to believe this was a novel about emotional healing: "... as Catherine fights free of her past, the spell of winter that has held her in its grasp begins to break." The creepier parts of the book were more convincing than the supposed healing, which happened far too quickly given Catherine's lifetime of hurt and repression. A Spell of Winter was the first novel to be awarded the Orange Prize for Fiction, but it doesn't live up to some of the later winners. (
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HomeMarilynne Robinson
325 pages
At 38 years old, Glory Boughton has returned to Gilead, Iowa to care for her aging father, the Reverend Robert Boughton. Boughton is a retired Presbyterian minister, and a good friend of the Congregationalist minister, John Ames (the main character in Robinson's Pulitzer-winning book, Gilead). Glory is recovering from a failed relationship and is simultaneously resentful of and thankful for her new routine. One day, her older brother Jack comes back into her life after 20 years away from the family. Jack had a troubled youth in Gilead, and his years away not been much better. He has been in jail, he has an alcohol problem, and there is a lingering issue regarding his relationship with a woman named Della.
It's not clear just why Jack decided to return to Gilead, but both Glory and his father decide to give him a chance. The story moves along at a leisurely pace, much like a lazy summer day. Jack finds much-needed stability, tending to the garden and minor repairs around the house. Glory finds companionship, love, and understanding that she didn't think possible from Jack. And yet, Jack's demons never completely leave him. His status with Della is uncertain. While he achieves a kind of reconciliation with his father, tensions do flare from time to time as Robert is unable to completely let go of past hurts. Jack's relationship with John Ames is also tenuous. Eventually, Jack takes the only reasonable action to alleviate his pain, although as the reader we know it will never really go away.
This is a sad, moving, and yet also surprisingly uplifting book of family relationships, redemption, and grace. Highly recommended. (
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Larry's PartyCarol Shields
339 pages
Larry Weller is an average guy who moved from young adulthood to middle age in a pretty average way. He received a diploma in floral design, choosing the profession more by accident than by choice, and moved "up the ladder" in a small floral chain store. On his honeymoon he became fascinated with garden maze design, and made this the cornerstone of his career. He struggled to form meaningful adult relationships with parents, siblings, and women. But as Larry moved from this twenties through his thirties and forties, he matured, "found himself," and made peace with key figures in his life.
Reading Larry's Party is like watching selected scenes from a movie. Each chapter covers a short time in Larry's life and is self-contained, almost like a short story. Shields provides details as if previous chapters had not been written; for example, well into the book she described Larry's parents, and his education, even though earlier chapters covered these aspects of his life in detail. At the beginning of the book, Larry is in his late twenties; by the end, he is 47 -- the same age as I am now. I could relate to Larry's journey through adulthood, and think this book may be more enjoyable for older audience. (
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A Crime in the NeighborhoodSuzanne Berne
285 pages
One summer evening in 1972, a young boy was brutally murdered behind a suburban shopping mall. His death sent shock waves through the neighborhood; this crime was unprecedented. The murder and related events are retold by Marsha, a 10-year-old girl. She becomes a bit obsessed with the murder and imagines herself a private investigator, collecting "evidence" in a notebook. But at the same time, Marsha's own life has been turned upside-down by dysfunctional family relationships. The reader quickly realizes Marsha may not have a firm grasp of the situation.
In fact, over the course of the novel several "crimes" are committed: husband-wife betrayal, deceit between siblings, squabbles and mistrust between neighbors. Some are incidental; others have significant after-effects. Suddenly it becomes clear that solving the murder is not the point of this Orange Prize-winning novel. It starts out as a mystery, but ends with insights on a deeper crime: man's inhumanity to man. Recommended. (
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OmerosDerek Walcott
325 pages
Omeros is an epic poem, loosely modeled on The Odyssey. Set in the Caribbean, its main characters are a collection of fishermen, a mysteriously beautiful woman named Helen, and a retired English major and his wife. The book jacket described a scene where one of the fishermen is transported to his ancestral African village. The led me to believe his journey was a central element of the story, but this was just one of many vignettes in this book.
Having enjoyed The Odyssey, I really wanted to like Omeros, too. However, the story didn't "flow"; it seemed to dart all over the place, with some sections set in the Caribbean, and others in London and America. I couldn't find the "glue" that made it all hang together. Significant events, like the death of an important character, were told in such a way that I had to re-read the passage to "get it." However, the story of the major and his wife, living out their final years on the island, was most poignant. Some passages in this work were quite lyrical, and I enjoyed the rhythmic language. However, my overall impression was less than positive. ( )
Having enjoyed The Odyssey, I really wanted to like Omeros, too. However, the story didn't "flow"; it seemed to dart all over the place, with some sections set in the Caribbean, and others in London and America. I couldn't find the "glue" that made it all hang together. Significant events, like the death of an important character, were told in such a way that I had to re-read the passage to "get it." However, the story of the major and his wife, living out their final years on the island, was most poignant. Some passages in this work were quite lyrical, and I enjoyed the rhythmic language. However, my overall impression was less than positive. (
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DesertionAbdulrazak Gurnah
262 pages
Desertion opens with an Englishman, Martin Pearce, stumbling into an east African town, exhausted and potentially injured. He is taken in by Hassanali, who found him in the streets. During his recovery, Pearce falls in love with Hassanali's sister Rehana. The stage is set for a tale of interracial love in colonial Africa, c. 1899. And then suddenly, as Part I comes to an end, it becomes clear there is more to this story than the European man and native woman. As the narrator says, It is about how one story contains many and how they belong not to us but are part of the random currents of our time, and about how stories capture us and entangle us for all time. (p. 120). I read that passage and was hooked; entangled for all time, so to speak.
Gurnah fast-forwards from the story of Martin and Rehana to 1960s Zanzibar on the brink of independence. The narrator is Rashid, the youngest in a family that includes sister Farida and brother Amin. Farida doesn't do well in school, and takes up dressmaking while secretly writing poetry. Amin finishes school, but certain events keep him rooted in Zanzibar. He cares for his parents and shepherds the family through tumultuous years of government unrest. Rashid appears to be an underachiever, and yet is the only one to qualify for university education in England. He leaves Zanzibar just before independence, and struggles with finding his way in a strange land. He is not entirely happy with what he becomes:
Gurnah fast-forwards from the story of Martin and Rehana to 1960s Zanzibar on the brink of independence. The narrator is Rashid, the youngest in a family that includes sister Farida and brother Amin. Farida doesn't do well in school, and takes up dressmaking while secretly writing poetry. Amin finishes school, but certain events keep him rooted in Zanzibar. He cares for his parents and shepherds the family through tumultuous years of government unrest. Rashid appears to be an underachiever, and yet is the only one to qualify for university education in England. He leaves Zanzibar just before independence, and struggles with finding his way in a strange land. He is not entirely happy with what he becomes:
In time I drifted into a tolerable alienness. Living day to day, this alienness became a kind of emblem, indeterminate about its origins. Soon I began to say black people and white people, like everyone else, uttering the lie with increasing ease, conceding the sameness of our difference, deferring to a deadening vision of a racialised world. For by agreeing to black and white, we also agree to lmit the complexity of possibility, we agree to mendacities that for centuries served and will continue to serve crude hungers for power and pathological self-affirmations. (p. 222)
The story eventually comes full circle. One story did, indeed, contain many. The connections unfolded in a tantalizing, gradual way and the overall effect was quite poignant. A very enjoyable read. (
)Having devoted the past two weeks of my life to one single book, I also feel compelled to devote this Sunday Salon to my review of the same book!
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Wives and Daughters
Elizabeth Gaskell
652 pages
Elizabeth Gaskell's last novel is a classic story of English life in the mid-1800s. Heroine Molly Gibson is the daughter of a widowed doctor in the town of Hollingford. As a teenager she is sent on an extended visit with the Hamleys, one of two wealthy families in the area. Mrs. Hamley takes an instant liking to Molly, making her a companion of sorts. Molly also befriends the younger son Roger, and later meets his brother Osborne. Roger helps Molly work through feelings regarding her father's marriage to Clare, a local widow. Clare also has a teenage daughter, Cynthia, who has been schooled in France for many years. Cynthia and Molly become close friends, even though the two young women couldn't be more different. The story unfolds at a very slow and easy pace. Not much happens, and yet everything happens. People become sick, and some die. People visit London, and some travel further afield. Most people are inherently good, but there are one or two bad apples in Hollingford who, of course, get their comeuppance.
Gaskell is well-known for exposing and exploring the social issues of her day (an earlier novel, North and South, centered on working conditions and class differences). On the surface Wives and Daughters is less daring, and more like Jane Austen's work in its depiction of romance and social strata. However, Gaskell directly challenges the traditional role of women in 19th-century English society. All of the male characters treat women as fragile children, incapable of managing their own affairs. In contrast, Molly is a strong female protagonist. She is respectful and kind, and yet uses a subtle strong will to steer events in the right direction. She comes to the aid of several characters, and proves herself indispensable during a crisis towards the end of the novel.
The novel ends abruptly, because Gaskell died before it could be finished. This could have been a very bad thing indeed, but it appeared the story was close to wrapping up (and after 650 pages, shouldn't it?!). While some of the details are unknown, eventual outcomes are certain. While reading Wives and Daughters requires a significant time commitment, Gaskell writes beautifully and often with great wit, and this story held my interest to the very end. ( )
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Wives and DaughtersElizabeth Gaskell
652 pages
Elizabeth Gaskell's last novel is a classic story of English life in the mid-1800s. Heroine Molly Gibson is the daughter of a widowed doctor in the town of Hollingford. As a teenager she is sent on an extended visit with the Hamleys, one of two wealthy families in the area. Mrs. Hamley takes an instant liking to Molly, making her a companion of sorts. Molly also befriends the younger son Roger, and later meets his brother Osborne. Roger helps Molly work through feelings regarding her father's marriage to Clare, a local widow. Clare also has a teenage daughter, Cynthia, who has been schooled in France for many years. Cynthia and Molly become close friends, even though the two young women couldn't be more different. The story unfolds at a very slow and easy pace. Not much happens, and yet everything happens. People become sick, and some die. People visit London, and some travel further afield. Most people are inherently good, but there are one or two bad apples in Hollingford who, of course, get their comeuppance.
Gaskell is well-known for exposing and exploring the social issues of her day (an earlier novel, North and South, centered on working conditions and class differences). On the surface Wives and Daughters is less daring, and more like Jane Austen's work in its depiction of romance and social strata. However, Gaskell directly challenges the traditional role of women in 19th-century English society. All of the male characters treat women as fragile children, incapable of managing their own affairs. In contrast, Molly is a strong female protagonist. She is respectful and kind, and yet uses a subtle strong will to steer events in the right direction. She comes to the aid of several characters, and proves herself indispensable during a crisis towards the end of the novel.
The novel ends abruptly, because Gaskell died before it could be finished. This could have been a very bad thing indeed, but it appeared the story was close to wrapping up (and after 650 pages, shouldn't it?!). While some of the details are unknown, eventual outcomes are certain. While reading Wives and Daughters requires a significant time commitment, Gaskell writes beautifully and often with great wit, and this story held my interest to the very end. (
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Wallace Stegner
569 pages
What interests me in all these papers is not Susan Burling Ward the novelist and illustrator, and not Oliver Ward the engineer, and not the West they spend their lives in. What really interests me is how two such unlike particles clung together, and under what strains, rolling downhill into their future until they reached the angle of repose where I knew them. That's where the interest is. That's where the meaning will be if I find any. (p. 211)
Lyman Ward is writing a family history. More specifically, it's the story of a marriage between his grandmother (Susan Burling Ward) and grandfather (Oliver Ward) who lived in the American West in the late 1800s. Day after day, Lyman pores over family records, news clippings, and letters, and records his thoughts on cassette tapes. Lyman lives alone, is out of touch with his family, and severely disabled due to a bone disease. He gets around in a wheelchair, and uses only a few rooms of his house. Every evening a neighbor woman stops in to check on Lyman and give him his bath, and they have a nightcap together. The story of Susan and Oliver Ward begins around 1870, when Susan was a budding artist in New York. She moves in artsy social circles, and spends nearly every minute with a very dear friend, Augusta. When Augusta decides to marry Susan sees their relationship beginning to change, and she sets her sights on Oliver, a mining engineer. While they agree to marry, the union is put off for several years while Oliver establishes his career and readies a home for himself and Susan.
When frontier historians theorize about the uprooted, the lawless, the purseless, and the socially cut-off who settled the West, they are not talking about people like my grandmother. So much that was cherished and loved, women like her had to give up; and the more they gave it up, the more they carried it helplessly with them. It was a process like ionization: what was subtracted from one pole was added to the other. (p. 277)
In moving west, Susan sacrificed all she knew and held dear. Accustomed to moving in cultured, literate circles, she initially threw herself into mining camp life with gusto. But she brought her art supplies with her, and continued to draw. Augusta's husband Thomas, now a successful magazine editor, commissioned several pieces and relied on Susan for her interesting portraits of life in the far-off west. Susan also enjoyed evenings by the fire with two of Oliver's colleagues, Frank Sargent and Ian Price. In them she found others who loved literature and stimulating conversation; it fed her soul.
I know that Grandfather was trying to do, by personal initiative and with the financial resources of a small and struggling corporation, what only the immense power of the federal government ultimately proved able to do. That does not mean he was foolish or mistaken. He was premature. His clock was set on pioneer time. He met trains that had not yet arrived, he waited on platforms that hadn't yet been built, beside tracks that might never be laid .... Hope was always out ahead of fact, possibility obscured the outlines of reality. (p. 382)
Oliver was a successful engineer, rewarded for his hard work through promotions and special projects. He was a bit of a dreamer, envisioning possibilities and developing new materials and methods in his own time. He was usually a bit ahead of the curve, with ideas not quite ready for prime time. And while money was often tight, Oliver refused to allow Susan's earnings to be used to support the family. Oliver and Susan had a family, and moved several times for Oliver's work. Their son Ollie (Lyman's father) was often sent to stay with relatives in New York, because the mining camps were deemed unsuitable.
Through his research, Lyman carefully pieces together the story of Oliver and Susan's marriage, reconstructing the series of events which brought their relationship to the "angle of repose" (the angle at which soil settles after being dumped). Susan loved Oliver and had faith in his abilities, but was often disappointed with the actual results. She wanted so badly for her children to grow up refined and "Eastern," and became increasingly frustrated with their living conditions and the people she encountered day-to-day. Susan and Oliver's fortunes, and their hopes for the future, ebb and flow over the years. As Lyman tells Susan and Oliver's story, he tries to come to terms with his own failed marriage and the rapidly changing world around him.
I absolutely loved this book. The prose captured me instantly, and I became completely wrapped up both in Lyman's California of 1970, and the dusty Victorian mining camps. I identified strongly with Susan: her feelings of isolation, her persistence in keeping her artistic talents fresh, her devotion to her family, her longing for intellectual stimulation. And my heart went out to Lyman, with his own isolation and struggles with a failing body. These characters were so real to me; during the week it took me to read this book, I thought about them all the time. Towards the end, I wanted to prolong the relationship -- instead of rushing to finish, I read the last 50 pages very slowly, setting the book aside to make it last. This will undoubtedly make my "Top 10" list for the year. (